Passing through Montijo and Talavera de la Real, we arrived on the 1st of November at Campo Mayor, in Portugal, where we found good quarters and civil inhabitants. The town is fortified, and is distant three leagues from Elvas, and three from Badajos.
Campo Mayor was attacked and taken about a year before by the French, who afterwards gave it up as a situation unworthy of the garrison necessary to defend it. The houses are generally solid and well built, most of them had, however, been plundered and stripped of their interior workmanship and furniture, by their late visitors.—The streets are narrow, dirty, and ill-paved, but there are a number of respectable and well supplied shops. The market is good, and was well stocked with the abundant produce of the fertile country by which it is surrounded.
Campo Mayor was at one time one of the richest and most considerable towns in the Alentejo; but since the period at which this part of Portugal became the immediate seat of war, and the French and British troops alternately came into possession of the place, it has suffered greatly; a number of its principal houses and public buildings having been burned, and its castle, citadel, and works, much injured by both armies. There is a curious charnel house in the main street, the walls of which are composed entirely of human skulls, laid and cemented together in regular layers. The establishment has a most horrid appearance, as beheld through the bars of a small grating, and is rendered still more dismal by the pale glimmering light thrown around by a lamp suspended from the arched roof of the death-like sepulchre. The inhabitants of Campo Mayor evinced much joy on our arrival; our late successes encouraged them to receive us with the warmest welcome, which they testified by every possible demonstration of merriment and festivity.
CHAPTER X.
We remained at Campo Mayor until the 4th of November, and from thence marched to Portalegre and Albuquerque, at which latter town we took up our quarters on the 4th of March, 1812. The intervening period, spent at our old station in Portalegre, affording no event worthy of record, I pass on to describe some matters relative to our new cantonments, particularly as those from which we had so lately departed, and where we had remained for many a dreary month, have already been noticed quite as well as they deserve.
The house in which I had the honour of being entertained with "good dry lodging," was built after the same plan as those usually tenanted by the lower orders, throughout this part of Spain; its interior premises consisting of a large paved space at the entrance, from which the ascent to a black-looking chamber, doing the duty of a kitchen, was by means of an irregular flight of stone steps. The dingy apartment, scantily furnished, was enlightened, or rather the darkness of it made visible, by a small casement without glass; and the premises were so badly roofed that numerous chinks through the loose and broken tiles served to render unnecessary the use of a chimney, the smoke easily finding egress through them. Fortunately the climate here is generally mild, and hence the admission of fresh air is often desirable. The ground floor, besides the hall or space already mentioned, exhibited on one side a small room, containing the sleeping apparatus, and on the other an opening, by a huge door, into the dormitory of the quadrupeds, adjacent to which were sundry holes and corners, for wood, forage, and lumber at discretion.
From Albuquerque we again departed, and after various marchings and countermarchings, we were at last conducted to Dom Benito, where we arrived on the 22nd of March, having previously halted for a few days at Almendralejo.
Dom Benito is a large town, with a population of about five-thousand souls, and is situated in the heart of a most productive country.
I was billetted on the house of Don Diego Ramirez, whose family consisted of four fat good looking damsels, two children, and his spouse, a garrulous matron, who was very officious on this occasion. I was ushered into a handsome and well furnished chamber, where I was immediately introduced to my worthy patron, a fine jolly old don; we seated ourselves round an ample brasseiro, well stored with charcoal, and were soon engaged in noisy prattle and gossip, with a fluency worthy of the most experienced adepts in the science. According to custom, sundry good-humoured wenches attended at the sideboard, pouring out the limped fluid to those who were inclined to qualify for the Temperance Society. Supper being introduced, Don Diego presided in the style of a true Major Domo. The feast consisted of a large dish of sallad and oil, with other ingredients; sweet meats in abundance supplied the place of more nutritious food; while, by way of interlude, sausages and garlick appeared, by which our olfactory nerves were agreeably regaled. These were followed by other varieties in the kickshaw line, and, in order to promote the hilarity of our carousals, wine of generous quality was freely served. The young senoras, too, were by no means shy of helping themselves to bumpers of that enlivening beverage, filled out in glasses of dimensions similar to our English tumblers. One of the damsels, named Margaritta, entertained the company with a few pleasant songs on the guitar, accompanied by the voice of her sister Francisca, while Dolores, a pretty little girl with black eyes, danced a bolero, twirling the castanets in a most bewitching style, to the delight and admiration of the joyous circle.
The Spaniards seem, at all times, to have a soul for music, and chiefly do they love the plaintive strain, as sung by the peasant girls in their enchanting manner. They are extremely fond of the Scotch bagpipe, and when the Highland corps appeared among them, all ranks and ages run to their doors and windows to listen with rapture to their piper Sandy, while he played along the streets.