At this place we arrived about a couple of hours before daybreak on the morning of the 4th. Being a good deal fatigued, we halted to take some rest; but as soon as the genial light of morning diffused its renovating influence over wearied mortals, we pressed forward for Nogales, distant from eighteen to twenty miles. During this day’s march the misery and suffering attendant on wanton disorders and reckless debauchery among the men were awfully manifested; some were lying dead along the road, and many apparently fast approaching a similar fate. Cavalry horses too were continually being shot. One circumstance I shall mention which roused every feeling both of humanity and indignation. About seven or eight miles from Herrerias, seeing a group of soldiers lying in the snow, I immediately went forward to rouse them up and send them on to join their regiments. The group lay close to the roadside. On my coming up, a sad spectacle presented itself. Through exhaustion, depravity, or a mixture of both, three men, a woman and a child all lay dead, forming a kind of circle, their heads inwards. In the centre were still the remains of a pool of rum, made by the breaking of a cask of that spirit. The unfortunate people must have sucked more of the liquor than their constitutions could support. Intoxication was followed by sleep, from which they awoke no more; they were frozen to death. This was one of the closing scenes, brought on by the disgraceful drunkenness and debaucheries committed at Villa Franca during the previous two or three days. Being marked with peculiar circumstances, the scene is still fresh before me. Whilst I was contemplating the miseries and depravities of human nature, and paying no heed to the frequent discharge of pistols by our dragoons, I was aroused by hearing my name, and recognised an old acquaintance, Captain Bennet, of the 95th. He rode slowly and was much bent over his saddle-bow, suffering severely from a wound received the previous evening at Calcabellos. He bore up stoutly, notwithstanding his sufferings, which were manifold. His mind was afflicted with thoughts of his family; he dreaded falling into the hands of the advancing foe, and the bodily pain which he was suffering may be imagined, as he had ridden upwards of five-and-twenty miles with a musket-ball in his groin, during a freezing night through a country covered with snow. Poor Bennet! the only assistance which I could then afford was to give him a silk pocket-handkerchief, which I placed between his wounded side and the saddle; yet little as this assistance was, it added to his ease, which he more gratefully acknowledged than the trifling incident merited.