cold, entered a respectable house, and sitting down by the fire, asked the people to get him some wine and something to eat. Some ran to execute his orders, while the rest watched him with terror and aversion. A little child being present, he took it up on his knee and fondled it, and (as the people refused to be paid for the refreshment he had asked for) he put some money into its hand. On his setting it down a general feeling of relief seemed to pervade the bystanders, who then told him that Soult and his emissaries had informed the peasantry that the English were barbarians, who would carry off and murder their children. On their march after crossing the Gave d’Oleron, they came in sight of a body of the enemy’s infantry moving parallel to them, and apparently making the utmost haste to escape from them. It was at first proposed to fall on them; but some wiser man having observed that their supports were probably not far off, they were allowed to depart in peace. The two Battalions bivouacked on a bleak exposed common not far from Orion. The next day they passed through Orion; and on arrival there learned that it had been occupied as Soult’s head-quarters the night before. The wisdom of not attacking the retreating column the day before was now apparent; for the French being in force at Orion, would have moved out to their succour; and possibly might have overpowered, and certainly would have harassed, the soldiers weary with a long march and the passage of two fords. Pursuing their march they arrived near Orthez and soon heard a loud explosion, which proved to be the destruction by the enemy of the stone bridge over the Gave de Pau. The two Battalions advanced to some high ground looking over the town of Orthez. Some troops of the enemy were observed filing through the town; and some guns being brought up opened on them, which induced them to quicken their pace, and their officers were seen riding up and down and urging them on. They also brought forward some guns which returned the cannonade without, however, doing much harm. The Riflemen bivouacked on this height.