The atmosphere became now overspread with an unusual darkness; the thunder began to roll, the lightning was vivid, and the rain fell in torrents. During the storm a whole troop of horses galloped past at full speed, without their riders, having broke loose from fright, caused by the loud claps of thunder. Continuing our march, we soon bivouacked about two miles from Salamanca, our left wing resting on the Tormes, and in vain attempted to screen ourselves from the pelting of the storm. However, the morning of the 22d broke beautiful and serene; and at six o'clock we heard to our right, and about two miles to the front, a brisk fire of small arms, which continued for an hour, and then died away. The enemy had attacked the seventh division, in a wood near the heights of Nuestra Señora de la Pena, to ascertain whether the Earl of Wellington intended to give up Salamanca. A young officer was washing his shirt in the Tormes when the order came to fall in at eleven o'clock, and was under the necessity of putting it on wringing wet. The light division advanced, and took up the ground which the seventh division had occupied in the morning; the wood extended a short way to our front. The division was formed in open column, concealed from a small body of the enemy, who were stationed in small force half a mile to our front, with two pieces of cannon, on some rocks, round the old _quinta_ of Nuestra Señora de la Pena. From our situation we formed a corps of reserve, communicating with the third division placed on the top of the conical hill of Cabrerizos, on our extreme left, and rather in advance of us, on the right bank of the Tormes. We had no sooner piled arms, than I began to look about me. A _Table Mountain_, or rather one of _Los dos Arapiles_, was a short way to the right, and a mile to the front, with a very large mass of troops formed behind it, in contiguous columns, with one red regiment presenting their front towards the enemy in _line_ at the top of it. Large bodies of cavalry, the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh divisions of infantry, with a proportion of artillery, composed the right and centre of the army in the plain, towards Las Torres; also a corps of _Spanish Patriots_. Placed thus, who could have thought that the General-in-Chief intended that day to retreat? I _never did_. Nor could I see the reason for it: it seemed advisable to beat the French before _El Rey_ Joseph coming from Madrid, and General Chauvel, who, with a reinforcement of cavalry and horse-artillery, had crossed the Duoro, near Pollos, should make their appearance with additional forces.