For several days after the storming, soldiers and sailors were to be seen strutting about the roads outside the town in masquerade--some in silks and satins--others as pedlars selling their plunder to the people who came from Passages to see the wreck of San Sebastian: the roads were like a fair; and the humour of the Portuguese and our sailors glossed over the horrors of the time with strange mirth. In general the sailors were habited in old fashioned silk gowns and petticoats, put on over their tarry jackets; while on a battered sail-cloth hat, Jack sported a Spanish veil. The garrison in the Castle held out a week, but at the end of that time surrendered: the number marched out was, I believe, 1,800. From the fall of San Sebastian, until the invasion of France in the month following, nothing particular took place, and the army reposed in the luxuriant valleys of Navarre. Here both officers and men enjoyed themselves in quiet: they had plenty of provision--plenty of forage for the horses--a profusion of fruit and excellent wine--the weather was delightful, and the country the most picturesque on earth. However, little more than a month passed over before the army crossed the Bidassoa, driving the enemy from their frontier, and our successful commander established his head quarters at _St. Jean de Luz_. I had been quartered at Tafalia from a week after the siege until the fall of Pamplona, and that being the only fortress to impede the operations of the army--from its being occupied by the enemy--it is not unlikely that its fall was the signal for the invasion of France. On the surrender of Pamplona, the French garrison were permitted to march out, with closed knapsacks. They were escorted by the Spaniards through Tolosa to Passages for embarkation as prisoners of war; and, unhappily for many of them, they found the difference between Spanish and British foes on that miserable occasion. It was cold weather when the garrison marched out: they were disarmed of course. The French governor and several of the superior officers were allowed to ride their own horses, and suffered nothing more severe than mere insults from their escort, the Spaniards. Far different was it with the men: every species of brutality was practised against them short of open massacre. The road from Pamplona to Tolosa is one of the widest and best in Spain, not very inferior to any in Great Britain: it takes a course through valleys along the sides of an immense mountain for a considerable way, and, frequently, over patches of fertile country--the whole abounding in foliage. Occasional villages present themselves at a few miles distant from each other, and now and then a farm house or two opens upon the traveller’s view in some wild spot.