At the end of a long and most fatiguing journey, we got into Abrantes on the 7th, where we found considerable delay in obtaining quarters. After waiting in the streets for more than two hours, under a burning sun, and starving with hunger, we were supplied with billets upon houses totally destitute of furniture, which, together with the wretched state of the inhabitants, formed but an indifferent commencement to our campaign. We halted at this town during the ensuing day, and employed our time in exploring the various bearings of the place. The houses are badly built and old-fashioned, and, on the whole, Abrantes seems altogether destitute of those comforts which, from its aspect at first sight, one might be led to expect. We resumed our march on the 9th, and, crossing the Tagus by a long wooden bridge, passed on without interruption, save by that which the forests on our way presented. The road was in general sandy, and full of stones, and as the sun got up we found the heat and dust intolerable; owing to these impediments, we did not reach our destined quarters until 12 o'clock, when we entered Garvao, 18 miles from Abrantes. The French, whose progress on the north of the Tagus was marked with cruelty and desolation, did not, fortunately for the people in the Alentejo, extend their wanderings in that direction; this place, therefore, as well as many others, had escaped the ravages of an enemy so destructive, and been hitherto exempt from the miseries inflicted on a country that has become the seat of war. Our detachment started from Garvao at 1 o'clock in the morning of the 10th, an early hour it must be admitted, but at this season the intensity of the heat precludes the possibility of marching at any other; we found it, besides, far more agreeable to make a moonlight journey when the air was cool and refreshing. We were in Gafete on the 9th, where I was lodged at the domicile of Louis Corteja, a wealthy farmer. The family of the worthy Don consisted of his wife, a plodding garrulous dame, and two lively daughters, together with a brace of female attendants. Serenissima Rosa, the eldest, was very pretty, but not gifted with the nimble-tongued accomplishments of her mother, on the contrary, she was rather stupid and forbidding in her manners; the other sister, Maria, although scantily furnished with beauty of form or feature, was, nevertheless, pleasing and agreeable; nature thus keeping an equal balance between them. On a hard mattress, upon a still harder floor, (both of which had long been occupied by a colony of bugs,) I endured a sleepless night, and looked out impatiently for the return of day. We were woefully tormented in this manner on our route; for the French, wherever they appeared, carried millions of the noxious vermin in their train, leaving a bountiful legacy to their successors, and thus increasing tenfold the dirt and misery of their habitations.