My friends, Darcy and Adair, were my companions on my route to the army; and, punctual at the appointed hour, we left Elvas at six o’clock on the morning of the 3rd of June, without any encumbrance, such as a detachment to look after. We had no escort except our three servants, and Dan’s wife Nelly; and it is needless to say that they were perfectly competent to take care of themselves, without causing us one moment’s uneasiness, either on their account or our own; and never did any three officers in the service of His Britannic Majesty, or in the service of any other sovereign, set out on a route to join their companions with a more fervent intention of making the time pass as agreeably as possible. Our route towards Salamanca, near which city the army was stationed, lay through the old line of march, and we were obliged, unfortunately, once more to encounter that place of dirt and wretchedness, Niza. No matter what change had taken place either amongst ourselves or the different towns through which we passed, Niza was still the same; positively dirt—comparatively dirt—superlatively dirt!—dirt! dirt! dirt! The ditches were filled with reptiles, the houses with bugs and fleas, and Adair, who was already blind of one eye, had the other nearly darkened by the bite of a huge centipede. We poulticed his eye with rye bread and cold water, and in the morning carried him, with a _wry_ face, to his saddle. Once clear of Niza, we traversed the country towards the Spanish frontier; at length we got clear of Portugal, and once more reached the village of Fuentes d'Oñoro; every house, I might almost say every face, was familiar to me. The heaps of embanked earth, which denoted the places where many of our old companions had been interred, were covered with grass, which grew luxuriantly over the graves of the men who had once stood there victorious, but who were now lifeless clay. We traversed the churchyard where so many of the Imperial Guard and our Highlanders had fallen; and we marked well the street where three hundred of the former had been put to death by the 88th Regiment. Many of the doors still retained the marks of the contest; and the chimneys, up which the Guard had sought shelter, bore the traces of what had taken place. The torn apertures in the large twigged chimneys, broken down by the Guard in attempting to get up them, were in the same state we had left them—untouched, unmended. Even the children could trace with accuracy the footsteps of those fallen heroes.