*MERIDA.* "All was prepared—the fire, the sword, the men To wield them in their terrible array. The army, like a lion from his den, March’d forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay— A human hydra, issuing from its pen To breathe destruction on its winding way, Whose heads were heroes, which, cut off in vain, Immediately in others grew again." _Don Juan_, canto viii. Towards morning a storm of rain and wind arose, and none but those who have experienced it can imagine the manifold miseries of a tentless bivouac on such an occasion. Howling dismally among the trees of the cork wood, the cold wind swept over the desert plain, and the sleety rain descended in torrents, drenching the unsheltered soldiers to the skin, and extinguishing their fires; as the cold increased towards day-break, they cursed the order which had halted them in so exposed and dreary a spot, to which even the cork wood or ruins of La Nava would have been preferable. It became fair about day-break, and Ronald, unable to remain longer on the ground, where the water was actually forming in puddles around him, arose; and so wet was the soil, that the impression made by the weight of his body was almost immediately filled with water. His limbs were so benumbed and stiff that he could scarcely move, and his clothing was drenched through the blanket and cloak in which he had been muffled up. The soldiers, worn out with the fatigues of the preceding day, lay still until the last moment for rest, and slept in ranks close together for warmth, with their muskets under their great coats, and their knapsacks beneath their heads for pillows. Here and there, apart from the rest, one might be seen with his miserable wife and two or three little children huddled close beside him, all nestling under the solitary blanket, (provided by government for each man,) from which the steam arose in a column, owing to the heat of their bodies acting on the rain-soaked covering. The distant sentinels and cavalry videttes were standing motionless and silent at intervals along the plain, where banks of white mist were rolling slowly in the yellow lustre of the morning sun, the rising light of which was gilding the summits of the mountains above Albuquerque. All was misery and unutterable discomfort. Ronald wrung the water from the feathers of his bonnet, and kept himself in motion to dry his regimentals and underclothing, which stuck close to his skin. He now perceived that, in addition to his blanket, Evan had during the storm cast over him his own great-coat, standing out the misery of the night in his thin uniform. When he met Ronald’s eye, he was shivering with cold, exhaustion, and want of sleep.