The excessive wet and bad weather has had great influence upon my constitution since I was wounded. I feel myself, I am sorry to say, quite a different man. This last march we have been exposed very much to the weather. We have had nearly a continuance of rain, and sleeping on the ground, the water making a gutter on both sides of one's body, was not pleasant to me. There was a time when I would not have cared a fig for it, but my leg, after lying thus, became very painful, and I felt as though I had to drag a ten-stone weight about with me. In the morning, possibly obliged to march for miles through grape gardens, fighting with the enemy, I limping along, and often finding difficulty to keep up with my men. Only a little while back I could run miles, always the first to go through or over anything; judge how my feelings must be hurt at so serious a difference. I continued with my regiment as long as possible, until my mind became so much hurt and my body so much debilitated that I could hardly drag myself along. In this state I went on piquet; rain all night. I was stationed at the bridge of Valle with a section of the company. I lay down occasionally by the fire. I was so ill I could not smoke a pipe, the greatest luxury a man can have in bad weather. The next morning I was relieved and went to bed, not a feather bed, but some straw in the corner of an old stable, with a knapsack for a pillow. I was recommended to start directly for Lisbon by my friend, the surgeon. I argued against it and said, as I had got a good comfortable bed, I should soon come round. Here, for the first time in my life, I was attacked with dysentery and in indescribable torture.