444 The Captain of Rifles. [APRIL, 



curiosity : for I found that they were all regular fleas, and that they were 

 proceeding to eat both me and my horse, without the smallest ceremony. 

 I rushed out of the house, and knocked them down by fistfuls, and never 

 yet could comprehend the cause of their congregating together in such a 

 place." 



If the traveller should have any desire to investigate the phenomenon 

 for himself, we give him the name of this head-quarters of the flea tribe. 

 It was the village of Atalya, at the foot of the Sierra de Gota. 



To the British troops, all seasons seem to have been nearly alike 

 the fiery summer and the frosty winter. The campaign of 1812 com- 

 menced the 8th of January, by the investment of the strong fortress of 

 Ciudad Rodrigo. The whole detail of that extraordinary capture is 

 admirably given. " There was a smartish frost, with some snow on the 

 ground ; and when we arrived opposite the fortress, about mid day, the 

 garrison did not appear to think we were in earnest : for a number of 

 their officers came out, under the shelter of a stone wall, and amused 

 themselves in saluting and bowing to us in ridicule." This was genuinely 

 French, and a proof of the native buffoonery of that facetious people. 

 " But," as the Captain observes, with some natural scorn, " before the 

 day was done, some of them had occasion to wear the laugh on the 

 opposite side of the countenance." 



The proceedings to change the mirth of those gay Messieurs were 

 rapid : " We lay by our arms till dark, when a party of a hundred 

 volunteers from each regiment, under Colonel Colborne of the 52d, 

 stormed and carried the Fort of St. Francisco, after a short, sharp 

 action, in which the whole of its garrison were taken or destroyed. 

 The officer who commanded it was a chattering little fellow, and 

 acknowledged himself to have been one of our saluting friends in the 

 morning. lie kept incessantly repeating a few words of English, which 

 he had picked up in the assault ; and the only ones, I fancy, that were 

 spoken, viz. '* dem eyes and blest eyes," and in demanding the meaning of 

 them, he required that we should also explain, why we stormed a place 

 without besieging it; for, he said, that another officer would have 

 relieved him of his charge at day-light, if We had not relieved him of it 

 sooner." This capture was of great importance. " The enemy cal- 

 culated that it would have kept us at bay for a fortnight or three weeks, 

 whereas its capture the first night enabled us to break ground at once, 

 within breaching distance of the walls of the town." 



The service of this celebrated siege was severe. It fell to the first, 

 third, and fourth divisions, who took it alternately for twenty-four 

 hours. " It continued to be dry, frosty weather, and as we were 

 obliged to ford the Agueda up to the middle, every man carried a pair 

 of iced-breeches into the trenches with him." " January 12. My turn of 

 duty did not arrive till eight in the evening, when I was ordered to take 

 thirty men, with shovels, to dig holes for ourselves, as near as possible 

 to the walls, for the amusement of firing at the embrazures for the rest 

 of the night. The enemy threw frequent fire-balls among us, to see 

 where we were, but as we always lay snug until their blaze was extin- 

 guished, they were not much the wiser, except by finding, from having 

 some one popt off from their guns every instant, that they had got 

 some neighbours whom they would have been glad to get rid of." 



The next turn for duty was of a more passive kind, but curious in 

 its way, and curiously observed on : " I was sent to take the command 



