Sierra, and the isolated height occupied during the action by the brigades of Generals Fane and Anstruther the scene of this gallant charge of the 43rd Regiment-we entered the village of Vimiero, when our Cicerone, Mr. Emmanuel, after pointing out the church which served as an hospital for the wounded, on the day of the battle, and also the house where he said that Sir Arthur Wellesley passed the night of the 21st, finding himself wet and cold, proposed to adjourn to a wineshop, where we found a number of peasants in every stage of intoxication. With many superior qualifications over their Spanish neighbours, I have often remarked that the Portuguese of the lower orders are much more addicted than the former to the vice of drunkenness, of which a Spaniard of any class, is very seldom convicted; but as Mr. Emmanuel remarked," They have frequently so little to do, the wine is so cheap *, and often so strong, that they are obliged sometimes to get groggy for want of better employment.'

But, whether drunk or sober, I never found the "Lusian" peasant deficient in civility; here they immediately crowded round us, were loud in praise of "Os Inglezes," for which we thought ourselves bound to regale them each with a tumbler-full of wine; in return they gave us a loud parting cheer, and we left them, for the purpose of seeing the other parts of the field, and of endeavouring to collect some memento of our visit thither. However, our personal researches after a relic of any sort were equally unsuccessful with all our applications to obtain even a button belonging to the gallant fellows who fell on that memorable occasion. Near the mill on that elevation, to the eastward of the village, which was, during the action, occupied by the brigades of Anstruther and Fane, an old peasant was tilling the ground, but he had evidently not been sowing the dragon's teeth; for, so far from the teeming earth producing ranks of ready-armed and embattled warriors, he could not satisfy our cravings with even the rusty point of a bayonet, or the broken hilt of a sword, and to our reiterated demands on the subject, his only reply was, with the expressive Portuguese shrug of the shoulders, "It is now so many years since the battle took place that all these things have long since been destroyed, or deeply buried into the ground;"-and nearly the same answer awaited me during similar unsuc cessful researches on other remote battle-fields of the great Duke, which, were they as much frequented by our credulous countrymen as that of Waterloo, would, like the latter, be soon made to yield a golden crop of rusty relics +!

"There," said our guide, pointing to the plain below us, which was now inundated with the overflowing waters of the Maceira river, "there was the ground where Colonel Taylor's small body of horse was destroyed by the superior force of the enemy's cavalry; and which disaster caused Sir Arthur to forbid an immediate pursuit, on their being repulsed in the attack on our centre. Shortly afterwards Sir Harry Burrard came to this part of the field, and, with some high words, it

* Half a vintem, or about 1d., is here the usual price per bottle of very tolerable wine.

† There is no doubt but that most of those relics collected by "Lion Hunters,” in the common haunts of fashionable travel, are spurious,-and many a Birmingham fabrication has, ere this, been not a little surprised to find itself picked up with a due incrustation of " verde antique," on the classic plains of Asia Minor, or Greece.

was decided that what was now considered a complete victory should not be followed up,-and the French were allowed to slip through our fingers. About this time General Brennier was brought in a prisoner, and I was sent to accompany him on board the Alfred, then lying at anchor off Porto Novo, in the Bay of Maceira, which, if you wish to visit to-day, and then return to Lourinha, no time is to be lost."

We accordingly retraced our steps through Vimiero, and passing as over a moving bog, through its wretched streets, deeply embedded in layers of dried heath and furze*, soon reached the banks of the Maceira, which, metamorphosed from its pigmy state during the dry weather, now rushed with the might of a mountain torrent through the narrow pass dividing the ridge of hills to the north of Vimiero, from the abrupt and elevated mountain constituting the original position of the right of our Army, but from whence,-as has been seen,—were moved early in the day the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 8th Brigades, leaving here, to protect our right flank only those three regiments under General Hill, which took no active part in the subsequent action †.

