Soult had remained eight days at Lugo, and had sent off for France 1100 men, who were completely broken down by the sufferings of the campaign. Still his troops were in such a state that when he reached Monforte it was found necessary to give them some days more of rest. They were in one of the finest parts of Galicia, and in the most delightful season of the year; but there was the dreadful feeling for those whose hearts were not completely hardened, that every inhabitant of that country was their mortal foe. Into whatever town or village they entered, not a living soul was to be found, except those who from infirmity were unable to follow their countrymen. They who had arms were gone to join the army; the others, with the women and children, had taken refuge in the wild parts of that wild region, and were on the watch for every opportunity of weakening their invaders by putting a straggler to death. During the five days that they halted, the French suffered considerable loss; and when they attempted to cross the Sil, they found it not so practicable for them to effect a passage in the face of an enemy, as it had been for the English at Porto. That sort of war was kept up which, under the circumstances of Spain, tended to the sure destruction of the invaders. The Spaniards never exposed themselves, and never lost an opportunity of harassing the enemy. They availed themselves of their perfect knowledge of the country to profit by every spot that afforded cover to their marksmen; and leaving their fields to be ravaged, their property to be plundered, and their houses to be destroyed, they applied themselves, with a brave recklessness of every thing except their duty, to the great object of ridding the country of its invaders. Wherever the French bivouacked, the scene was such as might rather have been looked for in a camp of predatory Tartars than in that of a civilized people. Food, and forage, and skins of wine, and clothes and church vestments, books and guitars, and all the bulkier articles of wasteful spoil, were heaped together in their huts with the planks and doors of the habitations which they had demolished. Some of the men, retaining amid this brutal service the characteristic activity and cleverness of their nation, fitted up their huts with hangings from their last scene of pillage, with a regard to comfort ♦NAYLIES, 147.♦ hardly to have been expected in their situation, and a love of gaiety only to be found in Frenchmen. The idlers were contented with a tub, and if the tub were large enough, three or four would stow themselves in it. ♦CRUELTIES EXERCISED BY THE FRENCH.♦