I was on my route from Tafalia, in company with a brother officer; and then returning to the front. We slept one night in a village within a mile and a half of Pamplona, as one of our halting places; and next day in passing the town we saw a considerable body of Spanish troops--principally cavalry--drawn up; and, on enquiry, learnt that they were waiting to receive the French garrison, which were then about to march out as prisoners of war. In a few moments the French appeared and were placed in column to proceed thus on their route to Tolosa. We marched with them all that day, conversing with the governor--a gentlemanly and pleasant officer--who expressed his fears of ill treatment for his men, regretting that it was not by the English that they were escorted. It came on to snow severely about four o’clock in the afternoon, and promised a most miserable night to the poor prisoners, as they had a full league farther to go before they could get under cover; and they were far less able to bear fatigue than the Spaniards who escorted them; for they had been half starved in the garrison--provisions having been exhausted:--the governor declared that they had all been subsisting for twelve days previous to surrender, on four ounces _of horse flesh_ per day to each man, and that the horses killed for that purpose were the private property of the officers. We rode along with the column until dark, when we left it to take up our quarter for the night at a farm-house, which we saw on the left, in a valley, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile. Here we passed the time pleasantly, having met with hospitable people who accommodated us with what we wished. My friend had purchased a brace of woodcocks in the village where we slept on the previous night, and my servant was busy cooking them: while we sat at the fire along with the farmer, his wife and three children, enjoying ourselves with a glass of good Tafalia wine, about seven o’clock, a youth who was in the employ of the farmer, lifted the latch, and entered, covered with snow; his face was as white as his clothes, and he evidently laboured under extreme terror. His master demanded what was the matter--in the Basque language, which we did not understand, and which is the language of the country people in that quarter: the boy, in the most apparently incoherent manner, spoke for several minutes, shuddering as he spoke. We supposed that he had encountered a mountain ghost in full costume; but the master explained in Spanish the cause of his servant’s fright to be nothing etherial. He said that the boy had been returning from a neighbouring farmer’s house, and was crossing the main road in the snow, when he stumbled over something, and fell; it was quite dark; at first he thought it was a _Borachio_,[10] or a sack of corn that thus tripped him, and put down his hand to it. He felt it warm, and on closer examination found it to be a dead body quite naked, and