Once clear of the Spanish frontier we arrived, by easy marches, at the different towns and villages appointed for our occupation, while the French army retraced their steps, and, it is to be presumed, followed the course we had taken, though not exactly the same route. The village of Leomil was the one allotted to the 88th, and was also the headquarters of Sir John Keane (the General of brigade) and his staff. This town, distant about five leagues from the city of Lamego, and two from Moimento de Beira, was by no means a bad resting-place for men who had for so many days, and in such inclement weather, inhabited no town, or slept, if sleep it could be called, under any covering except their tattered uniforms; but the transition was too sudden, and it is not difficult for the reader to see what the consequence was. An abundant supply of money, a great plenty of wine, meat, and poultry were things not to be lightly treated by a parcel of men in a state of nakedness and starvation. In a word, all were bought up greedily, and as greedily devoured. But the frames of the soldiers had undergone a great change; their stomachs were much weakened by the bad diet they had heretofore tasted, and the disordered state of their bowels was such, that in five cases out of six the soldiers were attacked with some complaint or other. The officers suffered little, because they had a greater command over themselves; but I knew an instance of a man of the company I commanded (his name was Travers) eating, for one week, independent of his rations, the head of an ox daily! Reader, do not laugh at this. It is a true but melancholy picture, not a laughable one, of what a half-starved man will do when opportunity favours. The result, as might have been foreseen, was fatal. A violent inflammation of the bowels took place, and the poor fellow died in the most excruciating agonies. No remedy of our doctors could relieve him; they did all they could, but in vain.