The basin into which the king had thus poured all his troops, his parcs, convoys and incumbrances, was eight miles broad by ten long, Vittoria being at the further end. The Zadora, narrow and with rugged banks, after passing that town, flows through the Puebla defile towards the Ebro, dividing the basin unequally,--the largest portion being on the left bank. A traveller, coming from the Ebro by the royal Madrid road, would enter the basin by the Puebla defile, breaking through a rough mountain ridge. On emerging from the pass, at the distance of six miles on the left he would see the village of Subijana de Morillas, facing the opening into the basin which Reille had defended on the Bayas. The spires of Vittoria would appear eight miles in front, and radiating from that town, the road to Logroño would be on his right hand; that to Bilbao by _Murgia_ on the left hand, crossing the Zadora at a bridge near the village of Ariaga. Further on, the road to Estella and Pampeluna would be seen on the right, the road to Durango on the left, and between them the royal causeway leading over the great Arlaban ridge by the defiles of Salinas. Of all these roads, though some were practicable for guns, especially that to Pampeluna, the royal causeway alone could suffice for such an incumbered army; and as the allies were behind the ridge, bounding the basin on the right bank of the Zadora, and parallel to the causeway, they could by prolonging their left cut off that route. Joseph, feeling this danger, thought to march by Salinas to Durango, there to meet Foy’s troops and the garrisons of Guipuscoa and Biscay; but in the rough country, neither his artillery nor his cavalry, on which he greatly depended, though the cavalry and artillery of the allies were scarcely less powerful, could act or subsist, and he must have sent them into France: moreover, if pressed by Wellington in that mountainous region, so favourable for irregulars, he could not long remain in Spain. It was then proposed to retire to Pampeluna and bring Suchet’s army up to Zaragoza; but Joseph desired to keep open the great communication with France; for though the Pampeluna road was practicable to wheels, it required something more for the enormous mass of guns and carriages of all kinds now heaped around Vittoria. One large convoy had marched the 19th, and the fighting men in front were thus diminished, while the plain was still covered with artillery parcs and equipages, and the king, infirm of purpose, continued to waste time in vain conjectures about his adversary’s movements. And on the 21st, at three o’clock in the morning, Maucune’s division, more than three thousand good soldiers, also marched with a second convoy. The king then adopted a new line of battle.