128 SWABEY DIARY. 
50th January.—The frost gone and a most disagreeable wet day ; in 
this country the most unpleasant of all calamities. Received a route 
for Caria there to wait for orders as to where we are to be cantoned. 
The Agueda is so swelled that the orderly bringing the order was 
obliged to swim the river. 
dist January.—Marched at 9 o’clock to Aldea de Ponte and 
arrived there late, it having rained in torrents the whole time; by 
keeping a fire in the quarters all night we were enabled to get our 
things tolerably dry. The cause of our moving from Quadrazaes to 
Cazilhas de Flores appears to have been that Marmont had shewn 
himself in front of Salamanca with 200 cars laden with supplies for 
Ciudad Rodrigo, so ignorant was he of the real state of affairs, and 
even of the fall of that place. 
Ist February.—Marched late into Sabugal. A terribly wet day, the 
waters were so much out that at Alfyates the river was so rapid that it 
carried one of our men away, horse and all, and it was not without con- 
siderable exertion that he was saved by catching hold of him from the 
bank when he was nearly exhausted and had been carried a great way 
down the stream. 
We found Sir Stapleton Cotton! and staff at Sabugal, and understood 
that we were removed from the 7th division and attached to General 
Lie Marchant’s brigade of the Ist division of cavalry 
2nd February.—Rain all day, we found we were intended to a treh 
to Gonzalo, halting a night at Asingias, at which place however, find- 
ing Captain Bull’s troop halted, and unable to pass the river to 
Belmonte we proceeded to Caria, leaving our guns at Valverde; the 
guard over them passed the whole night in the open with incessant 
rain. Last night Gunner Smalley, bearing orders to Captain Bull, 
gallantly swam the river Caria. though it was running with inconceiv- 
able rapidity, and not finding him as expected at Belmonte, re-crossed 
to Asingias in the same manner : 
rd February.—Rained all day, we were cmpleed a In sear chines the 
very boxes of the inhabitants for eee very little of which could be 
found 2) ee 
4th February. a ee oe ceva Waste to Mr. Walcott.’ z 
5th KFebruary.—tIncessant rain. Fortunately our houses are very 
good, Caria being on the whole the best built and most opulent town 
for its size I have seen in Portugal. It has been so often occupied by 
cavalry that little forage is left in it at this season of the year 
6th February.—Received orders to march to Belmonte instead ‘of 
Gonzalo, and the rain having abated, I was able to pass the Caria, and 
got there ready to arrange for the arrival of the troop. J went to my 
own billet where the Prior and the ladies very courteously gave me 
wine and pork chops for supper, having killed a pig in the morning. 
It should be noticed that these Portuguese ladies, for the sake of warmth, 
pass all their time in a smoky kitchen without a chimney, the fire-place 
1 Afterward Field-Marshal Viscount Combermere. 
2Mr. Walcott was a country gentleman living near Christchurch. From his constant and 
favourite expression, ‘‘ Don’t ye know,” he was so called among the officers there.—F.4.W, 
