As I accompanied General Compere in search of a surgeon to dress his wound, we passed a deep trench, or natural chasm of rock, in which about seven hundred French dead were being hastily interred; to prevent their bodies producing malaria, or being stripped and mutilated by the peasantry. A wing of les chasseurs Brittaniques, working with their jackets off, were performing the duty of sextons. Compere paused to observe them. "Poor fellows!" said he, looking down on the heaped dead within that hideous catacomb. "This morning, how merrily they marched from Maida! How many a young and brave heart, that was then swelling with courage and ardour, is lying here—crushed, cold, and still!" His fine, bronzed face, clouded for a moment with the deepest dejection and mortification, while surveying the ghastly trench where his soldiers lay piled one on another, with arms, knapsacks, and harness, just as they were found; but his proud eye brightened as he turned towards the darkening hills, where the far-off clouds of dust, curling like smoke in the distance, marked the line of Regnier’s quick retreat. "Hah!" added he, gaily, "France yet swarms with brave soldiers; and Massena will soon show your haughty general that Naples is not to be won and lost on Maida only. He is ’the child of victory;’ and fortune will soon smile again on the soldiers of the emperor. As for this day’s field, about which they will doubtless make a great noise in England—poh! ’tis a mere battle of eggshells to what I have seen: even in Italy—this land of cowards! Had you been on the fields of Arcole and Lodi—had you seen our victorious legions sweep the Romans from the mountains of Imola—’twould have done your heart good. Faith! one who has captured Naples, fought in Apulia, invested Gaeta, and seen the corpses piled chin-deep in the redoubt of San Andero, must know what campaigning is! But allons! Monsieur; if it please you, let me get my poor broken head dressed." I hailed one of the medical staff (Dr. Macneisa of ours) who was passing near us, and in a few minutes Compere’s wound was bathed and bandaged up, with a care and tenderness of which he seemed deeply sensible. Macneisa had scarcely retired, when we were informed that the numerous prisoners had become refractory, and Sir John was about to give them a dose from the field-pieces; but Compere hastened to the spot, and by his presence reduced them to subjection. They were then formed in sections, and strongly escorted, preparatory to their march to the coast, where the boats of Sir Sydney’s fleet were in waiting to embark them.