About three miles from Brussels, situated upon an eminence above the road, we passed the magnificent palace of Lacken. I shuddered as I looked up to its lofty dome, and recollected that Napoleon had made the boast that this very night he would sleep beneath its roof. Uncertain, as we then were, how the day that had risen might terminate, believing as we did that the eventful battle was even now begun which was to decide the fate of Europe, my heart swelled with the proud confidence, that unprepared, unconcentrated, outnumbered as they were; leagued with foreigners who could not be depended upon, and with allies who had been defeated, yet that under every disadvantage British valour would still be triumphant, as it had ever been in every contest, and at every period. Great numbers of wounded stragglers from the field were slowly and painfully wandering along the road, pale and faint from loss of blood, and with their heads, arms, and legs bound up with bloody bandages. We spoke to several of them, but they were all either Belgic or Prussian, and did not understand a word of French. Two of the most severely wounded we took upon our carriage and carried into Malines, where they told the côcher their friends lived. From him we learnt that they had been wounded in the battle yesterday morning. I saw--I am sorry to say--one young English gentleman, who was travelling quite alone in his own carriage, sternly order down two of these unfortunate wounded men from his carriage. The wounded, however, whom we saw, were able to move. In time they would reach a place of safety and shelter; but, if even their sufferings were so great that the very sight of them was painful, what must be the state of those who were left bleeding on the field of the lost battle, deserted by the retreating Prussians, passed by, unpitied and unaided, by the advancing French, and abandoned to perish in sufferings from the bare idea of which humanity recoils![14] The day was unusually sultry; but if we felt the rays of the sun beneath which we journeyed to be so oppressive, what must be the situation of the poor unsheltered wounded, exposed to its fervid blaze in the open field, without even a drop of water to cool their thirst? What must be the sufferings of our own unfortunate men, above all, of those who were not only wounded but prisoners, and at the mercy of the merciless French? Never--never till this moment, had I any conception of the horrors of war! and they have left an impression on my mind which no time can efface. Dreadful, indeed, is the sight of pain and misery we have no power to relieve, but far more dreadful are the horrors imagination pictures of the scene of carnage; the agonies of the wounded and the dying on the field of battle, where even the dead who had fallen by the sword, in the prime of youth and health, are to be envied!--the thought was agony, and yet I could not banish it from my mind.