While we therefore awaited further orders on the road side, I was amused to see General Slade, who commanded the brigade of cavalry attached to us, order up his sumpter mule, and borrowing our doctor's medical panniers, which he placed in the middle of the road by way of a table, he, with the assistance of his orderly dragoon, undid several packages, and presently displayed a set-out which was more than enough to tempt the cupidity of the hungry beholders, consisting of an honest-looking loaf of bread, a thundering large tongue, and the fag end of a ham--a bottle of porter, and half a one of brandy. The bill of fare is still as legibly written on my remembrance as on the day that I first saw it--for such things cannot be, and overcome us like the vision of a Christmas feast, without especial longings for an invitation; but we might have sighed and looked, and sighed again, for our longings were useless--our doctor, with his usual politeness, made sundry attempts to insinuate himself upon the hospitable notice of the general, by endeavouring to arrange the panniers in a more classical shape for his better accommodation, for which good service he received bow for bow, with a considerable quantity of thanks into the bargain, which, after he had done his best, (and that was no joke,) still left him the general's debtor on the score of civility. When the doctor had failed, the attempt of any other individual became a forlorn hope, but nothing seems desperate to a British soldier, and two thorough going ones, the commanders of the twelfth and fourteenth light dragoons, (Colonels Ponsonby and Harvey,) whose olfactory nerves, at a distance of some hundred yards, having snuffed up the tainted air, eagerly followed the scent, and came to a dead point before the general and his panniers. But although they had flushed their game they did not succeed in bagging it; for while the general gave them plenty of his own tongue, the deuce take the slice did he offer of the bullock's--and as soon as he had satisfied his appetite he very deliberately bundled up the fragments, and shouted to horse, for the enemy had by this time withdrawn from our front, and joined the main body of the army on the heights of Santarem. We closed up to them, and exchanged a few civil shots--a ceremony which cannot be dispensed with between contending armies on first taking up their ground, for it defines their territorial rights, and prevents future litigation. Day-light next morning showed that, though they had passed a restless night, they were not disposed to extend their walk unless compelled to it, for their position, formidable by nature, had, by their unwearied activity, become more so by art--the whole crest of it being already fenced with an abbatis of felled trees, and the ground turned up in various directions.