STUDIES IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS 079

The Works of the All-Bountiful Creator

10. The Works of the All-Bountiful Creator (12)

July 31st. Early in the morning we proceeded on the road for Castelblanco. The officers provided me with a capital horse, while Don Sunday trudged on foot. Nothing occurred during this day, but we now and then heard distant firing by the guerrillas towards the Seville road. We reached Castelblanco early in the day. Here the dragoons provided me with a good mule and my guide with another. Passing through El Ronquillo we continued our route, which was a long one, for Castillo de las Guardias. We reached it late at night, avoiding entering the village, and slept in the woods.

August 1st. We started at daybreak for the Rio Tinto. For two days we had felt the climate very different from that of Seville, where nature had been exhausted by an early spring and the burning sun, which had turned every blade of grass brown. Here in the mountains this was not the case. Innumerable uncultivated flowers seemed to vie with each other in beauty, and wherever I turned my eyes I saw in perfection the works of the all-bountiful Creator. Had an atheist been there, he would have been ashamed to say that all this beauty came by chance alone. All the later shrubs of the mountains were in bloom; bright colours were interwoven through every bush.

August 2nd. Still through the mountains to Zalamea, amid scenery similar to that of yesterday. We passed many fine streams which, from the quietude, were crowded with small fish: they seemed delighted at seeing our horses drink, instead of flying from them, as would have been the case in a more cultivated country.

August yd. We continued our journey through bushes and goat-walks. I believe it was on the evening of this day that we had to cross the main road from Seville to the north. (This date is almost certainly an error. The main road from Seville, which the party had to cross on their journey westward, was that by El Ronquillo, Sta Olalla, and Monasterio, which they crossed on July 31st, before reaching Castillo de las Guardias. It was probably on this day that they saw the French convoy. - Oman) On it we discovered a French convoy of 30 wagons, 250 infantry, and 30 cavalry. To avoid them we fell back about a league. They, however, were much more alarmed at the few Spanish dragoons than we were at them. They thought us to be the vedettes of Ballasteros’s army, a part of which might be waiting to surprise them. They had ordered quarters in a village, but on sight of our party packed up, and made a forced march all night.

August 4th. Past a most intricate mill-dam on our road to Calende d’Alosno. The whole of this day was through bad roads and difficult passes. Our mid-day halt at a shepherd’s hut, where I got two girls to wash my shirt for me. I gave them a shilling: they had never before, to show the poverty of the lower orders in Spain, been mistresses of a whole shilling in their lives. We frequently came on the shepherds during this march. Usually we saw father and mother and five or six children sitting round a large wooden bowl, into which they were dipping their fingers and feeding all together. Their pottage appeared to be a mixture of herbs and roots boiled together, with red herring to flavour it. No chairs, tables, or furniture of any description. Very marked is the difference between rich and poor in Spain, for the higher orders have houses fitted up in the most beautifu] manner, with expensive furniture and every luxury.

This day we passed through the copper-mines of Rio Tinto, which are well worth notice. The copper is taken out of the side of an exceedingly high mountain, the body of which is supposed to contain nothing else. The miners are at present in a state of idleness, as they refuse to work for the French, and fly to the mountains when a column approaches. (Again an error of memory in dating comes in. The Rio Tinto mines cannot have been passed on the same day that the party reached Villa Blanca, but must have excited Brooke’s attention on the 2nd, as they are close to Zalamea, an forty miles as the crow flies from Villa Blanca. - Oman)

In the evening we arrived at Villa Blanca. Here a captain, belonging to Ballasteros’s army, was waiting to put under arrest one of the three lieutenants who had been with me through the mountains. Having read aloud Ballasteros’s letter, he desired the lieutenant to pull off his coat. He then tied his hands behind him with a common rope, and put handcuffs on. He also ordered several of the dragoons to be arrested, and their accoutrements were stripped off in the market-place. I understood the cause of the arrest was that this lieutenant had left his quarters without orders for the expedition through the mountains, and it had been supposed that he and his dragoons had deserted. The guard produced a long, thick rope and some smaller cords, with which they fastened the hands of the lieutenant and the other prisoners, one on the right and another on the left, by which means the large rope was carried between them. In this situation they had to walk two and two through the heat of the sun to Ayamonte. An inhabitant called to me: “God bless the English and their laws! Chains and tortures are not known in your blessed country.”

Villa Blanca was full of Ballasteros’s soldiers, who took the opportunity of stealing all they could lay their hands on. Don Sunday, whom I do believe to have been as watchful as most men, turned his back but for one minute, and in it they stole his wallet and my cloak. The old lad, missing them, set up a terrible shout, crying aloud: “I am robbed, I am robbed!” A Spanish officer inquired the cause of his outcry: the Don fully described the articles stolen, and the officer passing down the street saw a soldier offering my cloak for sale; we got it back, but lost the wallet with the food and the wire, hammer, gimlets, and riveting tools.

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