The city of Santarem consists of several narrow, dark, and ill-paved streets, the houses paltry looking, and badly built, having heavy sombre windows, grated with massive iron bars, like those of their prisons. Balconies, with painted railings thrown across, relieve in some degree this melancholy aspect, but the dingy hues, added to the meanness of the streets, give the place an air of poverty and wretchedness. On our reaching the house where we were billetted, the landlord, with his worse or scolding half, ushered us into a comfortless apartment; where, in a dark corner, stood a miserable bed, which seemed to have had other occupants than human beings. On our exclaiming against this uninviting dormitory, the old crone, grumbling inwardly, conducted us to another chamber, where the domestics, and different members of the family, were busily engaged in a deadly war against the numerous population of each others heads. Starting from their interesting employment, they left us quietly in possession of the room where lay two mattresses on the unswept floor; on these we were to repose, not without the prospect of a sharp attack from the fugitives of that army with which our Portuguese hosts had been so hotly engaged. Yet, in spite of circumstances of this kind, the life of a soldier on service, taking all things together, is the finest in the world. While he moves on, a roving adventurer, care, pain and trouble are banished from his mind; and though he is at times on short commons, and often driven to his wits' end, he but seldom repines. His sufferings give him a greater relish for the enjoyment of any good things that may be forthcoming, or any windfall that Fortune may throw in his way. Once fairly on the road, it is astonishing how rapidly the hours glide away. The formalities of parade or drill marching are now at an end, and every one indulges in that mode of perambulation which best suits him. When the commanding officer is not one of your strict disciplinarians, the regimental juniors congregate together in groups, some in front, some in rear; while the men, though keeping their sections, travel in open ranks, filling the entire space of ground over which the route extends.