I could see and hear everything in the stables, for the floor was still less tight than the roof. The leg of a chair or a table, in spite of all possible care, went two or three times through it. I got a little hay, and slept behind a great chest, in my blanket. Three of the natives were in the room at night. The fourth day we had three leagues of fine road, though bad travelling, through a hilly wood of arbutuses in bearing, and Portugal laurels in flower, heath in bloom, a plant like the lignum vitæ, and broom. This day’s route brought us to Sabugal, where there is generally a halt, but this our captain declined. Sabugal stands on a hill, very finely situated, but commanded by other hills; the way is over a bridge and river, and with a winding road up to it. The situation is not unlike that of Ludlow; the town very inferior in size and beauty, but picturesque. The castle itself with its square Moorish towers, more so than Ludlow. The town is all in ruins; not even a weather-tight room in it. I got a large sort of barn, open in the roof in several places, with no doors, and two large windows, without even shutters, and four others half closed. On our road thither from Memoa we found half the body of a man, nearly a skeleton, but with flesh and nails on the toes. It was lying on the road, as if to scare travellers.
The market-place at Sabugal is, I think, very pretty, and everything in it very cheap: this, indeed, was the cheapest place through which we had passed. The fifth day we reached Aldea da Ponte, the last Portuguese village. The road was interesting, as we passed near Fuente Guinaldos, so long head-quarters, and Alfayetes, also head-quarters. We passed just under Alfayetes, and saw Lord Wellington’s house on the side of the hill, with the old castle. This place is now in ruins, like the rest. We then passed over the plain where our cavalry distinguished themselves in a sharp affair with the French. Aldea da Ponte is much cleaner than the other villages.
Here we saw more pots, pans, basins, &c., than usual; these the people desired us to make use of instead of hiding them from us, as was generally done in Portugal. On the sixth day, we came, after a short league, to a small village on the side of a hill, the first in Spain, then on to two or three more, and in less than six leagues we reached Ciudad Rodrigo. This town stands on a rise, in an undulating sort of rough Salisbury Plain. It is two-thirds in ruins, but the public buildings appear to have suffered comparatively little, and might, most of them, be restored. The entrance to the town is striking. We got an indifferent quarter in the suburbs, immediately opposite the place where the light battalions entered. The main breach was round the corner of our abode. The Spaniards had nearly restored these two breaches, but from ill luck or neglect both had entirely given way, and there must still be some months’ work before they can undo and clear enough away to begin to rebuild again. Everything was scarce in the town, and the people imposing and uncivil. On the seventh day we proceeded to Brondillo, where we were obliged to stop, as there were only two houses in Castel Legos, to which the route sent us. This was by far our worst day’s journey; the distance was seven leagues, that is, twenty-eight miles. It took us to accomplish this from six in the morning to past three, of which time it rained eight hours and a half, nearly all that time like a bad English thunder-shower of ten minutes’ duration. No coats could keep out the wet, and it was accompanied by a strong, cold November wind, for the weather for the last week has been as cold as an English November. We all suffered, and I have been chilly and aguish ever since. We then, for the first time, entered a Spanish cabin; and oh! how superior to those of Portugal! of Ireland! of Scotland! and if I did not consider these cottages as farms and not as cottages, I should say of England too! All neat and clean; with pots, dishes, boilers in abundance.
The people are proud, but if treated with civility, courteous and kind, though they are turned away from their own firesides by us and the Portuguese three or four nights in the seven. They made us a great fire, and did all they could for us. The women seem chatty and merry—the men, the handsomest and best-grown, with the finest countenances I ever saw, except perhaps in Switzerland. We met with the same sort of treatment and kindness at the next village. The house belonged to the priest, with whom, through the medium of some mongrel Latin and Spanish, I managed to converse a little. These quarters are some of the best I have had since leaving Lisbon; at Togadillo, where the route sent us, there was only one good house.
At Robedila, a place out of the road, where we got by accident, finding we had passed Togadillo without knowing it, all was comfort again. This place the French occupied for some time with ten thousand men. We arrived yesterday at Salamanca. After the first five leagues from Ciudad Rodrigo, which were as rough as Dartmoor, we have passed through a country like the neighbourhood of Salisbury Plain, only that the villages were much more numerous, though several only of three or four houses, now nearly all repaired. Not a single large, or, I believe, two-storied house, from Ciudad Rodrigo to this place. Much of the country now quite a fine green, but a very large part in cultivation. The land looked good; about midway it consisted of, for five or six leagues, clay, and knee-deep: in some places a light soil, or reddish sand; with water up to the mules’ bellies, from the heavy rain, though it had ceased twenty-four hours. The people have plenty of bread and straw, but there are no shops in the villages. They only sell to oblige each his own lodger for the night. Bread was threepence a pound—it had been fourpence. All along this country, from St. Martin de Rio hither, are abundance of acorns, almost as good as chestnuts; quite sweet. The muleteers and men halt to eat them. This also gives good fires everywhere. Horses and bones are strewed more or less along the whole way from Lisbon. In one place, about seven leagues from Salamanca, were thirteen heads arranged in a row, as stepping-blocks for passengers through the water. I believe there was a little cavalry brush there. Salamanca stands well, but in a sort of Salisbury Plain. The colleges are destroyed, but the church is most beautiful, and the entrances much finer than those of our cathedrals—the figures and heads very fine indeed.
The altered Roman bridge is striking. The town is so full, principally of sick, that I have got bad quarters, half a mile out of the town; my direction l’Ultima Casa.
Later, same day.—I have been again looking at the town. The great church is very fine, and not damaged, but there are many miserable ruins of noble colleges, some gutted, some nearly razed. The public library has a fair supply of books, but too exclusively of sacred, or rather ecclesiastical literature; there are, however, good classics, French, and modern learned works, mathematics, and others: it is about two-thirds of the size of Trinity College, Cambridge. I hope to proceed the day after to-morrow, to Valladolid, which it is proposed to reach in seven days. There are good shops here, and articles not dear. It is curious to see the same effect of ages and of tastes as in England. Below and behind the great altar of the church was some old English, or, as we should say, Saxon architecture, that is, a rude imitation of Greek. Then came a florid sample of Gothic, not in the best taste, but beautifully ornamented, with screens, &c., in the style of King Charles and King William; forced Grecian again, of two centuries back.
CHAPTER II.
Arrival at Head-quarters—Ciudad Rodrigo—The Retreat—Its Disasters—Capture of General Paget—Personal Anecdotes—Scarcity of Provisions—Courts-martial in the Army—Business of a Judge-Advocate—Wellington.
Head-quarters, Rueda, Nov. 5, 1812.