strangled; his eyes were out of their sockets; his tongue was greatly swelled, and thrust far out of his mouth, into which the blood from the wound of the Highlander was running. Each still held a firm hold of his firelock with his left hand; and when the Highlander was removed from the Frenchman, and laid along-side of him, he still kept such a firm grasp of his throat, that he raised the body of the Frenchman from the ground, and it was with difficulty it was extricated from the hold. The result of the battle of the 2d October compelled the enemy to abandon his positions, and evacuate the town of Alkmaar, which was his head quarters, and fall back nearer to Amsterdam.--Alkmaar was occupied by our troops on the 3d, and as our brigade had been much reduced in number, we were ordered to go there to form a part of its intended garrison. The peninsula is here of considerable breadth, and the country much superior to that on the north side of the long dyke, but it is still intersected with deep broad ditches and canals, which greatly impede military operations. The rain that had lately fallen had filled the canals and ditches so full of water, that the edges and lower parts of the roads were beginning to be covered, as we passed from Egmont to Alkmaar; and as the roads, for want of stone, were made of earth, or a slight layer of sand upon earth or clay, they were beginning to be deep. There are narrow foot-paths laid with brick, between some of the towns. Alkmaar is a town of considerable size, surrounded with a high mound of earth and a canal; all the entrances to it are over drawbridges and through gates, the principal of which have cannon mounted on them. The streets are paved with whinstone in the centre, and on the sides with brick or flags, and a number of large canals run through the centre of the principal of them.