To our right, on a high bold hill, which overtops several others near it, and whose side, next the town, is nearly perpendicular, was a mortar battery:--here must the reader stand. About half a mile in his front and a little to his left, stands San Sebastian around its high rock and castle--its walls watered by the Gurumea stream, and relieved in the distance by the wide blue waters of the Bay of Biscay. To the left of the town he will see several picturesque hills, lessening away into the horizon, while to his right he will behold the Bay of Biscay washing the feet of the Pyrenees. Immediately under him, a little to the left, are situated the British batteries and trenches, on a tolerably level ground, and flanked on the other side by several hills, upon the most forward of which stood the chief of the siege, Sir Thomas Graham;[7]--these, for the most part, covered with apple-trees. Behind all this is a beautifully picturesque and hilly country--the Lake of Leso may be seen, like a patch of shining glass, in the midst of foliage and fertile fields--an occasional farm-house shows itself in the valleys and on the brows of the hills--while the background is formed by the gigantic mountains of the Pyreenees. I can only compare the position which I have now pointed out to my readers, to the highest seat of an amphitheatre, at the bottom of which lies the exhibition for his eye:--the batteries,--the river,--the town,--the encamped army,--all were below; and over the whole I could gaze as on the Thames from the towers of Windsor,--the yellow verging sands of Dublin Bay from Killiny Hill,--or Edinboro’ from the Calton. On the night of the 26th, the fort between the town and our lines was carried by assault, and its defenders taken prisoners. This was done by a detachment of infantry, assisted by a few marines and sailors: little work was made about this affair, and the garrison, it is supposed, were not aware of it until daylight. On the morning of the 27th, the signal was made to open the fire upon the town; and I can only remember it by having been awakened out of a sound sleep, at three miles’ distance from San Sebastian, by the tremendous roar of the cannon. The batteries continued to play upon the town almost incessantly, for nearly four days and nights,--the cannon at the front wall, for the purpose of effecting a breach--the mortars at the ramparts and the houses. The French returned the fire from both the Castle and walls with great rapidity--their shells were thrown in every direction; but this vigorous return was soon over; for, on the second day of the cannonade, their guns on the walls were silenced; so they contented themselves with throwing a few shells and an occasional shot from the Castle upon the troops in our trenches, whose well-directed muskets were annoying the enemy whenever they appeared on the walls.