While the French general thus formed his line of battle, lord Wellington who had quitted sir Rowland Hill’s quarters in the Bastan very early on the 27th, crossed the main ridge and descended the valley of Lanz without having been able to learn any thing of Picton’s movements or position, and in this state of uncertainty reached Ostiz, a few miles from Sauroren, where he found general Long with the brigade of light cavalry which had furnished the posts of correspondence in the mountains. Here learning that Picton having abandoned the heights of Linzoain was moving on Huarte, he left his quarter-master-general with instructions to stop all the troops coming down the valley of Lanz until the state of affairs at Huarte should be ascertained. Then at racing speed he made for Sauroren. As he entered that village he saw Clauzel’s divisions moving from Zabaldica along the crest of the mountain, and it was clear that the allied troops in the valley of Lanz were intercepted, wherefore pulling up his horse he wrote on the parapet of the bridge of Sauroren fresh instructions to turn every thing from that valley to the right, by a road which led through Lizasso and Marcalain behind the hills to the village of Oricain, that is to say, in rear of the position now occupied by Cole. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the only staff-officer who had kept up with him, galloped with these orders out of Sauroren by one road, the French light cavalry dashed in by another, and the English general rode alone up the mountain to reach his troops. One of Campbell’s Portuguese battalions first descried him and raised a cry of joy, and the shrill clamour caught up by the next regiments swelled as it run along the line into that stern and appalling shout which the British soldier is wont to give upon the edge of battle, and which no enemy ever heard unmoved. Lord Wellington suddenly stopped in a conspicuous place, he desired that both armies should know he was there, and a double spy who was present pointed out Soult, then so near that his features could be plainly distinguished. The English general, it is said, fixed his eyes attentively upon this formidable man, and speaking as if to himself, said, “_Yonder is a great commander, but he is a cautious one and will delay his attack to ascertain the cause of these cheers; that will give time for the sixth division to arrive and I shall beat him._” And certain it is that the French general made no serious attack that day. The position adopted by Cole was the summit of a mountain mass which filled all the space between the Guy and the Lanz rivers as far back as Huarte and Villalba. It was highest in the centre, and boldly defined towards the enemy, but the trace was irregular, the right being thrown back towards the village of Arletta so as to flank the high road to Huarte. This road was also swept by some guns placed on a lower range, or neck, connecting the right of Cole with Picton and Morillo.