Towards evening I reached the village which my regiment occupied. An altered scene presented itself. The soldiers busied in arranging their different articles of plunder; many of them clad in the robes of some priest, while others wore gowns of the most costly silk or velvet; others, again, nearly naked; some without pantaloons, having been plundered, while drunk, of so essential a part of their dress; but all, or almost all, were occupied in laying out for sale their different articles of plunder, in that order which was essential to their being disposed of to the crowds of Spaniards which had already assembled to be the purchasers; and if one could judge by their looks, they most unquestionably committed a breach in their creed by “coveting their neighbours' goods.” And had the scene which now presented itself to our sight been one caused by an event the most joyous, much less by the calamity that had befallen the unfortunate inhabitants of Rodrigo, to say nothing of the human blood that had been spilt ere that event had taken place, the scene could not have been more gay. Brawny-shouldered Castilians, carrying pig-skins of wine on their backs, which they sold to our soldiers for a trifling sum; bolero-dancers, rattling their castanets like the clappers of so many mills; our fellows drinking like fishes, while their less fortunate companions at Rodrigo—either hastily flung into an ill-formed grave, writhing under the knife of the surgeon, or in the agonies of death—were unthought of, or unfelt for. _Sic transit gloria mundi!_ The soldiers were allowed three days _congé_ for the disposal of their booty; but long before the time had expired, they had scarcely a rag to dispose of, or a _real_ of the produce in their pockets. A few days sufficed for the reorganisation of the soldiers after they had disposed of their hard-earned plunder, and we were once more ready and willing for any fresh enterprise, no matter how difficult or dangerous. Badajoz was talked of, but nothing certain was known, and the quiet which reigned throughout all our cantonments was such as not to warrant the least suspicion that any immediate attack against that fortress was contemplated by the Commander-in-Chief.