two dried pig-skins, sewed up and slung across a pack saddle for the conveyance of wine from one place to the other—the muleteer being astride in the middle, and, above all, singing a wild air, and beating time with his heels against the bags. Quitting this isolated place, and returning to our quarters, we remained there two or three days, and then resumed our march towards the northern frontier. The first night we halted in a wood near Niza. The next morning, an hour before day light, we started; and, while passing over the summit of a high hill, as the morning dawned, we observed a thick mist overspreading an extensive valley. As the sun rose, its refulgent light pierced through the white fog, which resembled a beautiful floating sea, out of which peeped forth the tops of hills covered with investing shrubs. As the rolling mist passed away, so these apparent islands enlarged, until nothing of this enchanting illusion remained, except a bare country covered with _gum cistus_, (a small tree,) producing a most sickly smell, and the more particularly to those with empty stomachs. After a fatiguing weary march, half suffocated by heat, added to which our eyes, nose, and mouth, were filled with sand, we descended the pass of Villa Velha, where we observed a number of vultures perched on the pinnacles of inaccessible rocks, as if watching our motions, or waiting in anticipation of more devoted victims. Crossing the Tagus by the bridge of boats, we bivouacked under the agreeable shade of an olive grove. The surrounding scenery presented every where a beautiful, romantic, and grand spectacle; the river foamed over the rocks that had fallen into its dark stream from the overhanging crags. The narrow road running at the base of the adjacent mountains was filled with loose stones; woe, therefore, to the sore-footed soldier who happened to stumble amongst them! Woe to the sick or wounded to whose lot it fell to be placed in those Portuguese cars, rudely constructed, with small solid wooden wheels, revolving on an unoiled axletree, and causing an indescribable creeking noise to be heard at a very considerable distance; sounds so horrible, that the bigotted peasantry declare they frighten away the evil spirit of Old Nick himself! The jolting of these vehicles frequently tore off the plasters, and ripped open anew the wounds of the suffering soldiers; nor was it at all unusual to behold the sick, wounded, and dying, with pallid countenances expressive of unheard-of agonies, while these engines of torture, drawn by a pair of bullocks, with their heads thrust under a shapeless piece of wood, (for the purpose of yoking them together,) rolled on their heavy way. The conductor guided them with a long pole, with a piece of pointed iron at the end of it, which he poked into the beasts' necks, and directed them by such sort of "sharp practice." [Footnote 11: Massena.]