finding all his efforts for peace repulsed, determined to crush the invader. On the 29th of July the march inland, away from the cool breezes off the sea, was commenced under the burning sky of an African summer; the soldiers were soon maddened by hunger, thirst, and heat, and by the incessant attacks of the Moorish skirmishers; and the army was dispirited before a battle took place. These miseries continued for five days, until August 3rd, when the Portuguese had some success in a skirmish, and Dom Sebastian took up what he considered a strong position near the little town of Alcacer Quibir, or more correctly El-Kasr el-Kebīr. The position was from a military point of view utterly indefensible, for both flanks were exposed, and Maulā Abd-el-Melik, who was now face to face with the Christians with an army of forty thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry saw that the Portuguese king was lost. At daybreak on the 4th of August, 1578, the battle commenced with some brilliant charges on the part of the Portuguese, but in a short time the wings of the Moorish army, which were entirely composed of cavalry, overlapped the small Christian army, and for four hours the army of Dom Sebastian was compelled to defend itself. The result of the continued charges of the Moorish cavalry could not be doubtful, and at the end of the four hours’ fighting nearly the whole of the Christian army was cut to pieces. The Moorish monarch, Maulā Abd-el-Melik, had been in the agonies of death when the battle commenced, and died in his litter from the exertion of trying to mount his horse at the first charge of the Christians, placing his finger on his lip as a sign that his death should be kept secret for a time. His rival, Maulā Ahmed, was drowned in crossing the Wed or Wady M’Hassan, and his brother, Ahmed ibn Mohammed, was declared king by the soldiers at the conclusion of the battle. The slaughter was terrible; more than nine thousand Christians were killed, and all the rest, except about fifty, were taken prisoners. Sir Thomas Stukeley, after gallantly defending himself, was killed, with many of the chief Portuguese nobles and prelates, including Dom Jaymé, brother of the sixth Duke of Braganza, the Duke of Aveiro, who had commanded the cavalry, and the bishops of Coimbra and Oporto, while among the prisoners were the Duke of Barcellos and Dom Duarte de Menezes, Quarter-Master-General of the army.