Scenes of the greatest outrage now took place, and it was pitiable to see groups of the inhabitants half naked in the streets—the females clinging to the officers for protection—while their respective houses were undergoing the strictest scrutiny. Some of the soldiers turned to the wine and spirit houses, where, having drunk sufficiently, they again sallied out in quest of more plunder; others got so intoxicated that they lay in a helpless state in different parts of the town, and lost what they had previously gained, either by the hands of any passing Spaniard, who could venture unobserved to stoop down, or by those of their own companions, who in their wandering surveys happened to recognise a comrade lying with half a dozen silk gowns, or some such thing, wrapped about him. Others wished to attack the different stores, and as there is something marvellously attractive in the very name of a brandy one, it is not to be wondered at that many of our heroes turned not only their thoughts, but their steps also, in the direction in which these houses lay; and from the unsparing hand with which they supplied themselves, it might be imagined they intended to change their habits of life and turn spirit-venders, and that too in the wholesale line! It was astonishing to see with what rapidity and accuracy these fellows traversed the different parts of the town, and found out the shops and storehouses. A stranger would have supposed they were natives of the place, and it was not until the following morning that I discovered the cause of what was to me before incomprehensible.