The treasure-party, finding the heat made the men ill, now start at five o’clock; still I am much better than I was when I started, and when on the march I go quicker than the treasure, as I have easy loads. Henry leads the first mule on horseback, the soldier walking by the side to keep everything right, whilst I bring up the rear myself, always on the watch, and thus have but few accidents. One of my mules is a nice fat round fellow, who eats so much they cannot keep the baggage from rolling off him without holding it on; another mule had a troublesome propensity of lying down with the baggage. My Tyrolese only speaks German, French, and a little Portuguese.
So many of the men of another treasure-party were ill, that they halted, and then went on with us; this crowded the road and made it more uncomfortable. Here at Abrantes we separate—they go to General Hill. On arriving at a place, the first thing is to hunt for the Juge de Fores, to procure quarters, but if there is an English commandant, he must first be beaten up for an order, then the quarters are to be found; sometimes those allotted are full; then another billet must be obtained: sometimes the stables are full of kicking mules, and other stables must be found elsewhere. At length we unload, all in one room with four walls, a table, and a chair. Then at every third place we have to go to the Commissary to draw rations, straw, and barley for the animals to eat—spirits, meat, and bread for ourselves, and wood for firing. These must sometimes be fetched from half a mile to a mile and a half off, and be procured from roguish Portuguese under-commissaries. Sometimes great pieces of green wood are allotted to us, which will not burn, and we have nothing to cut it with. This, which we often leave as not worth carriage, costs Government a large sum: a third of the quantity, if good, would serve better. As the wood and straw we cannot manage to take with us, we carry on barley, and buy a little straw, or Sadran corn straw, which is the best when fresh. At first the Portuguese were very civil at quarters, but we are now too numerous, and many behave ill from disgust and weariness. They are now very backward to supply anything, even when they have it, which often is not the case. They provide a room, a lamp, water, a basin, a towel by night, a table, a chair, and something to lie upon; some furnish very decent beds.
Two days ago the scene changed, and it has since rained almost incessantly. We got wet yesterday, halted to-day, and to-morrow I probably shall start, to be soaked to the very bones. My mode of living may interest you. I rise, then, at half-past four, take some bread, spirits and water, and a raw egg when I can get one, or sometimes a few grapes. When we stop to water, I eat some bread and cheese, a dear luxury on the road, a very little country wine and water, and now and then coffee or chocolate. In the evening, a stew (when we can get it) comes as a treat, and then we lie down on the floor at eight o’clock in hope of sleep—a hope more frequently fulfilled than it was at Lisbon. Stores are all now at double price, and will soon not be procurable at any cost.
The Commissary says we shall have six hours’ walk in the rain instead of the sun now; and after two or three days we shall find only deserted ruins where the French came, and we after them, last year. I hope this is exaggeration. Windows in this great town are not to be seen even in Colonels’ quarters, or in the best shops. This is an active, busy place—thoroughly military. The vintage was going on as we proceeded on the road, and we had abundance of grapes. The poor soldiers, having three days’ rations served out at once, consume all the drink on the first day, sell the meat to save carriage and the trouble of cooking it, and live upon bread and grapes and water, till their next supply comes to hand. At Santarem and here, hospitals are established as well as at Lisbon; many fine-looking fellows, reduced to skeletons, are in them. I have a new route to-morrow round about: first day, Garvao; second, Nisa; third, Villa Velha; fourth, Cernados; fifth, Castello Branco: sixteen miles, twenty miles, twelve miles, eight, and eighty.
Sunday, Castello Branco, October 11th, 1812.—Here am I thus far safe on my pilgrimage, and tolerably well considering all things, for I seldom get above two or three hours’ sleep, and many nights none at all, from noises, fleas, gnats, mosquitos, bad accommodation, and anxiety. From Abrantes I got safely to Garvao, which is finely situated, and the walk to it wildly beautiful. The next day I warned my people to rise by half-past four; we loaded in the dark, but started by daylight, and got in before the treasure to Niga. A good mattress and clean sheets, &c., on the floor, without fleas, are genuine luxuries. For the first time in Portugal I got six hours’ sleep. In the same manner I started again from Niga by five o’clock, and got through two treasure days’ journey in one to Cernados. Understanding that at Villa Velha there were only desolate ruins, scarcely supplying a dry cover, by starting again early yesterday from Cernados (which consists only of one house, half of it a ruin, with a nest of ruined cottages round it), I reached this place by ten yesterday, and thus had all the remainder of the day to rest, and this in addition (Sunday), for the treasure arrived only to-day.
