The road to Elizondo was very good, but that down the Bidassoa was a long and terrible defile, and so contracted about the bridges of Yanzi and Sumbilla that a few men only could march abreast. This then Soult had to dread; that Wellington who by the pass of Vellate could reach Elizondo before him would block his passage on that side; that Graham would occupy the rocks about Yanzi, blocking the passage there and by detachments cut off his line of march upon Echallar. Then, confined to the narrow mountain-way from San Estevan to Zagaramurdi, he would be followed hard by general Hill, exposed to attacks in rear and flank during his march, and perhaps be headed at Urdax by the allied troops moving through Vellate Elizondo and the Col de Maya. In this state, his first object being to get through the pass of Doña Maria, he commenced his retreat as we have seen in the night of the 30th, and Wellington still deceived as to the real state of affairs did not take the most fitting measures to stop his march, that is to say, he continued in his first design, halting in the valley of Lanz while Hill passed his front to enter the Bastan, into which district he sent Byng’s brigade as belonging to the second division. But early on the 31st, when Soult’s real strength became known, he directed the seventh division to aid Hill, followed Byng through the pass of Vellate with the remainder of his forces, and thinking the light division might be at Zubieta in the valley of Lerins, sent Alten orders to head the French if possible at San Estevan, or at Sumbilla, in fine to cut in upon their line of march somewhere; Longa also was ordered to come down to the defiles at Yanzi, thus aiding the light division to block the way on that side, and sir Thomas Graham was advertised to hold his army in readiness to move in the same view, and it would appear that the route of the sixth and third divisions were also changed for a time. _Combat of Doña Maria._—At ten o’clock in the morning of the 31st, general Hill overtook Soult’s rear-guard between Lizasso and the Puerto. The seventh division, coming from the hills above Olague, was already ascending the mountain on his right, and the French only gained a wood on the summit of the pass under the fire of Hill’s guns. There, however, they turned and throwing out their skirmishers made strong battle. General Stewart, leading the attack of the second division, now for the third time engaged with D’Erlon’s troops, was again wounded and his first brigade was repulsed, but general Pringle who succeeded to the command, renewed the attack with the second brigade, and the thirty-fourth regiment leading, broke the enemy at the moment that the seventh division did the same on the right. Some prisoners were taken, but a thick fog prevented further pursuit, and the loss of the French in the action is unknown, probably less than that of the allies which was something short of four hundred men.