swept off their feet, lost their hold of the stirrup-leathers, and were drowned. The bulk of the party, however, reached the opposite bank in safety, though with their ammunition saturated, shortly after dawn, and found, to their relief, that the enemy had hastily withdrawn, leaving only a cavalry piquet of forty men to watch the ford. The Frenchmen retired before the advancing hussars, who pursued at top speed, and after a sharp skirmish captured nearly all of them. On the 1st June the 51st marched to Toro, and on the following day pitched camp on its old ground at Tordesillas. Here Wellington reviewed the 6th and 7th Divisions, and having been joined by the Galicians, was now ready, with his 90,000 men and 100 guns, for the great forward movement, which he set going on the 4th June. King Joseph, unable to obtain the reinforcements which he had called up, thought first of making a stand at Burgos, then withdrew to Pancorbo, and subsequently to Vittoria. Wellington, following swiftly, gave him no breathing space, but pressing on his flanks on all occasions, forced him to give way. Yet the king still regarded the retirement of his army as merely a temporary expedient, and fully believed that as soon as his reinforcements should join him he could turn the tables on his adversary. But he was ignorant alike of Wellington's strength and of the fact that the Allies' base had been transferred from Lisbon to the ports of the Biscay coast. The Ebro was crossed on the 16th June, and on the 20th the 51st, little thinking that the morrow would bring forth a decisive battle, was within a march of Vittoria. Wellington knew that King Joseph intended to take up a position to cover the place, which, with its vast accumulation of war material and stores, besides a convoy of treasure recently arrived from France for the payment of the troops, could not readily be abandoned. And Wellington was confident of a great victory. Vittoria stood--as indeed it stands to-day--compactly built on an eminence, rising up at the end of a plain, or rather basin, some ten miles long by eight miles broad. To the north of the town the river Zadorra flows east and west for some miles, until, on approaching the Morillas range, it takes a sudden bend, almost at right angles, to the south. Then, through the Pass of Pueblas, it finds its way to the Ebro. Parallel to the main course of the Zadorra, and at a distance of some three miles to the north, runs a range of hills; on the opposite bank, and five miles to its south, is another parallel range; while the western edge of the basin consists of the Morillas mountains, pierced at one point--namely, the Pueblas defile.