On the third day we had arrived near San Muñoz, and encamped on the river Helebra. Many of the forest trees were covered with beautiful blossoms, and the plumaged tribe hopped from branch to bough, while here and there a solitary skeleton lay bleached, and reminded us of those starved, drenched, and wounded victims, the recollection of whose cries for help still rang in our ears, as we had marched past them on our retreat from Burgos and Madrid the previous winter. Now, how changed the scene! the inmost recesses of this extensive wood resounded with many voices, and a long line of animated troops continued to thread its mazes and winding roads. On this day the household brigade of cavalry came up; their horses' backs were in a very bad state, owing to the heat of the weather. In the evening, while sitting at our tent-door, we observed one of the Germans making up his fat horse for the night, and afterwards employing himself in sharpening his sabre with a stone. "That man," remarked an officer, "seems to be preparing for single combat." Early on the 26th we halted on the verge of the wood, within a short distance of Salamanca; our cavalry and some guns pushed onwards, and crossed to the right bank of the Tormes by two fords above the town, where they found three thousand French infantry preparing to retrograde. Our cavalry made a demonstration to charge them, but the enemy presented so firm a front, and then retired in such good order, that it was thought advisable not to attempt to break them, until a few discharges of artillery should have shaken the resolution of these veterans: which that course failed to accomplish. They at length formed a junction with a part of the French troops retiring from Alba de Tormes. Our dragoons were then drawn off, and the enemy continued to retreat without farther molestation. In the afternoon our division moved forward, and took up their ground in a wood immediately overlooking the left bank of the Tonnes, a league below Salamanca. The next morning, as there had not been any order for the troops to move, I mounted my horse, and, in company with some other officers, rode into Salamanca. The inhabitants expressed their congratulations on seeing us again, although our reception was not of that warm character shown towards us in the preceding summer; and, indeed, it would have been out of all reason to expect to find countenances decked with joy, when contending armies had trampled down and destroyed their corn over a fertile plain of many leagues in extent.