At ten o'clock on the following day our division edged off to the right and crossed the Nivelle by a small stone bridge near St. Pé. The whole army moved forward in three columns, the right marching upon Souraide and Espelette and taking post on the left bank of the Nive, at Cambo, Ustaritz, and the vicinity, to watch the enemy on the right bank of that river; the centre on Arrauntz and Arbonne, and the left crossing the Nivelle at the town and vicinity of Saint Jean de Luz, and advancing through Guethary on Bidart, eight miles from Bayonne. In the afternoon it came on to rain, while we were marching through _le bois de St. Pé_. The roads were very deep, and we passed the night shivering and wallowing in the grass and mud of a saturated plantation. The head quarters of the general-in-chief were now established at Saint Jean de Luz, an old town situated on the right bank of the river Nivelle, and within a few hundred yards of the sea coast. Through this town the high road runs from Spain to Bayonne, the latter place being strongly fortified and situated at the junction of the Nive with the Adour. The enemy occupied the farm-houses and villas three miles in front of the fortress. A morass, which was only passable at two places covered an entrenched camp which was within cannon shot of the ramparts of Bayonne. The left of our army fronted the enemy, forming a line amidst chateaux, farm-houses, woods, heaths, plantations, hedges, swamps and ditches, as far as the sea-coast, the right being thrown back towards Ustaritz and Cambo, facing the French who lined the right bank of the Nive, as far as St. Jean Pied de Port. With the sea therefore on our left, the river Adour and Bayonne in our front, the river Nive on our right, and the lofty mountains of the Pyrenees at our backs—it may fairly be said that the army were in a _cul de sac_. The great strength of this frontier seems, particularly during the winter, hardly to be understood; for beyond the river Nive many rapid rivers cut across, and intersect the muddy country and clayey roads, so as to make offensive operations very difficult. The advanced posts of our first brigade were in a church behind the village of Arcangues, at a château two hundred yards east of it, and at a cottage half a mile further to the right, situated close to a lake, on the other side of which was the château of Chenie, on a rising ground, and enclosed by the small plantation of Berriots, through which a road runs towards Ustaritz. The second brigade prolonged their line towards a deep valley which separated them from the fifth division, holding the plateau, in the neighbourhood of a château on the high road to Bayonne, six or seven miles in front of St. Jean de Luz.