The cross-road which I have mentioned as lying along our position, and which was the celebrated “sunken road of Ohain,” runs in some places between banks, at others on the level; it is paved down its centre, like most Belgian roads, with irregular stones, terrible to traverse for any distance, and it undulates gently, as the ridge rises and falls, until it joins the Nivelle _chaussée_ beyond Hougoumont. Hougoumont, surrounded by a quadrangle of tall trees, lies in a hollow in front of our ridge, perhaps halfway between it and the enemy’s line. A Flemish château with a garden laid out in the French style, and a smaller garden full of currant bushes; barns and quaint outbuildings clustering round the château, a brick wall about the height of a tall man, built on lower courses of grey stone, enclosing the garden, and at the east end of it a large open orchard; from the north-west corner, an avenue of ancient poplars winding into the Nivelle road with an _abattis_ of tree trunks there, held by a company of the 51st Light Infantry; between the south wall and the French, a beech wood, through which one could see the corn-clad slopes beyond: and that was Hougoumont on the day of the battle. The beech wood has been cut down, the apple-trees are sparse and scanty now, the château was burned by the French shells, and the garden is a grassy paddock; but the rest remains, loopholed and pockmarked with balls, a monument to the gallantry of two brave nations. The light companies of the Foot Guards occupied it on the 17th, and all night long they were busy, boring walls, barricading the gateways and erecting platforms from which to pour their fire. * * * * * On the high ground behind Hougoumont on our side the 2nd Brigade of British Guards was posted, having Maitland’s Guards on its left; beyond Maitland was Alten’s Infantry and Kielmansegge’s Hanoverians, flanked in their turn by the gallant King’s German Legion, in the pay of England, whose left rested on the Brussels _chaussée_, behind La Haye Sainte. On the other side of the _chaussée_ was Kempt, then Pack’s Highlanders, the Royal Scots, and 44th Regiment, some more Hanoverians, under Best, the 5th Hanoverians of Vincke, Vandeleur’s Light Dragoons, and Vivian’s Hussar Brigade. The 2nd Rifles of the German Legion held La Haye Sainte, three companies of our 95th occupying a knoll and sandpit on the other side of the road, and Papelotte was garrisoned by Dutch Belgians, who behaved with the greatest gallantry.