In consequence of the rapid movements of the division, the baggage had not come up, and as it rained heavy, we were rather uncomfortably situated. Next day we moved forward a short distance, through dreadfully dirty roads, but the enemy having retired into an intrenched camp before Bayonne, we halted and again encamped, when the baggage joined us. Some of them had been nearly taken by the French during the preceding night; our division being farther advanced than the enemy’s right, they were uncertain where to direct their march. The corporal of our band, (a Glasgow lad,) coming up that evening with the baggage, observed a poor woman of the 88th regiment endeavouring to raise the ass that carried her necessaries, out of a hole it had fallen into. As it was getting dark, and the baggage had all passed, the poor woman was in a miserable plight, and begged of him to assist her. She could not have applied to one more willing to succour a person in distress, and setting to work, after a good deal of trouble, he got the ‘borico’ on its feet, but so much time had elapsed that the baggage was now out of hearing, and they were uncertain which way to proceed. After travelling some distance, they heard bugles sounding to their left, and they kept on in that direction, until they found themselves in the midst of some regiments of Spaniards, but who could give them no information respecting the position of our division. Pointing, however, to where they suspected them to be, our travellers continued their route in that direction; but the poor ass was so fatigued, that it lay down every now and then under its burden. Assisting it on in the best way they could, the road they had taken brought them between two hills, on which they perceived the fires of different encampments. When they arrived opposite them, they suspected from their relative position, that one must be the enemy, but which of them they knew not; they were now in a dilemma, and to add to it, the poor ass tumbled headlong into a stream that ran through the valley, and their united efforts could not raise it. P——’s spirit of knight-errantry was now fast evaporating, and he was almost tempted to swear that he would never again be caught succouring distressed damsels, when the woman, whose invention was sharpened by the exigency of her situation, proposed that she would creep softly up the hill, until she came within hearing of the soldiers in the camp, and from their language she would be able to learn whether they were our troops or the enemy. She then ascended the hill that she considered the most likely to be the encampment of our troops, leaving poor P—— sitting beside the half-drowned animal, to whose name he was inclined to think the transactions of that night gave him some claim. After waiting a considerable time in anxious suspense, he was beginning to forget his selfish considerations, in concern for the safety of the poor woman who had thus ventured on a forlorn hope, when his