Bonaparte advanced with his main body, a hundred thousand strong, by four routes, towards Benevente, along roads buried deep in snow, through which, by force or bribery, he had thousands of Spanish labourers cutting pathways, for the winter had set in with unusual rigour; but the division of Sir John Hope, whose cavalry and artillery suffered much by the loss of their horses, which died fast of the glanders, entered the town before him on the 24th of the same month. The sufferings of the army during this retreat towards the north-west angle of Spain were very great, and the regimental officers were compelled to carry their personal effects--at least such as were absolutely necessary--about with them in bags or knapsacks, for the baggage animals (carts there were none) died, or were lost by the way. All bandsmen, batsmen, servants, and grooms were very properly turned into the ranks, as Moore had resolved that there should be available _as many muskets as possible_. Seven officers had but one tent, and every mounted officer had to groom and rub down his own horse: arrangements whereat the grumbling, from the staff particularly, was deep if not loud. The rations were also diminished: but of all the corps none suffered less than the Highland regiments. After marching hundreds of miles through snow, rain, and storm, by roads unchanged since the Moors traversed them, the 79th and 92nd particularly had never a man on the sick-list, a fact attributable either to their native hardihood or the serviceable nature of their costume. Snow was falling heavily as Hope's division entered the crumbling mud walls of the small and miserable town of Benevente in Leon, where the officers and men, irrespective of rank, crowded for shelter into the houses and the castle, while a line of cavalry picquets with a few pieces of artillery, held the bridge of Orviegro. Weary and foot-sore, Quentin, after cleaning his musket, flung himself on a heap of straw in one of the rooms of that wonderful old castle which is the residence of the Dukes of Ossuna, and which Southey, in his letters from Spain, describes as one of the finest monuments of the age of Spanish chivalry, adding, "we have nothing in England which approaches to its grandeur. Berkeley, Raby, even Warwick and Windsor, are poor fabrics in comparison." Projecting from a wall, a gigantic arm and hand in armour sustain a magnificent lamp to light the grand staircase of the castle.