It was now about dusk, and the Spaniard having assisted me to mount, we started forward as fast as the badness of the road would permit, for we had several miles still to traverse. The expression of the inexpressible part of my dress at every stride of the horse resembled the sound made by steaks being fried in an adjoining room while the door is continually shutting and opening. This simile will now no doubt be considered excessively vulgar; but at the period alluded to most officers were familiar with a frying-pan, and even a guardsman in those days could rough it on a beefsteak and a bottle of old port. We arrived at Tarifa long after the officers had dined. Colonel Browne well recollects the circumstance, as it was on this occasion that I brought him a letter written by Lord Bathurst appointing him Lieutenant-Governor of Tarifa, with a pecuniary advantage attached which was not the least acceptable part of the communication. In this expedition I lost the use of a gold repeater, which was so gorged by the mountain torrent that I never afterwards could keep it in order. [Sidenote: A REVOLT OF WOMEN.] Soon after this I was again sent to Gibraltar with despatches, relative to which some notable occurrences took place. I should have previously mentioned that shortly after our occupation of Tarifa a corps or civic guard, composed of young men, inhabitants of the town, was formed. The command of this body, called the Tarifa Volunteers, amounting to from forty to fifty individuals, was confided to Captain Meacham, 28th Regiment, not only because he was a gallant and experienced officer, but also on account of his knowledge of the Spanish language, acquired at an earlier period when the regiment was stationed in Minorca. This corps in its infancy imperfectly drilled, without any established uniform and not very imposing in appearance owing to their diversity of dress, could not be relied on as an efficient force. For these reasons perhaps it was that they got the name of “Meacham’s Blind Nuts,” so baptised, if I mistake not, by Captain Allen of the 10th Regiment. However, to ascertain what might be expected from them in case of an emergency which was daily expected, Major Browne determined to put their alertness at least to trial, confiding his plan to the Spanish lieutenant-governor. After a jovial dinner-party he, about an hour before daybreak, ordered the drums and bugles to sound to arms and troops to line the walls immediately, stating that the French were rapidly advancing against the town. The first to be seen, sabre in hand, was the Spanish governor, previously warned; then came forth the British garrison with firm and equal step; and last and not too willingly appeared the rather tardy volunteers. They were to be seen in small groups scattered through the town, no kind of formation having taken place preparatory to their going to the walls; and so they slowly moved along the streets. To hurry them up a gun was fired,