After a month at home, I took a passage in the _Port Mahon_, brig, of 18 guns, to Lisbon, and on the 11th of June arrived in the Tagus, and was placed on the Admiralty list for promotion. CHAPTER XI. Lisbon--Trip to the Army of Lord Wellington--Montemor Novo, O’Rodondo, Villa Vicosa, Elvas, Fort le Lippe. I was appointed to a ship in the Tagus by the commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir G. Berkeley, whose amiable family treated me with great kindness and attention. Having but little to do, I passed much time in examining the beautifully situated, but dirty town of Lisbon. If it were not for the scavenger dogs which prowl about and take “pot luck,” the streets would be impassable from filth. Having a brother[I] in the 14th Dragoons, with the army of Lord Wellington, whom I had not seen for more than seven years, and a remount of horses arriving from England for the regiment, amongst which was one for my brother, I thought it a very good opportunity of going to see him. The admiral having been so obliging as to grant me a month’s leave of absence, on the 19th of July, I accordingly left Lisbon, placing on the horse a pair of saddle bags, blanket, great coat, sword and pistols, together with some hams and brandy, which I was told would be very acceptable in camp. After a short ride, I embarked in a Portuguese passage boat, with a motley group of persons. A sail of three hours brought me safe to Aldea Galega, a small town on the southern bank of the Tagus. I was now about to travel in a strange country. Unable to speak the language, and having no servant to take care of my horse, the troops having gone forward the previous day, I began to fear I should be placed in some difficulty. Before me was a march of five or six days,--during which my steed would require that care a groom only could bestow,--I determined, however, to push on and trust to fortune, and my Portuguese vocabulary. Looking about the miserable town of Aldea Galega for mules, I was lucky enough to meet with a dismounted dragoon, belonging to the 14th, going to Lisbon, who informed me that the detachment of his regiment, which I ought to have accompanied, had marched from Galega only the day before, and that by my making all haste, I most likely should overtake them in less than forty-eight hours. I pressed this man into my service, went to a commissary, got two mules, on one of which I put my baggage, mounting the soldier, with three days’ rations for myself and cattle, on the other. In the evening we left this town for a place called Pegoeus, twenty miles distant, and after a most disagreeable ride through a long stunted wood, with a heavy sandy soil, in which the horse and mules sank half-way up their knees at every step, a little before midnight reached Pegoeus, a most wretched place, consisting of three miserable dirty hovels, very much resembling cow-houses, into one of which we entered, in order to rest the horse and mules.