“As we pursued the main road, and approached St. Sebastian by its ordinary entrance, we were at first surprised at the slight degree of damage done to its fortifications by the fire of our batteries. The walls and battlements beside the gateway appeared wholly uninjured, the very embrasures being hardly defaced. But the delusion grew gradually more faint as we drew nearer, and had totally vanished before we reached the glacis. We found the draw-bridge fallen down across the ditch, in such a fashion that the endeavour to pass it was not without danger. The folding gates were torn from their hinges, one lying flat upon the ground, and the other leaning against the wall; whilst our own steps, as we moved along the arched passage, sounded loud and melancholy.
“Having crossed this, we found ourselves at the commencement of what had once been the principal street in the place. No doubt it was, in its day, both neat and regular; but of the houses nothing now remained except the outward shells, which, however, appeared to be of an uniform height and style of architecture. As far as I could judge, they stood five stories from the ground, and were faced with a sort of freestone, so thoroughly blackened and defiled as to be hardly cognizable. The street itself was, moreover, choked up with heaps of ruins, among which were strewed about fragments of household furniture and clothing, mixed with caps, military accoutrements, round shot, pieces of shells, and all the other implements of strife. Neither were there wanting other evidences of the drama which had been lately acted here, in the shape of dead bodies, putrefying, and infecting the air with the most horrible stench. Of living creatures, on the other hand, not one was to be seen, not even a dog or a cat; indeed, we traversed the whole city without meeting more than six human beings. These, from their dress and abject appearance, struck me as being some of the inhabitants who had survived the assault. They looked wild and haggard, and moved about here and there, poking among the ruins, as if they were either in search of the bodies of their slaughtered relatives, or hoped to find some little remnant of their property.” For an account of the excesses committed by our soldiery after the storming, “atrocities degrading to human nature,” see Napier’s History, book xxii. chap. 2. Mr. Ford’s denial, in his otherwise valuable Hand-book, deserves much censure. I heard those horrors detailed on the spot.
The operations on the Pyrenees on the day of the storming of San Sebastian, with the rival manœuvrings of Soult and Wellington, the combat of San Marcial, in which the Spaniards behaved so well, and the several remarkable incidents of which I have sought to avail myself, will be found fully recorded in Napier’s History, book xxii. chap. 3. The scene of these, and the subsequent operations, struck me at passing as grand and majestic in the highest degree—the lofty and broken Pyrenean range, more fitted, as I have elsewhere remarked, for the combats of Titans than of men. The very names have a majestic sound, and their associations are often supernatural. I have warrant for the lines:—
“Zugaramurdi, Echallar a dirge
May roar for him who dares the eagle’s nest.”
These terrific mountain-solitudes were celebrated as the scene of witchcraft in ancient times:—“Las trasformaciones y maleficios, las zambras, bailes, y comilonas con que se solazaban otras en los aquelarres ó ayuntamientos nocturnos de Zugaramurdi, en el valle de Baztan.” (Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes.) A number of these so-called witches were condemned to be whipped publicly in 1810 by the Inquisition of Logroño.
V. “Shuddering she nigh fell, till Nial caught
The bruiséd lambkin in his arms.”
Illa nihil: neque enim vocem viresque loquendi,
Aut aliquid toto pectore mentis habet;
Sed tremit, ut quondam stabulis deprensa relictis,