f
the Pyrenees, and within sight of "the haven of his wishes," he found
his lordship waiting for him, with four divisions of the army, who
treated him to one of the most signal and sanguinary defeats that he
ever experienced.

Our division, during the important movements on our right, was
employed in keeping up the communication between the troops under the
immediate command of Lord Wellington and those under Sir Thomas
Graham, at St. Sebastian. We retired, the first day, to the mountains
behind Le Secca; and, just as we were about to lie down for the night,
we were again ordered under arms, and continued our retreat in utter
darkness, through a mountain path, where, in many places, a false step
might have rolled a fellow as far as the other world. The consequence
was, that, although we were kept on our legs during the whole of the
night, we found, when daylight broke, that the tail of the column had
not got a quarter of a mile from their starting-post.

On a good broad road it is all very well; but, on a narrow bad road, a
night march is like a night-mare, harassing a man to no purpose.

On the 26th, we occupied a ridge of mountain near enough to hear the
battle, though not in a situation to see it; and remained the whole of
the day in the greatest torture, for want of news. About midnight we
heard the joyful tidings of the enemy's defeat, with the loss of four
thousand prisoners. Our division proceeded in pursuit, at daylight, on
the following morning.

We moved rapidly by the same road on which we had retired, and, after
a forced march, found ourselves, when near sunset, on the flank of
their retiring column, on the Bidassoa, near the bridge of Janca, and
immediately proceeded to business.

The sight of a Frenchman always acted like a cordial on the spirits of
a rifleman; and the fatigues of the day were forgotten, as our three
battalions extended among the brushwood, and went down to "knock the
dust out of their hairy knapsacks,"[2] as our men were in the habit of
expressing themselves; but, in place of knocking the dust out of them,
I believe that most of their knapsacks were knocked in the dust; for
the greater part of those who were not _floored_ along with their
knapsacks, shook them off, by way of enabling the owner to make a
smarter scramble across that portion of the road on which our leaden
shower was pouring; and, foes as they were, it was impossible not to
feel a degree of pity for their situation: p