an, lank fellow start from a profound
sleep, at midnight, and begin lashing away at the highland fling, as
if St. Andrew himself had been playing the bagpipes; but it was a
measure that I very often had recourse to, as the cleverest method of
producing heat. In short, though the prudent general may preach the
propriety of light baggage in the enemy's presence, I will ever
maintain that there is marvellous small personal comfort in travelling
so fast and so lightly as I did.

The Portuguese farmers will tell you that the beauty of their climate
consists in their crops receiving from the nightly dews the refreshing
influence of a summer's shower, and that they ripen in the daily sun.
But _they_ are a sordid set of rascals! Whereas _I_ speak with the
enlightened views of a man of war, and say, that it is poor
consolation to me, after having been deprived of my needful repose,
and kept all night in a fever, dancing wet and cold, to be told that I
shall be warm enough in the morning? it is like frying a person after
he has been boiled; and I insisted upon it, that if their sun had been
milder and their dews lighter that I should have found it much more
pleasant.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

From the moment that I joined the army, so intense was my desire to
get a look at this illustrious chief, that I never should have
forgiven the Frenchman that had killed me before I effected it. My
curiosity did not remain long ungratified; for, as our post was next
the enemy, I found, when anything was to be done, that it was his
also. He was just such a man as I had figured in my mind's eye, and I
thought that the stranger would betray a grievous want of penetration
who could not select the Duke of Wellington from amid five hundred in
the same uniform.

CHAP. III.

Other People, Myself, and my Regiment. Retreat to the Lines of
Torres Vedras. Leave Coimbra, followed by a select group of
Natives. Ford the Streets of Condacia in good spirit. A
Provost-Marshal and his favourites. A fall. Convent of Batalha.
Turned out of Allenquer. Passed through Sobral. Turned into
Arruda. Quartering of the Light Division, and their Quarters at
Arruda. Burial of an only Child. Lines of Torres Vedras.
Difference of opinion between Massena and Myself. Military
Customs.

Having now brought myself regularly into the field, under the renowned
Wellington, should this narrative, by any accident, fal