uding a regiment of cavalry, had
established its bivouac. In such weather as it then was, it became a
luxury to pass a night in the open air, with turf for a mattrass, a
cloak for a pillow, and the branches for bed-curtains, instead of being
cramped and crowded into smoky, vermin-haunted cottages; and the troops
assembled seemed to feel this, and to enjoy the light and balmy breeze
and refreshing coolness which had succeeded to the extreme heat of the
day. Few troops, if any, are so picturesque in a bivouac as Spaniards;
none, certainly, are greater adepts in rendering an out-door encampment
not only endurable but agreeable, and nothing had been neglected by the
Christinos that could contribute to the comfort of their _al-fresco_
lodging. Large fires had been lighted, composed in great part of
odoriferous shrubs and bushes abounding in the neighbourhood, which
scented the air as they burned; and around these the soldiers were
assembled cooking and eating their rations, smoking, jesting, discussing
some previous fight, or anticipating the result of the one expected for
the morrow, and which according to their sanguine calculations, could
only be favourable to them. Here was a seemingly interminable row of
muskets piled in sheaves, a perfect _chevaux-de-frise_, some hundred
yards of burnished barrels and bayonets glancing in the fire-light.
Further on, the horses of the cavalry were picketed, whilst their
riders, who had finished grooming and feeding them, looked to their arms
and saddlery, and saw that all was ready and as it should be if called
on for sudden service. On one side, at a short distance from the
bivouac, a party of men cut, with their sabres and foraging hatchet,
brushwood to renew the fires; in another direction, a train of carts
laden with straw, driven by unwilling peasants and escorted by a surly
commissary and a few dusty dragoons, made their appearance, the patient
oxen pushing and straining forwards in obedience to the goad that
tormented their flanks, the clumsy wheels, solid circles of wood,
creaking round their ungreased axles. In the distance were the enemy's
watch-fires; nearer were those of the advanced posts; and, at more than
one point of the surrounding country, a cottage or farmhouse, set on
fire by careless or mischievous marauders, fiercely flamed without any
attempt being made to extinguish the conflagration.

If the sights that met the eye were varied and numerous, the sounds
which fell