The gloom consequent on this, however, was not permitted long to settle. Our leisure moments in San Sebastian were ever pregnant with incident, and one scarcely occurred ere some new event monopolised the attention. I had proceeded but a short distance from my deceased friend’s quarters, when my glance was directed to a crowd of the Rifles clustered in confusion round a door-way. Another victim! A poor fellow named Graham, through mistake, had entered an apartment where a woman lay in bed. On perceiving him she screamed out, and before the man could retire, her husband, alarmed by her cry, met him on the stairs, and without any parley, the Spaniard plunged a knife into his body. The unfortunate Rifleman lay weltering in his blood, and died a short time after. The assassin was never sought after, nor any means, either civil or military, taken to bring him to an account. He walked at large in the sunlight, and plainly exhibited to us how little was to be expected from the sympathies or vigilance of our officers. There is little interesting at this period of my career, excepting the casual scenes that came under my observation during my strolls. Full opportunity was now presented me to remark on the changes that had worked themselves on the manners, customs, and prejudices of the inhabitants, and the ridiculous and extreme folly of the _fire-eaters_ of the Legion. I was now more a spectator than an actor, and claim, of course, the proverbial superiority. Sometimes at morn, or early towards the evening, I amused myself in strolling about the walks of the neighbourhood. San Sebastian is rather pleasantly situated. To the left, as you approach this fort-crowned peninsula, the Urumea winds its course over some of the prettiest valley scenes I ever beheld. Its banks now exposed to the view the different positions and batteries of the conflicting parties. A little to the extreme in the same direction, and separated by a rising ground, some four miles across, is Passages, a town somewhat resembling Dartmouth, with this difference, that its port is formed by an inlet of the sea, and not by a river. To the right of the Urumea, and divided from it by a natural and narrow neck of land, the Bay of San Sebastian forms its oval basin, of navigable depth, with a point of land studded with a light-house, forming one boundary to the entrance, which is protected and completed by the steep, and castle on the other. A small island lies between them both, and on this Lord John Hay had raised a battery of cannon. My quarters were contiguous to the breech made by Wellington in 1813—now distinguished only by the new appearance of the rebuilt wall. It was curious to notice, as I limped about, the little squads of duellists scattered here and there, and particularly towards the evening. “Twelve paces” were all the “go,” and they sometimes proved a dangerous distance; for many of the combatants were seriously wounded.