390 Scenes in Spain. 



the caf&, where numbers of officers would flock from the same mo- 

 tives. Here it soon became the custom to remain till a late hour, 

 and I have known officers pass the whole night in the cafe rather 

 than quit it for their own desolate quarters. Unfortunately, too, the 

 congregation of so many young men under such circumstances pro- 

 duced excesses that brought disgrace on the legion, and punishment 

 and ruin on the individuals concerned. 



Such a state of things produced the results that might have been 

 expected. In less than three weeks after our arrival a pestilential fever 

 broke out among the English, -attended with peculiar and dreadful 

 symptoms. Sweeping over the legion like a destroying angel, it 

 carried off officers and men with fearful rapidity. The city was con- 

 tinually traversed by funeral parties in every direction, coffins could 

 not be made quickly enough, and soon were dispensed with alto- 

 gether. Whole regiments were destroyed by the pestilence, and 

 the strongest were unable to muster more than a fifth part of their 

 original number. Vittoria resembled a huge charnel-house, a perfect 

 city of the plague. 



Meanwhile the disease was not confined to the men, the officers 

 were attacked in even greater proportion. Many of the latter were 

 young men of good family and prospects, and had joined the expe- 

 dition, not from any expectation of gain, but from a chivalrous 

 feeling, desirous of attaining distinction in the cause. Others, brought 

 up in the bosom of their family, and accustomed to the attention and 

 solicitude of a home, were totally unable to withstand the bitter 

 neglect and misery of their present situation. Their minds en- 

 feebled by disease, they recalled to memory the comforts and luxury 

 of the homes they had abandoned, and died in all the bitterness of 

 despair, cursing the hour they had left their country. 



At this time there appeared every prospect of the legions dying 

 a natural death by remaining at Vittoria, and with a view to stop 

 the mortality we were soon afterwards removed into cantonments 

 among the adjoining villages. Here, as we were no better off with 

 respect to food, clothing, &c., no improvement took place in the 

 health of the troops; indeed, for some time, the fever raged with 

 still greater violence than when in the city. 



At Trevino, where part of us were stationed, we were employed 

 for some time in fortifying the hill at the foot of which the town is 

 situated. Trevino itself is small, but of some importance from its 

 situation, and capable of being made a place of some strength ; it 

 consists of two or three straggling streets, running parallel with each 

 other, round the base of the hill, and confined on the other side by 

 the river, over which there is a neat stone bridge. From the time 

 it was taken by Zumalacarreguy, about a year previously, it had 

 been deserted by the major part of the inhabitants, and it was in a 

 state of dilapidation and decay, from which it is probable it never 

 will again recover. The neighbourhood was infested by strong par* 

 ties of the enemy, and the expectation of an attack, and indeed the 

 skirmishes that daily took place between them and our own forage 

 parties, served to animate our minds, and break the dull monotony 

 of our situation. 



