Two battalions of rifle corps immediately filed off the road, mounted the hill, and began a most severe skirmish with the enemy, who made such a desperate opposition, that the rifles were obliged to close; the French charged, but the rifles were immoveable, and, for two or three minutes, the combatants were firing in each other's faces. At last the rifles beat them back, and carried the wood. We could also see the right of the enemy formed on some heights round a windmill two miles to our left, where the sixth division attacked them; and the cannon continued to play at this point. While the right of our army made a demonstration of crossing to the right bank of the Adour, opposite the town of Tarbes, two hundred _chasseurs à cheval_ blocked up the wide road opposite to us. It had hedges on each side; our regiment formed column to the left of it, on a piece of waste ground; and a troop of the tenth hussars rode up and formed across it from hedge to hedge, opposed to the French horse. Two vedettes of the Chasseurs instantly walked their horses within one hundred yards of the tenth, and invited them to charge; several of us stood on the flank of our dragoons, and told them to stop a minute or two, until a company crept along the hedge to take the chasseurs in flank when their main body seeing this instantly wheeled threes about and unmasked two pieces of cannon, which they fired at half range, and both balls flew close over the heads of the hussars. Owing to the attack of the sixth division taking the right of the enemy in reverse, they were thrown on two sides of a square, and obliged to retire from Tarbes, refusing their right face, while covering the retreat of their left wing! The horse artillery now came forward at full trot, protected by the tenth hussars, who by half-squadrons, filled up the intervals between the guns, which presented a most picturesque and martial effect. Without further delay, the rest of our division followed up the hill to the left, in support of the rifles; and on reaching the summit a most interesting spectacle presented itself. The town of Tarbes lay in the valley to the right close to the Adour; the dense red columns of our right wing were in the act of passing it with cavalry and artillery; while the glitter of the enemy's bayonets formed a brilliant spectacle, and the tail of their winding columns covered the country, as they rapidly threaded the by-roads through small woods, villages, and over hill and dale. They were also running in a dense crowd on the high road towards Tournay, (threatened by the hussars, and the horse-artillery) where a rapid interchange of cannon balls took place, and we were in momentary expectation of overtaking them, when broken ground and hedges suddenly intervened, and they eluded our grasp.