Under the wide-spreading branches of a venerable cork-tree, decorated with pack-saddles, accoutrements, and other military trappings, dinner was served up and laid out on a pair of hampers, which served us instead of a table. Beef, biscuit, tea, rum, and wine, composed our fare, it being a usual custom to join breakfast and dinner, so as to make one meal serve for the twenty-four hours, the troops merely halting to cook and refresh themselves during the heat of the day. A more happy meal, I can safely say, I never partook of; and with infinite admiration did I regard the purple jackets and battered epaulettes of my companions. Our small keg of wine being emptied, the word passed to pack up and accoutre; and, in an incredibly short space of time, the column re-formed. The "assembly" sounded (the signal of march) threes, from the right of companies, the bands struck up, and at the end of two hours' march, and towards nightfall, we entered another wood. The same ceremony gone through as already described, the blankets were spread out, the earth our bed, knapsacks our pillows, and the overhanging trees our canopy; the busy hum of life no longer vibrated through the bivouac, and thousands of soldiers slumbered and reposed their weary limbs, lying scattered throughout the forest, or around the dying embers of expiring fires. My companions insisted on stretching themselves on each side of me, protesting that they ought to do thus, as a protection against cold for the first two or three nights, since a very heavy dew fell, so as almost to wet through the blankets, notwithstanding the great heat of the weather by day. For some time I was unable to close my eyes, owing to some insects flocking up my legs in swarms, and creating much irritation. Let us, for a moment, withdraw the veil of futurity, and make a few anticipations. On my right tranquilly slumbers a youthful warrior of sixteen years old, and on my left unconsciously sleeps the other, one year older. Lieutenant E. Freer is doomed to undergo two more years of the toils of war, to suffer sickness and privation, and, at the sanguinary assault of Badajoz, to receive a severe wound in the upper part of the thigh; and lastly, at the age of nineteen, while in the Pyrenees, a ball passes through his right arm, and enters his side: he staggers, utters three words, and falls a lifeless corpse amid those dreary regions!