As the reader may not be aware of the weight each rifleman had to carry during this long and harassing march, this too by men considered the lightest troops in our service, they are as follows: Knapsack and straps, two shirts, two pair of stockings, one pair of shoes, ditto soles and heels, three brushes, box of blacking, razor, soap-box and strap, and also at the time an extra pair of trowsers, a mess-tin, centre-tin and lid, haversack and canteen, great coat and blanket, a powder-flask filled, a ball bag containing thirty loose balls, a small wooden mallet used to hammer the ball into the muzzle of our rifles; belt and pouch, the latter containing fifty rounds of ammunition, sword-belt and rifle, besides other odds and ends, that at all times are required for a service-soldier. Each squad had also to carry four bill-hooks, that weighed six pounds each, so that every other day each man had to carry it; thus equipped, with from seventy to eighty pounds weight, this too in the melting month of July. Not content with the above, the General gave strict orders for each man to have his canteen filled with water before commencing the day’s march every morning. Through being thus overloaded, four hundred of the battalion died a few months after our arrival, without a single shot being fired. But the survivors soon found out the cause of this mortality, as I don’t think there was a man in the regiment five years after, before we left the country, could show a single shirt or a pair of shoes in his knapsack. Footnote 3: The Honourable Captain Pakenham was a brother-in-law to the Duke of Wellington. This gentleman, who belonged to my regiment, was much beloved by us all. He was always so considerate! On every occasion when the fresh arrival of necessaries, meat, wine, &c., brought the men in crowds about the stores, he invariably would abide his turn, and, as though he were one of ourselves, oblige every new comer, whatever his rank, to submit to the same. This, though mere justice, for its rare occurrence with the other officers, was never forgotten by the men. Since his return from the Peninsula I have been told he was ordered to New Orleans, where he was killed. Footnote 4: I must here remark, that these shells were thrown at us by mistake, as the town was in the possession of our friends the Portuguese, under the command of Colonel Cox, a British officer, who from our position being near the enemy, as well as our green dress, must have mistaken us for the latter. Almeida was afterwards taken by the French. Footnote 5: Strange as it may appear, this ball may be this hour felt with as much ease as the first day it entered, forty-two years back. Footnote 6: Among the officers wounded was the present Sir H. Smith, his brother Tom also. The former being on the staff had a _cedan_ with two mules to carry him; the latter was packed with the men in bullock-carts.