"Slowly and wearily we toiled on by the banks of the Algador, and again crossing the mountains, near a lake into which it flows, reached Guadalerza, all but overcome by heat and fatigue. I remember that near the lake (which was literally alive with adders and small snakes) there stood a solitary convent; and as we passed its walls, the fair recluses waved their handkerchiefs from their narrow gratings, with many a cry of 'viva los Inglesos,' so long as we were within hearing. From Guadalerza, fortunately, the inhabitants had not fled, and they answered promptly and readily the piteous cries of our sufferers for water, which was supplied to them in crocks and jars, that were filled and emptied as if to quell a conflagration. "The village of Fuentelfresno, which overlooks those sands from whence the Guadiana is supposed to spring, was our next halting-place, but its miserable and impoverished inhabitants were totally unable to afford us rations of any kind; and there several of the wounded, whose sabre-cuts or gun-shot wounds, by the jolting of the waggons, had broken out afresh, expired. There were two officers and four soldiers, whom we buried in one hole (alas! I cannot call it a grave), under an old orange-tree, near the Jarama. Finding that it was useless to halt in a place where we were in danger of starving, we went further on, and bivouacked nine miles beyond it. near a little runnel of spring water, on a fine green plain. The soundest sleep that ever closed my eyes was enjoyed there, on that soft grassy sward, beside my horse's heels; but I cannot omit to mention the terror by which it was broken. "My charger snorted, reared, and tried madly to break away from the peg to which I had picketted him. "I raised myself on inv elbow, and looked around me. The waggons were all closely drawn up side by side: the escort were sleeping among their piled arms, and, muffled in their great-coats, our four sentinels stood motionless, about three hundred yards distant. The moonlight was clear and beautiful. Suddenly something reared its head close beside me; I shrunk under my blanket, and, lo! a frightful snake, nearly fifteen feet long, passed over the whole bivouac, hissing and gliding; but, fortunately, without biting any one, it disappeared into a little thicket of laurels and underwood which grew near us. "'Och, this Spain!--snakes, too--divil mend it!' I heard Crogan muttering in his sleep; 'more ov it yet! and I have never had a raal good potato down my throat since I came into it.'