63As the troops approached Corunna, many an anxious look was directed towards the harbour. Nothing was to be discovered but the wide waste of water. The painful truth became evident, that contrary winds had detained at Vigo the fleet on board of whose ships the forces sought to embark; so that after one of the severest and most prolonged tests to which human endurance could be submitted, and the consuming exertions, pushed on through storm and tempest, of many wearisome days, the whole was rendered nugatory by an event over which human foresight or power had no control; and the point to which they had fought their way, instead of presenting the means of effectual retreat, became a cul de sac, or place leading nowhere. The men were immediately put into quarters, and their leader awaited the progress of events. Three divisions occupied the town and suburbs; the reserve was posted with its left at the village of El Burgo, and its right on the road of St. Jago de Compostella. For twelve days these hardy soldiers had covered the retreat, during which time they had traversed eighty miles of road in two marches, passed several nights under arms in the snow of the mountains, were seven times engaged with the enemy; and they now assembled at the outposts, having fewer men missing from the ranks than any other division of the army. The bridge of El Burgo was immediately destroyed, and an engineer was sent to blow up that of Combria, situated a few miles up the Mero river. This officer was mortified at the former failures, and so anxious to perform his duty in an effectual manner, that he remained too near the mine, and was killed by the explosion. This was followed by the destruction of an immense quantity of combustible material. Three miles from the town four thousand barrels of powder were piled in a magazine built on a hill; a smaller quantity collected in another storehouse was at some distance from the first: to prevent these magazines from falling into the hands of the enemy, they were both fired on the 13th. The inferior one blew up with a terrible noise, and shook the houses in the town; but when the train reached the great store, there ensued a crash like the bursting forth of a volcano—the earth trembled for miles, the rocks were torn from their bases, and the agitated waters rolled the vessels as in a storm. A vast column of smoke and dust, shooting out fiery sparks from its sides, arose perpendicularly and slowly to a great height, and then a shower of stones, and fragments of all kinds bursting out of it with a roaring sound, killed several persons who remained too near the spot. A stillness, interrupted only by the lashing of the waves on the shore, succeeded, and the business of the war went on.