But I am digressing. After Carsons' pun we soon fell asleep, and were again on our legs at four in the morning; but our appearance was greatly changed for the worse: several soldiers had died during the night from exhaustion and cold, and those who had shoes on them were soon stripped of so essential a necessary; and many a young fellow was too happy to be allowed to stand in a “dead man’s shoes.” Others were so crippled as to be scarcely able to stand to their arms. Ague and dysentery had, more or less, affected us all; and the men’s feet were so swollen that they threw away their shoes in preference to wearing them. Scarcely any provisions were to be found, but an abundance of wine could have been easily procured from the different wine-caves in each village. The troops, once let loose in this kind of way, could not be restrained, and all discipline would have been at an end; therefore, no one ought to be surprised that Lord Wellington forbade the occupation of a town. He did his part in the grand scale, but those who acted under him were deficient in every way. Sometimes the troops were bivouacked in a muddy swamp, when dry ground, in comparison at least, was nigh. The consequence of all this bungling was fatal: the troops became ill and inefficient; they became discontented; and, to wind up all, the junior officers of the army were blamed for those things over which they had as much control as they had over the actions of the Dey of Algiers or the Great Mogul. The officers divided the misery of the retreat with their men, and it is well known that many of them had scarcely a covering to their backs. Scarcely a subaltern in the army had a dollar in his pocket, the troops being four months in arrear of pay; but, even supposing he had money in abundance, what use could he make of it? There was nothing to be had for love or money—we had no money, and few of us were inclined to make love; but even if we were, there was no one (the worst of it) to make love to. Such was the end of a campaign, the commencement of which augured the most fortunate results. The men who composed this fine army—which, at Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Salamanca, carried all before them—were now greatly changed for the worse. Scarcely a man had shoes; not that they were not amply supplied with them before the retreat commenced, but the state of the roads, if roads they could be called, was such, that so soon as a shoe fell off or stuck in the mud, in place of picking it up again, the man who had thus lost one kicked its fellow-companion after it. Yet the infantry was efficient, and able to do any duty. No excesses were committed, for Lord Wellington having taken the precaution of keeping the army away from the different villages, no man had an opportunity of obtaining wine or spirits, and thus drunkenness and insubordination were not added to the list of our misfortunes.