Villatte, a good officer, barricaded the bridge, sent his baggage to the rear, and called in a detachment from Alba, yet wishing to discover the real force of his enemy waited on the heights above the ford of Santa Marta too long; for the ground enabled Wellington to conceal his movements, and Fane’s horsemen with six guns passed the ford of Santa Marta in Villatte’s rear unseen, while Victor Alten’s cavalry removed the barricades on the bridge and pushed through the town to attack in front. The French general indeed gained the heights of Cabrerizos, marching towards Babila Fuente, before Fane got over the river, but at the defile of Aldea Lengua was overtaken by both columns of cavalry, and being first battered by the guns was charged. But horsemen are no match for such infantry, whose courage and discipline nothing could quell. They fell before the round shot in sections, and one hundred died in the ranks without a wound from intolerable heat; yet they beat off the cavalry, and in the face of thirty thousand enemies made their way to Babila Fuente, where, being joined by the detachment from Alba, the whole disappeared from the sight of their admiring and applauding opponents. Two hundred had fallen dead in the ranks, a like number, unable to keep up, were captured, and a leading gun being overturned in the defile retarded six others, all of which were taken. On the 28th, having approached the point on the Duero where he proposed to throw the bridge for communication with Graham’s corps, Wellington left Hill in command, and went off suddenly to the Esla, being uneasy for his combination there. Passing the Duero at Miranda, by means of a basket moving on a rope stretched from rock to rock, the river foaming hundreds of feet below, he on the 30th reached Carvajales. Graham had met with many difficulties in the rugged Tras os Montes, and though the Gallicians did not fail here, the combination was retarded by the difficulty of crossing the Esla. It was to have been effected the 29th, at which time the right wing, continuing its march from the Tormes, could have been near Zamora and the passage of the Duero insured; the French would then have been surprised, separated, and overtaken in detail; now, though still ignorant that a whole army was on the Esla, they were alarmed, and had planted the opposite bank with picquets of cavalry and infantry; moreover, the stream was full and rapid, the banks steep, the fords hard to find, difficult and deep, and the appearance of the allies on the Tormes was known through all the cantonments. Nevertheless Wellington, early on the 31st, caused some squadrons of hussars with infantry holding by their stirrups, to pass a ford, and Graham approached the right bank with all his forces; a French picquet was thus surprised by the hussars, the pontoons were immediately laid, and the columns commenced crossing, but several men, even of the cavalry, were drowned.