Taking my farewell on the following morning, and apologizing to the little _Señorita_ for my want of gallantry, I proceeded on my journey, and at the end of four hours reached the middle of an extensive plain, when one of the bullocks became dead lame, and the enraged driver declared vehemently that he would go no farther; my servant, therefore, dismounted from my palfrey, and placed me on its back. We made for the distant steeple, which skirted the horizon, as the point of our destination. At the expiration of a toilsome ride, we reached the _Pueblo_, and there sojourned until the next morning. In two more days we reached Alba de Tormes; I was quartered at an _apothecary's shop_, where I lay on the mattress for twelve hours in a sort of stupor; on recovering, in some degree, my servant fancied that I was dying, and proposed sending for the Spaniard, which I would by no means consent to, from the apprehension that he would bleed me to death. The next day, while quietly passing through a wood, at a lonely spot, my horse made a sudden start, and, on looking to the right, I observed a dead man, perfectly naked, placed against a large piece of rock. He had been killed at the battle of Salamanca. His hair was long and grey; his beard had grown to a considerable length; and his arms and legs had been placed in an extended position; in fact, he was in an exact fencing attitude, in an extraordinary state of preservation, and presenting, of course, a dreadful spectacle. I noticed during the period that I was in Spain, that those soldiers killed in action, who were exposed to the rays of the sun, immediately became a mass of corruption, but of those, on the contrary, who fell under trees or in shady places, exposed to heavy dew or rain, the skin became as hard as leather, and they would remain in that state for a very considerable period, unless they were devoured by wild animals or birds of prey. I have often seen vultures feeding on dead horses (that had been killed in battle) so fat, that they could scarcely take wing, or raise themselves from the ground.