on at dark, on a pinnacle of the same mountain, within three
or four hundred yards of them. There had been a heavy firing all day
to our left, and we heard, in the course of the night, of the fall of
St. Sebastian, as well as of the defeat of the force which we had seen
following the Spaniards in that direction.

As we always took the liberty of abusing our friends, the
commissaries, whether with or without reason, whenever we happened to
be on short allowance, it is but fair to say that when our supporting
Spanish brigadier came to compare notes with us here, we found that we
had three days' rations in the haversack against his none. He very
politely proposed to relieve us from half of ours, and to give a
receipt for it, but we told him that the trouble in carrying it was a
pleasure!

At daylight next morning we found that the enemy had altogether
disappeared from our front. The heavy rains during the past night had
rendered the Bidassoa no longer fordable, and the bridge of Bera being
the only retreat left open, it was fortunate for them that they took
advantage of it before we had time to occupy the post with a
sufficient force to defend the passage, otherwise they would have been
compelled, in all probability, to have laid down their arms.

As it was, they suffered very severely from two companies of our
second battalion, who were on piquet there. The two captains
commanding them were, however, killed in the affair.

We returned in the course of the day and resumed our post at Bera, the
enemy continuing to hold theirs beyond it.

The ensuing month passed by, without producing the slightest novelty,
and we began to get heartily tired of our situation. Our souls, in
fact, were strung for war, and peace afforded no enjoyment, unless the
place did, and there was none to be found in a valley of the Pyrenees,
which the ravages of contending armies had reduced to a desert. The
labours of the French on the opposite mountain had, in the first
instance, been confined to fortification; but, as the season advanced,
they seemed to think that the branch of a tree, or a sheet of
canvass, was too slender a barrier between them and a frosty night,
and their fortified camp was gradually becoming a fortified town, of
regular brick and mortar. Though we were living under the influence of
the same sky, we did not think it necessary to give ourselves the same
trouble, but reasoned on their proceedings like philosophers, and
calcula