The allies encamped on the Spanish side of the river, and hostilities ceased for a time. The Gordon Highlanders occupied the French village of Cambo, in the department of the Lower Pyrenees, and close to the river Nive. Its inhabitants had all fled on the advance of the allies, crossing to the left bank with the retiring forces of their emperor. The camps and bivouacs of the French lay close to those of their enemies, divided only by the narrow space of the river, and the sentries on each side were but ten or fifteen yards distant from each other. From dawn until sunset the French Serjeants were heard continually drilling their squads of conscripts, twenty thousand of whom Buonaparte had dragged away from their quiet homes, and marched to the Nive to be drilled in the view of that veteran army, which had driven the flower of the soldiers of France from one end of the Peninsula to the other. Day after day the French non-commissioned officers were seen, cane in hand, getting the poor peasant-boys into some state of discipline. The British used to crowd to the river’s edge to view the novel sight of French regiments on their parade, and beholding them go through the _maniement des armes_, or manual exercise, with all the minuteness common to the French,—the adjutant giving, after every word of command, the continual cautions, "_un, deux, trois, quatre!_" At one part where the river was very narrow, a soldier of the 3rd Buffs, when on sentry one day, found himself immediately opposite to a French grenadier, placed on the same duty on the left bank of the river. The Gaul was a rough-whiskered fellow, wearing the usual service-like great coat, red epaulets, and high fur cap of the Imperial Guard. The sentinels had been staring steadily at each other for some time, and the Buff who had begun to imagine the face of the Frenchman was not unknown to him, was considerably astonished to hear him ask the question,— "Well, Tom, old fellow! How are the dirty old Buffs coming on?" This rogue was a comrade of his own, who, a year or two before had deserted to the enemy, and had the cool impudence to hail his old friend thus from the French side of the Nive.