stole my donkey last night.

April 11th.--Marched again for the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo,
with the long-accustomed sounds of cannon and musketry ringing in my
fanciful ears as merrily as if the instruments themselves were still
playing.

Sir Sidney Beckwith, one of the fathers of the rifles, was, at this
time, obliged to proceed to England for the recovery of health, and
did not again return to the Peninsula. In his departure, that army
lost one of the ablest of its outpost generals. Few officers knew so
well how to make the most of a small force. His courage, coupled with
his thorough knowledge of the soldier's character, was of that cool
intrepid kind, that would, at any time, convert a routed rabble into
an orderly effective force. A better officer, probably, never led a
brigade into the field!

CHAP X.

A Farewell Address to Portalegre. History of a Night in Castello
Branco. Regimental Colours lost, with Directions where to find
them. Cases in which a Victory is sometimes won by those who lost
it. Advance to Salamanca. The City. The British Position on St.
Christoval. Affair in Position. Marmont's Change of Position and
Retreat. A Case of Bad Luck. Advance to Rueda, and Customs there.
Retire to Castrejon. Affairs on the 18th and 19th of July. Battle
of Salamanca, and Defeat of the Enemy.

April 13th, 1812.--Quartered at Portalegre.

DEAR PORTALEGRE!

I cannot quit thee, for the fourth and last time, without a parting
tribute to the remembrance of thy wild romantic scenery, and to the
kindness and hospitality of thy worthy citizens! May thy gates
continue shut to thine enemies as heretofore, and, as heretofore, may
they ever prove those of happiness to thy friends! Dear nuns of Santa
Clara! I thank thee for the enjoyment of many an hour of nothingness;
and thine, Santa Barbara, for many of a more intellectual cast! May
the voice of thy chapel-organ continue unrivalled but by the voices of
thy lovely choristers! and may the piano in thy refectory be replaced
by a better, in which the harmony of strings may supersede the
clattering of ivories! May the sweets which thou hast lavished on us
be showered upon thee ten thousand fold! And may those accursed iron
bars divide thee as effectually from death as they did from us!!!

April 15th.--Quartered at Castello Branco.

This town had been so often visited by the French and us, alternately,
that the inhabitan