On seeing the French in position the British cavalry pushed on with all speed, Alten through Salamanca city, Fane by the fords above, leaving the infantry far behind them, but hoping to detain the enemy long enough to assure his destruction. Realizing over-late his danger, Villatte moved off eastward when he recognized that heavy forces were concentrating upon him, and threatening his retreat. He marched not for Toro, but due east by roads parallel with the Tormes. ‘It is rather extraordinary,’ wrote Wellington that evening, ‘that he should have marched by Cabrerizos and the ravine, which we used to think so bad for even a horse, and thence by Aldea Lengua[466].’ At any rate the two cavalry brigades caught him up not far from Aldea Lengua, and, after scattering his rearguard of dragoons, rode in upon his infantry, which were marching hard in close column. The tactical conditions were exactly the same as those which had been seen during the retreat of Picton and the 3rd Division from El Bodon to Fuente Grimaldo in September 1811. The brigadiers, after trying some partial and ineffective charges[467], judged it useless to attack steady and unbroken infantry in solid order, and contented themselves with following the column at a cautious distance and picking up stragglers--just as Montbrun had done in 1811 on the way to Fuente Grimaldo. Fane’s horse-artillery battery got up, and put in some damaging shots on the rear battalions, but they closed up and hurried on. The day was hot, many of the French fell out of the ranks exhausted and were gleaned up on the way. Their divisional ammunition train got jammed in a hollow road and was captured--the leading caisson had been overturned and blocked the exit of the rest. But the main body of the infantry held on its way in a solid mass, and after five miles, Wellington, who had just ridden up, ordered Fane and Alten to desist from the pursuit. Villatte, therefore, got off, leaving behind him a couple of hundred prisoners, and some scores of men who had fallen dead from sunstroke and over-exertion, or had been knocked over by the round-shot of Gardiner’s H.A. battery[468]. This was one more example of the incapacity of cavalry unsupported to deal with unbroken infantry, of which we have had to give so many previous instances. The only exception to the rule was the extraordinary achievement of Bock’s heavy German dragoons at Garcia Hernandez on the day after the battle of Salamanca. Clearly Villatte waited too long, and should never have allowed himself to be caught so near Salamanca. He got off better than he deserved[469], and picked up his detachment from Alba, which came in upon him from the right a few miles farther on, beyond Babila Fuente, cautiously pursued by Long’s Light Dragoons. The column went out of sight, retreating on Cantalpino, not on Toro--one more proof to Wellington that the enemy was not going to attempt to strengthen the