There were three passes to defend. Aretesque on the right, Lessessa in the centre, Maya on the left, and from these entrances two ways led to Elisondo in parallel directions; one down the valley through the town of Maya, receiving in its course the Erazu road; the other along the Atchiola mountain. General Pringle’s brigade was charged to defend the Aretesque, and colonel Cameron’s brigade the Maya and Lessessa passes. The Col itself was broad on the summit, about three miles long, and on each flank lofty rocks and ridges rose one above another; those on the right blending with the Goramendi mountains, those on the left with the Atchiola, near the summit of which the eighty-second regiment belonging to the seventh division was posted. Cameron’s brigade, encamped on the left, had a clear view of troops coming from Urdax; but at Aretesque a great round hill, one mile in front, masked the movements of an enemy coming from Espelette. This hill was not occupied at night, nor in the daytime save by some Portuguese cavalry videttes, and the next guard was an infantry piquet posted on that slope of the Col which fronted the great hill. Behind this piquet of eighty men there was no immediate support, but four light companies were encamped one mile down the reverse slope which was more rugged and difficult of access than that towards the enemy. The rest of general Pringle’s brigade was disposed at various distances from two to three miles in the rear, and the signal for assembling on the position was to be the fire of four Portuguese guns from the rocks above the Maya pass. Thus of six British regiments furnishing more than three thousand fighting men, half only were in line of battle, and those chiefly massed on the left of a position, wide open and of an easy ascent from the Aretesque side, and their general, Stewart, quite deceived as to the real state of affairs, was at Elisondo when about mid-day D’Erlon commenced the battle. COMBAT OF MAYA. [Sidenote: Plan 3.] Captain Moyle Sherer, the officer commanding the picquet at the Aretesque pass, was told by his predecessor, that at dawn a glimpse had been obtained of cavalry and infantry in movement along the hills in front, some peasants also announced the approach of the French, and at nine o’clock major Thorne, a staff-officer, having patroled round the great hill in front of the pass discovered sufficient to make him order up the light companies to support the picquet. These companies had just formed on the ridge with their left at the rock of Aretesque, when D’Armagnac’s division coming from Espelette mounted the great hill in front, Abbé followed, and general Maransin with a third division advanced from Ainhoa and Urdax against the Maya pass, meaning also to turn it by a narrow way leading up the Atchiola mountain.