At break of day on the 27th the French army were in motion, but their surprise seemed great on finding our lines unoccupied. Marmont pushed his advance upon the village of Aldea-de-Ponte, and a gallant affair for our 4th Division took place there. The two regiments of Fusileers[19] particularly distinguished themselves, and repulsed the enemy at the point of the bayonet. Night put an end to this affair, which cost us a couple of hundred men, and nearly double that number fell on the side of the French. ----- Footnote 19: The 7th and 23rd Royal Welsh. ----- The enemy being but ill supplied with provisions, and the country in which they now were (Portugal) being quite unsuited to their operations, as well as unable to supply their wants, the French Marshal, having provisioned Rodrigo, which was the object sought for when he formed his junction with the army of the north, resolved upon retracing his steps, which he did on the following day, the 28th. Lord Wellington issued a most flattering order to the troops engaged on the 25th, and so delighted was he with the conduct of the 5th and 77th that he held them up as an example to the army. On the 29th we went into cantonments, our division occupying Aldea-de-Ponte; and until our arrival there, I had no idea the loss of men and horses on the 27th had been so great. The ground was thickly covered with both, and immense numbers of vultures had already established themselves in the neighbourhood. These birds, the sure harbinger of a disputed field, crowded around us in vast flocks: whether this was owing to the lateness of the season, or to a scantiness in the supply of their accustomed food, I know not; but the voracity of these birds, and consequently their boldness, was beyond anything I had ever before witnessed. In many instances they would throw off their ordinary wariness, and strut before the carcase they were devouring, as if they supposed we were about to dispute their pretensions to it; but it is astonishing what birds of this description will do when really pressed by hunger.