telligence; but, somehow, they
appeared to be the creatures of a former age, and showed an indolence
and want of enterprise which marked them born for slaves; and,
although the two cacadore regiments attached to our division were, at
all times, in the highest order, and conducted themselves gallantly in
the field, yet, I am of opinion that, as a nation, they owe their
character for bravery almost entirely to the activity and gallantry of
the British officers who organized and led them. The veriest cowards
in existence must have shown the same front under such discipline. I
did not see enough of their gentry to enable me to form an opinion
about them; but the middling and lower orders are extremely filthy
both in their persons and in their houses, and they have all an
intolerable itch for gambling. The soldiers, though fainting with
fatigue on the line of march, invariably group themselves in
card-parties whenever they are allowed a few minutes' halt; and a
non-commissioned officer, with half-a-dozen men on any duty of
fatigue, are very generally to be seen as follows, viz. one man as a
sentry, to watch the approach of the superintending officer, one man
at work, and the non-commissioned officer, with the other four, at
cards.

The cottages in Alameida, and, indeed, in all the Spanish villages,
generally contain two mud-floored apartments: the outer one, though
more cleanly than the Irish, is, nevertheless, fashioned after the
same manner, and is common alike to the pigs and the people; while the
inner looks more like the gun-room of a ship-of-war, having a
sitting-apartment in the centre, with small sleeping-cabins branching
from it, each illuminated by a port-hole, about a foot square. We did
not see daylight "through a glass darkly," as on London's
Ludgate-hill, for there the air circulated freely, and mild it came,
and pure, and fragrant, as if it had just stolen over a bed of roses.
If a man did not like _that_, he had only to shut his port, and remain
in darkness, inhaling his own preferred sweetness! The outside of my
sleeping-cabin was interwoven with ivy and honeysuckle, and, among the
branches, a nightingale had established itself, and sung sweetly,
night after night, during the whole of the winter. I could not part
from such a pleasing companion, and from a bed in which I had enjoyed
so many tranquil slumbers, without a sigh, though I was ungrateful
enough to accompany it with a fervent wish that I might neve