It has been already said that the march from Abrantes to Castello Branco is over difficult mountains; to have repaired the roads between these places would have been more useful to the enemy than to the allies, as facilitating a passage for superior numbers to penetrate by the shortest line to Lisbon. But lord Wellington, after throwing boat-bridges over the Tagus and the Zezere, and fortifying Abrantes, established between the latter and Castello Branco a line of communication by the left bank of the Tagus, through Niza, to the pass of Vilha Velha, where, by a flying bridge, the river was recrossed, and from thence a good road led to Castello Branco. Now the pass of Vilha Velha is prodigiously strong for defence, and the distance from Abrantes to Castello Branco being nearly the same by Niza as by the other bank of the river, the march of troops was yet much accelerated, for the road near Vilha Velha being reconstructed by the engineers, was excellent. Thus all the obstacles to an enemy’s march by the north bank were preserved, and the line by Vilha Velha, enabled not only Hill to pass from Portalegre, or Abrantes, to Castello Branco by a flank movement in less time than Reynier, but it also provided a lateral communication for the whole army, which we shall hereafter find of vital importance in the combinations of the English general, supplying the loss of the road by Alcantara and the pass of Perales, which otherwise would have been adopted. The French, also, in default of a direct line of communication between Estremadura and the Ciudad Rodrigo country, were finally forced to adopt the circuitous road of Almaraz and the pass of Baños, and it was in allusion to this inconvenience that I said both parties sighed over the ruins of Alcantara. But, notwithstanding this facility of movement and of concentration, the allies could not deliver a decisive battle near the frontier, because the enemy could unite an overwhelming force in the Alemtejo, before the troops from the north could reach that province, and a battle lost there, would, in the dry season, decide the fate of Lisbon. To have concentrated the whole army in the south, would have been to resign half the kingdom and all its resources to the enemy; but to save those resources for himself, or to destroy them, was the very basis of lord Wellington’s defence, and all his dispositions were made to oblige _the French to move in masses_, and to _gain time himself_, time to secure the harvests, time to complete his lines, time to perfect the discipline of the native troops, and to give full effect to the arming and organization of the ordenança, and, above all things, time to consolidate that moral ascendancy over the public mind which he was daily acquiring. A closer examination of his combinations will shew, that they were well adapted to effect these objects.