Had the Maceira river been then as large, deep, and rapid a mass of water as we now found it, it might have opposed a serious obstacle to the passage of Generals Ferguson, Nightingale, and Bowes, by whose flank movement to the left, Solignac's attack was foiled, and Brennier entirely "culbuté." To such slight causes are often attributable success or failure in the great game of war, "which frequently at best is but a

choice of difficulties!"

After penetrating the narrow defile through which flows the Maceira, the ground we now traversed,-extending from thence to the sea,differs entirely from what it is represented on the maps extant of this part of the country,-being so extremely mountainous and rugged, and presenting so many obstacles to our progress that just as we had obtained a glimpse of the foaming breakers at Porto Novo, and became fully impressed with all the difficulties attending the landing of troops on such an iron-bound coast, the waning day and stormy appearance of the atmosphere, warned us that it was time to retrace our steps, and after many a splash through mud and mire, and "hair-breadth 'scape by flood and field," we at last succeeded, late at night, in reaching Lourinha, where a savoury repast of eggs, bacon, and rice, fried in rancid oil and garlic, served to strengthen us against our anticipated nightly attack from whole legions of "pulgas "--fleas,--and other tribes of the hopping and creeping genus.

*

The battle of Vimiero cost the enemy one General Officer and thirteen guns, with a total loss of between two and three thousand men; and had Sir Arthur Wellesley been allowed to follow up his advantage, instead of having his uplifted and victorious arm arrested in the very act of dealing a death-blow to his antagonist, it is more than probable that Junot would have been completely crippled, and that the muchcondemned Convention of Cintra would never have taken place.

* This is a common mode of repairing the roads in Portugal; when any part of them, through depth of mud, becomes totally impassable, a few cart-loads of dried heath or fern are deposited on the obnoxious spot, over which is thus formed a sort of half-floating bridge.

History of the Peninsular War, vol. i., p. 211.

The French force on this occasion is supposed to have amounted to about fourteen thousand men, of which thirteen hundred were cavalry; a superiority in the latter arm which was severely felt by our 20th Light Dragoons, the only British horsemen in the field, and who, when charged by Maragnon, lost their leader, Colonel Taylor, and had onehalf of their number destroyed.

The following state and order of battle of our Army at Vimiero, on the 21st of August, 1808, is taken from Napier's History of the Peninsular War :

EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A NAVAL SURGEON.

A NAVAL life, according to an observation very aptly made by a living author, well versed, not only in its general routine, but in all the details of its minutiæ, is a life of privation; whether we look to that part of it which the meanest cabin-boy plays, or to the proud station occupied by an Admiral, Commander-in-Chief. Notwithstanding the privations necessarily attendant on it, and they are no trifling ones, crede experto, there is a certain indescribable charm in this changing life, which keeps its followers spell-bound, as it were, to its wheel; and as if we were instinctively drawn towards a predilection for that profession, which our insular position must ever oblige us to regard as the main bulwark of defence in the hour of emergency, in the case of nine school-boys out of ten, if the question be put as to what mode of life they would most willingly adopt, the choice will invariably be found to be fixed on that of which "the jacket and the trousers blue," are the distinguishing characteristics. With our Gallic neighbours on the other side the Channel, the case is different-there the taste would be as unequivocally shown in the answer, "A soldier's life's the life for me."

To attempt to analyze and trace the causes of this difference in taste would be, as far as we are now concerned about it, a work of supererogation; and we have, moreover, no mean authority for supposing, that such a research would not prove a very satisfactory one, whatever pains might be spent on it, if the old adage, de gustibus nil disputandum, be as pregnant with truth, as such ancient pithy sayings usually are.

