Charles Alten with the light division and Longa’s Spaniards, furnishing together about eight thousand men, was likewise to attack Clauzel’s line on the left of Giron, while Freyre’s Gallicians approached the bridge of Ascain to prevent reinforcements coming from the camp of Serres. But ere Alten could assail Clauzel’s right the smaller Rhune which covered it was to be stormed. This mountain outwork was a hog’s-back ridge rising abruptly out of table-land and parallel with the greater Rhune. It was inaccessible along its front, which was precipitous and from fifty to two hundred feet high; but on the enemy’s left these rocks gradually decreased, descending by a long slope to the valley of Sarre, and about two-thirds of the way down the thirty-fourth French regiment was placed, with an advanced post on some isolated crags situated in the hollow between the two Rhunes. On the enemy’s right the hog’s-back sunk by degrees into the plain or platform. It was however covered at that point by a marsh scarcely passable, and the attacking troops were therefore first to move up against the perpendicular rocks in front, and then to file to their left under fire, between the marsh and the lower crags, until they gained an accessible point from whence they could fight their way along the narrow ridge of the hog’s-back But the bristles of the latter were huge perpendicular crags connected with walls of loose stones so as to form several small forts or castles communicating with each other by narrow foot-ways, and rising one above another until the culminant point was attained. The table-land beyond this ridge was extensive and terminated in a very deep ravine on every side, save a narrow space on the right of the marsh, where the enemy had drawn a traverse of loose stones, running perpendicularly from behind the hog’s-back and ending in a star fort which overhung the edge of the ravine.