430 SWABEY DIARY. 
who were retaken were barbarously wounded. We did not get till 
after dark to the Escorial, so that I could not examine it, nor did we 
get anything to eat until 10 o’clock at night. 
[There was but little time allowed to examine the wonders of the 
Escorial, it is on the western face of the Guadarrama mountain, the hasty 
view of things which I was constrained to take was very mortifying, 
but our orders for marching were rather sudden. Our commissariat 
supplies were regularly brought to us by alternate services of two bri- 
gades of muleteers, one of these was Spanish and the other Portuguese. 
The Spaniards were Andalusians, the finest specimens of that superb 
people. The Portuguese had some very handsome fellows among them, 
particularly the capitraz or leader. 
At the Escorial we happened to have the Spaniards and they were 
rather dilatory in starting; though it was not my proper business, 
yet I was heiping the commissary in getting them into motion, and in 
the haste I struck the leader with a small stick by way of quickening 
his movements. The man yowed eternal vengeance and I was several 
times cautioned by some of the others that he meant to have my life, 
but the affair passed over without any consequences. ‘These Spanish 
muleteers who, from their erratic habits and gipsy lives, are not at any 
time remarkably amenable to the laws of civilized life, were still less 
likely to be so then. 
As we approached Lord Wellington I anticipated speedy reunion 
with my own proper comrades. On the march from Madrid we over- 
took five of them who had been wounded, made prisoners by the French, 
and left there after the affair at Majalahonda; one of these never after 
quitted me till he and I left the service. The troop on that occasion 
had been pushed forward with a brigade of Portuguese cavalry who ran 
away and left it to its fate in the hour ofneed. My man had five 
sabre stabs, yet he lived to serve me with great fidelity and regard, 
and after the war perpetrated matrimony and set up a respectable 
shop, I never heard in what line, in his native town of Bolton in 
Lancashire. He was a good fellow, very fair, fresh and good looking. 
His name was Marsland, which I should not have chronicled had 
it not occurred to me that the Portuguese girls who had a great 
affection for him always called him “ mas lindo ”’ which being interpreted 
means “more handsome.” ‘This poor fellow would have infallibly 
lost his life had I not put him on one of my horses, for he was 
but a spectre at the time I overtook him. Circumstances of this 
kind level all conventional distinctions of rank, and I believe few 
stronger attachments exist than between this poor fellow and myself]. 
5th November.—Marched at day-light. The palace of the Escorial is 
not worth seeing, except for the royal sepulchre. It is composed 
entirely of marble, as are the coffins, one of which is now ready for 
Ferdinand with his name inscribed. The body of Charles V. is said 
to be here, though some say at Toledo. The richness and beauty of the 
pasturage at the Escorial at once stamps it as the birthplace of 
the Merino flocks now gone with their miserable masters. To-day in 