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But whatever the privations of a sea life may be, and however little it holds out of all that is embraced by that truly English word-comfort —a word which can be expressed by no single term in the vocabulary of any other language, there is in it an excitement which the gentlemen of England who live at home at ease, even on a hunting morning," can never know. The bright sunny skies of other regions give to the spirits a buoyancy which in our clime is never felt, or if it is, the feeling is but momentary. The freshness of ocean's breeze imparts an animating vigour to the whole frame-the consciousness of skill, the self-command, the hardy exertions, and the presence of mind evinced in guarding against the fury of the howling tempest, give a zest even in this hour of peril and jeopardy. Then there is the rapidity with which he who "tempts the faithless sea," is wafted along to view the manners and customs of strange nations, which flit before his eyes, and succeed each other, like the changing figures of the magic-lantern,-his visits to cities renowned in story, where his stay is long enough to allow him to regale himself with the pleasures and enjoyments which float on the surface-Sirenum voces, et Circes pocula, without being sufficiently permanent to disclose to him the dregs of misery which lurk in the depths below.

In his case it is often true to the letter, that the passage from the throne to the dungeon is but a step. On the shores of the Baltic, in accordance with the early hours of fashionable German watering-places, he is in the forenoon elbowing sovereigns, leading along the mazy dance some golden-haired princess, or paying his devoirs to a rich and

beauteous Berlin heiress. Before the sun has completed his daily course, with all his full-dress gear and toggery doffed, "the staid Lieutenant” is growling at "the school-boy Midshipman" of the afternoon watchluckless wight! while the weather-beaten Quartermaster, availing himself of so fine an opportunity, changes his quid instead of luffing to the double-reef topsail breeze, and bringing the ship's head a good half point higher. By "the midnight hour" it is blowing great guns, and she is staggering under it-a host of passengers are washed from their cots, the attachés of an embassy in dripping night-clothes stand staring all forlorn, and the attendant pursuivants, blue mantles, and other gentry delighting in similar strange heraldic cognomens, are at their wits' ends, cursing the fate which drove them from their quiet and antiquated domicile in Doctors' Commons; and confessing to themselves, though they would not have the private opinion which their present squeamishness has forced upon them, known publicly for the world, that honours are "an empty bubble."

It was during the triennial station of a frigate, to which I belonged, in the Mediterranean, that we received orders while lying at Malta, where the ship had undergone some necessary repairs, to proceed forthwith to Tripoli, in order to enforce the payment of a debt which the Bey of the place had contracted with several British subjects—a debt of long standing, and for which no satisfactory acknowledgment could be obtained, though the subject had been repeatedly brought before his Highness in a very pressing, yet at the same time, in a very respectful

manner.

As there are other places of the same name, it may be as well to observe that the Tripoli to which we are now alluding, lies about 190 miles to the southward of Malta, and is a favourite place for emigration with these islanders, whose language differs but little from that spoken by the Tripolitans. Its situation also, on the very edge of the Great Desert, caused it to be selected as their starting-post, by some of the African travellers in their unfortunate journeys in quest of that El Dorado, the city of Timbucto.

We had, previously to this occasion, paid a flying visit to Tripoli, and had then made such good use of our time as to ascertain what had not been before known, that through the ledge of rocks which skirt the shore at the distance of a mile, there existed a passage sufficiently wide and deep to admit the frigate; and when once inside, from the smoothness of the water and the goodness of the holding-ground, she might ride out any gale in perfect security.

The Captain of the Port, who was standing on the mole, anxiously watching our manœuvres, when he discovered the object we had in view, with all the grave authority of an official, announced to the bystanders, that our fate was inevitable if we attempted the passage. Scarcely were these words uttered, when we shot through it, passed the Rubicon, let go the anchor, and soon made every thing snug. In amazement at the success of our fancied temerity, he raised his eyes to heaven, and dashed his telescope down on the strand, declaring with all the emphasis of a madman, that his occupation was gone for ever! The effect which the crash of the shivered pieces of the spy-glass gave to the Captain's words, was not surpassed by the pathos which the letting fall his stick perpendicularly on the floor, is acknowledged by the most learned of