[185] Great allowance must be made for exaggeration in enumerating the strength of contending armies in those early times, since even in these days of despatches, bulletins, and Moniteurs, it is so extremely difficult to get at the truth. The battle of Waterloo offers a remarkable instance of this, for no two published accounts agree as to the respective numbers of the belligerents, and one which I have read—a French one, of course—swells the force under the Duke of Wellington, on the 18th June, to 170,000 men!!!
[186] The inscription is given at length in Florez España Sagrada.
[187] The source of the Sigila, now called El Rio Grande, is twenty-five English miles from Cartama, following the course of the river.
[188] Certainly not Mr. Carter’s, than which I never saw a more complete caricature. Not one of the rivers is marked correctly upon it, and the towns are scattered about where chance directed.
[189] Hirtius Bell. Hisp. xxviii.
[190] Ibid. xli.
[191] An account of which place has already been given in Chapter I. of this volume.
[192] “Don Ferdinand the Seventh, by the grace of God, king of Castile, Leon, Aragon, the Two Sicilies, Jerusalem, Navarre, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Gallicia, Majorca, Seville, Sardinia, Cordoba, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, the Algarves, Algeciras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, the East and West Indies, islands and terra firma of the Great Ocean; archduke of Austria; duke of Burgundy, Brabant, and Milan; Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, the Tyrol, and Barcelona; Lord of Biscay and Molina, &c."—The seeming wish to avoid prolixity, implied by this “&c.” is admirable.
[193] Clean blood.
[194] At any price.