SWABEY DIARY. 421 
building with suites of apartments opening one into another, the floors 
are brick, the walls and ceilings are profusely painted and gilded in 
the Portuguese and Spanish fashion, the furniture so far as chairs and 
tables are concerned is generally bad, but the magnificent scarlet 
curtains, the varied damasks, and the beautiful paintings arranged 
according to their artists give the whole a style of very appropriate 
grandeur. Itis to be lamented that there is no one in the palace to 
give a description of the paintings which would then be a greater treat 
to an admirer of art. The Spaniards in their magnificence are very 
fond of clocks, of which there are some very costly specimens here. 
The gardens, or more properly the pleasure grounds, contain a sump- 
tuous display of statues, fountains, avenues, and other evidences of 
questionable taste; still, these are so blended with the fine timber 
which skirts the river each way for some miles, and some occasional 
good bits of architecture that the effect on the whole is very picturesque 
and affords the greatest delight to the eye of an Englishman, who 
can here trace the sylvan beauties of his native land without which 
no scene in nature can entirely please, though it may excite admiration. 
By means of a simple fall, the waters of the Tagus have been brought 
into the grounds, but as the stream only runs through the edges of the 
wood, it adds little to the beauty of the place, though millions have 
been expended on this improvement. The bridges over the Jarama 
which runs between Aranjuez and Madrid were destroyed by Hl Rey 
José when he left Madrid to prevent our pursuit. 
After riding the ten leagues I got back to Villa Tobas to dinner. I 
had resolved to desert the cause of the south, and my intention was to 
procure money to enable me to undertake the journey, but in this I 
could not succeed. 
14th October.—Received a letter from the North, the capture of 
Burgos still seems dubious. 
L5th October.—We lost this week one Bombardier and three gunners 
who died from a fever brought on by sheer weakness. I read the 
funeral service over some of them, and was surprised to see with what 
little reverence or awe the superstitious, ignorant Spaniards witnessed 
the ceremony, and with what little decency they behaved. 
I dined again with Sir William Erskine who was even more polite 
than before. 
[Not long before we began our retreat from Madrid in 1812, the 
Captain, the 2nd Captain and the senior Lieutenant of the troop were 
sent to the rear sick, where they were soon followed by the surgeon ill 
with typhus fever. Sir William Erskine the general officer of cavalry 
under whose orders we were went to the rear soon afterward and neither 
he nor my commanding officer ever returned. I was therefore though a 
very young officer left in command of the troop, with a younger subal- 
tern under me.” Nearly half the men were in hospital with typhus 
1 He probably wished to join his own troop, which was with Lord Wellington’s force before 
Burgos.—F.4.W. 
~ 2 Lieutenant Brereton. 
57 
