ave been one of our saluting
friends of the morning. He kept, incessantly, repeating a few words of
English which he had picked up during the assault, and the only ones,
I fancy, that were spoken, viz. "dem eyes, b--t eyes!" and, in
demanding the meaning of them, he required that we should, also,
explain why we stormed a place without first besieging it; for, he
said, that another officer would have relieved him of his charge at
daylight, had _we_ not _relieved_ him of it sooner.

The enemy had calculated that this outwork would have kept us at bay
for a fortnight or three weeks; whereas, its capture, the first night,
enabled us to break ground at once, within breaching distance of the
walls of the town. They kept up a very heavy fire the whole night on
the working parties; but, as they aimed at random, we did not suffer
much; and made such good use of our time that, when daylight enabled
them to see what we were doing, we had dug ourselves under tolerable
cover.

In addition to ours, the first, third, and fourth divisions were
employed in the siege. Each took the duties for twenty-four hours
alternately, and returned to their cantonments during the interval.

We were relieved by the first division, under Sir Thomas Graham, on
the morning of the 9th, and marched to our quarters.

Jan. 12th.--At ten o'clock this morning we resumed the duties of the
siege. It still continued to be dry frosty weather; and, as we were
obliged to ford the Agueda, up to the middle, every man carried a pair
of iced breeches into the trenches with him.

My turn of duty did not arrive until eight in the evening, when I was
ordered to take thirty men with shovels to dig holes for ourselves, as
near as possible to the walls, for the delectable amusement of firing
at the embrasures for the remainder of the night. The enemy threw
frequent fire-balls among us, to see where we were; but, as we always
lay snug until their blaze was extinguished, they were not much the
wiser, except by finding, from having some one popt off from their
guns every instant, that they had got some neighbours whom they would
have been glad to get rid of.

We were relieved as usual at ten next morning, and returned to our
cantonments.

January 16th.--Entered on our third day's duty, and found the
breaching batteries in full operation, and our approaches close to the
walls on every side. When we arrived on the ground I was sent to take
command of the highland company,