I have thus avoided the common piggery of being all in one house at Cernados, and a bad night at Villa Velha. By calculating distances and time also, I have kept my men and myself dry. As the rains generally come on hitherto after twelve in the day, and in the night, we have only been caught in two English showers. It rained all the time we were at Abrantes, from twelve on the day we arrived, entirely through the following day, to about an hour before we started. All the rest of the day was fine, rain again all the evening—the same at Niga, and the same here also. And such rain! it would saturate anything in ten minutes. As it is now cooler, I walk half the way, which also saves my pony. I have here assigned to me the quarters of the Generals who pass through. These consist of the ruin of a fine house for quarters, and a large room with four great windows without glass, and four doors in it; gold frames around without their looking-glasses in them, fine chairs without bottoms, &c., &c. The house belongs to the Illustrissimo Signor Barao. I have a mattress on the floor with fleas innumerable. I have my route, and here it is: first day, Eschalas de Cimo; second, San Miguel; third, Menoa; fourth, Sabugal; fifth, perhaps a halt; sixth, Aldea da Ponte; seventh, Sturno; eighth, Ciudad Rodrigo. We are to carry provisions for four days with us, then provide for three, and start to-morrow or next day as the treasure mules are able; then go on to Fuentes de Castelegos, Forgadilla, Calçade de Don Diego, Salamanca. Few of these places are in Faden’s map. Nothing can be had on the road, it is said, not even dry stabling or a dry room; and much wet is expected. The place is finely situated on the east side of a hill which is crowned by an old Moorish castle and walls, and a modern monastery in ruins! It is one of the best towns we have seen, and there are the ruins of some good houses; provisions and necessaries are to be bought here, but at a high price. There is part of the fine episcopal palace (where a Portuguese General is quartered), with a garden in tolerable order, a good church, and several picturesque-looking ruined monasteries, with crosses at every step. I have taken a few sketches where we stop on the road, though too much occupied with business to think much of the picturesque. Niga is also picturesque.
My adventures are all much alike. The only variety is an arrival wet through to the skin. No one can say where we shall go to at last. I suppose I must now proceed to Salamanca, and then something must be determined upon. Things do not go on well at Burgos, I fear; there is much delay, more than was expected. Lord Wellington is, it is said, not satisfied. At Cernados a cobbler was the Juge de Fores, and gave us our billets. On the walls was an excellent likeness in chalk of Lord George Lennox, done by the shadow, I suppose from the lamp which is allowed us. I hear of sickness everywhere; much at head-quarters. The general orders have many more on the list of absent from sickness, than on that of arrivals at the army. Soult is very strong. General Hill, I believe, is still at Toledo.
Near the mountains on the other side of the Tagus is an old castle or two, and some pleasant glimpses of fine valleys, and the deep banks of the river which is hidden from the view. The sandy commons like Bagshot, over which the road passes, are more bold, the hills higher, and covered almost entirely with the gum cistus, which has a sweet scent, but, being out of bloom in that state, is not so pleasing as our heaths with their various colours. There is a little heath like the Devonshire heath, and some parts of the road rather like Dartmoor. Near Niga are seen the mountains about Elvas, and in the line to Badajoz, and the Spanish mountains of Estremadura, The country proved to me the merit of some of Rubens’ Spanish views, which are, like his Flemish pictures, most correct in the character of the scenery. From Niga, after proceeding a league, you wind down a wild Devonshire or Welsh sort of road; first cross a small river, then the Tagus again, almost down steps—not so bad as some wild parts of Ireland, to be sure, though very bad for the loaded mules. Here is very little oak, underwood, some fir, but chiefly and perpetually the gum cistus, which grows to about four feet high. Villa Velha is a village in ruins, finely situated on the side of a hill looking over the river. It is now nearly deserted. The soldiers with baggage pitched a tent below the office in the cellar. From the hills above the river, before we crossed the Tagus, we saw Castello Branco standing high on the hill, and the Moorish ruins. Cernados is like a Welsh village of the worst sort: rocks for streets, ruined stone houses inhabited in part, and used for quarters. Their few architectural large buildings alone constitute the difference between these and the worst Welsh or Irish villages. From Cernados to this place we again crossed a country like a large Bagshot Heath, but by a very tolerable good road; adieu.
P.S.—The Captain has just sent me word we must start to-morrow instead of the day after; he says that the treasure is not safe without the serjeants. Our detachments are all foreigners; many are drunk, and have quarrelled with the inhabitants!
Salamanca, October, 1812.—The first day after leaving Castello Branco, we reached Eschalo de Cimo, a pretty, and once a thriving village, with a good church, not so much destroyed as damaged; one handsome large house in the vicinity belonging to the Squiress, Donna Joanna, the best rooms in which were gutted and used as quarters, the rest inhabited by two or three families of the better kind, with some smart misses among them. The other houses mostly in ruins, but still some of them occupied. In this place bread was not to be bought, nor even an onion! but we fared well, in good rooms, with good fires. On our road thither we kept Castello Branco in sight nearly all the way; we also saw the distant mountains in Spain and Portugal. The road was over a sort of Dartmoor, stones, rock, sand, with fern oak a foot high, and abundance of apples. The second day we reached San Miguel de Cima. The same sort of village as Eschalo de Cimo, one good house for quarters, the rest small, and generally, like the church, in ruins; but the inhabitants were fast returning to it. Here we obtained bread, onions, and some hay. The appearance on entering the village, with the trees about it, very pleasant. The third day’s route was to Memoa, five long leagues. At first a good road and picturesque country, with a very fine view of Monsanto, with its town and castle on the right, and of the other hills grouped with it in the distance. Pennamacor, which is almost destroyed, we left on our right, about a mile, with its castle, standing boldly on the side of a hill, with rock and wood around it, and a rich-looking valley below. This is a fine situation, backed, as we left it, by Monsanto. We also passed Pedrigoa, a large village, nearly destroyed and deserted, and at last, after passing over a hill by a horrible road, through an oak copse, where we had nearly lost our way, we arrived at the heap of ruins called Memoa. This was the worst place we had stopped at all the way. There was only one room in the town, that only water-tight, and there were no stables. I took the driest corner in a large common room, because there was a stable under it.