[142] I do not know these roads, nor the field of Barrosa, but Colonel Churcher, of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, who is well acquainted with them, tells me that the track (five miles inland from the coast) marked on the British staff map of 1810, from Bolonia to Vejer, is no proper road at all, and unfit for wheeled traffic to this day; while the Tarifa-Medina Sidonia road is bad, but can carry vehicles. He tells me that he has actually crossed the Laguna de la Janda at its centre in dry weather, so shallow does it become.
[143] There is a good note on the pros and cons of the two routes in Schepeler, i. 161.
[144] According to Schepeler La Peña had sent an officer out from Tarifa in a fishing-boat on the 1st March, to let the garrison of Cadiz know that he might not keep his time accurately; this messenger was stopped at sea by an English brig, and since he was disguised and had no English pass, he was detained some time as a suspicious character, and only reached Cadiz on the 4th.
[145] It chanced that the battalions in Leval’s division were individually stronger than those in the others—averaging 640 men each, against little over 500 in Villatte’s and Ruffin’s divisions—officers not counted. The brigading was—Ruffin, 1/9th Léger, 1/96th Ligne, 1 and 2/24th Ligne, 2 Provisional battalions of grenadiers, Leval 1 and 2/8th Ligne, 1 and 2/54th Ligne, 1/45th, 1 Provisional battalion of grenadiers. See Appendix at end of volume giving exact strength.
[146] See Graham’s diary, p. 465.
[147] The pinewood is now much shrunken, and covers only the northern part of its original breadth. See an article on the topography of Barrosa by Colonel Verner in the Saturday Review for March 9, 1911.
[148] Cruz Murgeon was commanding the two battalions attached to the British division, Ciudad Real and 4th Walloon Guards.
[149] The rest of the Spanish cavalry being now with La Peña by the Almanza creek.
[150] There is a lively account of the altercation in the memoirs of Browne’s ardent admirer Blakeney (A Boy in the Peninsular War, p. 187).
[151] All this from the graphic description in the autobiography of Blakeney, Browne’s adjutant, p. 188.