It was now eight o’clock and from the smaller Rhune a splendid spectacle of war opened upon the view. On one hand the ships of war slowly sailing to and fro were exchanging shots with the fort of Socoa; Hope menacing all the French lines in the low ground sent the sound of a hundred pieces of artillery bellowing up the rocks, and they were answered by nearly as many from the tops of the mountains. On the other hand the summit of the great Atchubia was just lighted by the rising sun, and fifty thousand men rushing down its enormous slopes with ringing shouts, seemed to chase the receding shadows into the deep valley. The plains of France so long overlooked from the towering crags of the Pyrenees were to be the prize of battle, and the half-famished soldiers in their fury, broke through the iron barrier erected by Soult as if it were but a screen of reeds. The principal action was on a space of seven or eight miles, but the skirts of battle spread wide, and in no point had the combinations failed. Far on the right general Hill after a long and difficult night march had got within reach of the enemy a little before seven o’clock. Opposing Morillo’s and Mina’s Spaniards to Abbé’s troops on the Mondarain and Atchuleguy rocks, he directed the second division against D’Armagnac’s brigade and brushed it back from the forge of Urdax and the village of Ainhoa. Meanwhile the aid of the sixth division and Hamilton’s Portuguese being demanded by him, they passed the Nivelle lower down and bent their march along the right bank towards the bridge of Amotz. Thus while Mina’s battalion and Morillo’s division kept Abbé in check on the mountains, the three Anglo-Portuguese divisions, marching left flank in advance, approached D’Erlon’s second position, but the country being very rugged it was eleven o’clock before they got within cannon-shot of the French redoubts. Each of these contained five hundred men, and they were placed along the summit of a high ridge which being thickly clothed with bushes, and covered by a deep ravine was very difficult to attack. However general Clinton, leading the sixth division on the extreme left, turned this ravine and drove the enemy from the works covering the approaches to the bridge, after which wheeling to his right he advanced against the nearest redoubt, and the garrison not daring to await the assault abandoned it. Then the Portuguese division passing the ravine and marching on the right of the sixth menaced the second redoubt, and the second division in like manner approached the third redoubt. D’Armagnac’s troops now set fire to their hutted camp and retreated to Helbacen de Borda behind San Pé, pursued by the sixth division. Abbé’s second brigade forming the French left was separated by a ravine from D’Armagnac’s ground, but he also after some hesitation retreated towards Espelette and Cambo, where his other brigade, which had meanwhile fallen back from the Mondarain before Morillo, rejoined him.