valley of the Sil to Ponferrada and Astorga, and he imagined that the province would soon be quit of them. Hence he contented himself with stirring up the peasantry, and left to them the task of harassing Soult’s columns, being resolved to make the proverbial ‘bridge of gold’ for a flying enemy. From this vain dream he was soon to be awakened. From the 21st to the 24th of February the Duke of Dalmatia was busily employed in bringing up the rear divisions of his army to Orense. None of them reached that place without fighting, for the bands which had been driven off by Heudelet and Lahoussaye returned to worry the troops of Delaborde, Merle, and Mermet, when they traversed the route from Salvatierra to Orense. Jardon’s brigade of the last-named division had a sharp fight near Rivadavia, and Merle had to clear his way at Crecente by cutting to pieces a body of insurgents which had fortified itself in that village. When the whole army was concentrated between Rivadavia and Orense, the Marshal sent out large detachments to sweep the valleys in the immediate neighbourhood of those places. They found armed peasantry in every direction, but in each case succeeded in thrusting them back into their hills, and returned to Orense driving before them large herds of cattle, and dragging behind them country wagons with a considerable amount of grain. The longest and most important of these expeditions was one made by Franceschi, who marched, with his own horsemen and one of Heudelet’s brigades, along the road which the whole army was destined to take in its invasion of Portugal. They routed one band of peasants at Allariz, and another at Ginzo, half way to Monterey [February 23]. Still there was no sign of La Romana’s army, which remained behind the mountains of the Sierra Cabrera in complete quiescence, though Franceschi’s advanced posts were only twenty miles away[213]. [213] Le Noble says (p. 96) that at Ginzo the peasants had with them General Mahy and La Romana’s vanguard division. But General Arteche gives documentary evidence (p. 347) to prove that on that day Mahy and his troops were at Baltar, twenty miles away behind the mountains. If there were regulars present they were only detachments or stragglers.