SWABEY DIARY. 95 
tivated spots are merely where these shrubs are burnt and cleared 
away. A Portuguese witha grin of satisfaction pointed to where some 
Frenchmen had been murdered by them. 
A non-commissioned officer went on the same duty in which I was 
employed and left a man in charge of a wain, who was foolish enough 
to follow it by a road he did not know, and two countrymen with muskets 
took it from him. I found no disposition in the people to use violence, 
which they might have done repeatedly, as I always went to them alone 
in the first instance and unarmed. 
17th October.—On duty this day. Our duty days are not the event- 
ful ones, as we are generally on those occasions confined to quarters 
instead of pursuing forage, &c. 
Letters received from “England, but my friends have I suppose long 
before this forgotten me. Dyneley writes from Lisbon, and mentions 
the death of Gunner Bartleman. The system which prevails in this 
army of hurrying the sick to the rear without suitable means of trans- 
port or medical attention is an evil that humanity should find a remedy 
for. The 2nd Captain himself mentions that he fears his constitution 
is unequal to the climate, and his surgeon presses this oping very 
strongly. ; 
18th Owiline Oe ain reromanes s " oop Stow ee mar nched 
through Val de Lobo to-day for the Alemtejo, but made a halt instead, 
and we had a merry meeting. Lost a horse of a division that came 
from Castel Branco. 
L9th October.—Got up ings deylignt to see STStbene of MonaraTe 
to my advice, which was given from actual knowledge, he tr ied to march 
to Pedrogiio by Meimoa, but failed on the hill between the latter and 
Val de Lobo. Artillery on the route from Sabugal, or Guarda, should 
march by Mineresa and make that their halting place, instead of Val 
de Lobo, but to go to Castel Branco from this front, a route may be 
given by Capinha, Atalaya, Alkains or Mineresa, Pedrogito. When on 
the Pena Macor side of Sabugal, by Castaneros or St. Estavao. After 
conducting Lefebure to Miner esa, | returned and started after an early 
dinner to Salgueiro, but not arriving till after dark I lost my way, got 
into the mountains, and my horse stopped just in time to save my life 
on the edge of a precipice, on which a flat road terminated. I then 
made for a light and found some mountaineers encamped round a fire, 
but they were very cool and refused to act as guides till I got off and 
loaded one of my pistols, when I found them reasonable and civil. 
Wrote No. 5 to Henry and a letter to Y. Walcott. Beate 
20th October.—The troop marched into Quinlai, I having previously 
appointed the head-quarters of its cantonments within a quarter of a 
mile at Salgueiro. very officer but myself were decently accom- 
modated, but I am in a priest’s house of the lowest order, and he seems 
disposed to honour me with too much company. ‘lhe old bull-dog in 
Harding’s division died this day. The Quartermaster-Sergeant re- 
turned from Castel Bom with a seasonable supply of the needful. Much 
forage in this village, good stabling, but bad quarters. 
21st October _—Removing quarters to Salguciro, where we have the 
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