During the two following days, Lord Wellington established the troops which had marched from the Agueda and Extremadura Alta between the Tormes and the Lower Douro. On the 29th he left Salamanca, and reached Miranda de Duero. The enemy had destroyed all the bridges upon the river except that at Zamora. Opposite Miranda there is a ferry, where this deep and rapid stream is from 80 to 100 yards wide, and the rocks on either side from 400 to 500 feet high. When it is so swoln that the ferry is impracticable, the only way by which travellers can cross is after the old Peruvian manner, in a sort of hammock or cradle, fastened to a rope, which is secured upon two projecting points of rock, about thirty feet above the ordinary level of the ♦FLOREZ ESP. SAGRADA, T. 16, P. 3.♦ water. Here Lord Wellington crossed, and on the following day joined Sir Thomas Graham’s corps at Carvajales on the Ezla. This river, which upon good grounds is believed to have been the Astura of the ancients, and in Leon is called the Rio Grande, descends from the Puertos de Asturias, passes by Mansilla to Benevente, near which town it receives the Cea from the east, and the larger river Orbigo from the west, and enters the Douro below Zamora. At daybreak on the 31st the troops began to ford: the enemy so little apprehended danger on that side, that they had only a piquet there, and thus no opposition was offered to a very difficult and perilous passage. The ford was intricate; the water nearly chin deep; the bottom rough and stony; and the stones large and loose. The hussar brigade began the passage, entering in a body; and as it was supposed that a village on the opposite hill was occupied by the enemy, and as it was necessary that some infantry should cross to support the advance of the hussars, each dragoon had a soldier holding by his stirrup. But this impeded the horses: alarmed both by, the stream and the unsafe footing, they became unmanageable and plunged forward: the men, who before could scarcely keep their feet against the force and weight of the stream, lost at once their footing and their hold; they were plunged into the water, their knapsacks overweighed them and kept them on their backs, and in this manner they struggled at the mercy of the current. There were, fortunately, three or four small islands just at this part; and by these most of the officers and men were stopped, but several valuable lives were lost. The hussars exerted themselves with exemplary humanity to assist the infantry, and one of their corporals lost his own life in the performance of this generous duty. In this way the 51st and the Brunswick Oel’s corps, as well as the cavalry, passed. Their orders were to ascend the hill and take the village: the enemy’s piquet were made prisoners. A pontoon bridge was then thrown across, and the remainder of the corps passed over. ♦JUNE.♦