st dangers, to procure
me a good meal; of which he took care to have, very justly, a large
share for himself.

At St Jean de Luz, we were more attentive to our devotions than we had
been for some time. Divine service was performed punctually every
Sunday on the sand-hills near the town; Lord Wellington and his
numerous Staff placed themselves in the midst of our square, and his
lordship's chaplain read the service, to which Lord Wellington always
appeared to listen with great attention.

The mayor of the town, thinking to please "the great English lord,"
gave a ball at the Hotel de Ville: our Commander-in-Chief did not go
but was represented by Waters. I was there, and expected to see some
of the young ladies of the country so famed for their beauty; they
were, however, far too patriotic to appear, and the only lady present
was Lady Waldegrave, then living with her husband at head-quarters.
What was one partner among so many? The ball was a dead failure, in
spite of the efforts of the mayor, who danced, to our intense
amusement, an English hornpipe, which he had learnt in not a very
agreeable manner, viz. when a prisoner of war in the hulks at Plymouth.

There were two packs of hounds at St Jean de Luz; one kept by Lord
Wellington, the other by Marsden, of the Commissariat: our officers
went uncommonly straight. Perhaps our best man across country (though
sometimes somewhat against his will) was the late Colonel Lascelles of
my regiment, then, like myself, a mere lad. He rode a horse seventeen
hands high, called Bucephalus, which invariably ran away with him, and
more than once had nearly capsized Lord Wellington. The good living at
St Jean de Luz agreed so well with my friend that he waxed fat, and
from that period to his death was known to the world by the jovial
appellation of Bacchus Lascelles.

Shortly before we left St Jean de Luz, we took our turn of outposts in
the neighbourhood of Bidart, a large village, about ten miles from
Bayonne. Early one frosty morning in December, an order came, that if
we saw the enemy advancing, we were not to fire or give the alarm.
About five, we perceived two battalions wearing grenadier caps coming
on. They turned out to belong to a Nassau regiment which had occupied
the advanced post of the enemy, and, hearing that Napoleon had met with
great reverses in Germany, signified to us their intention to desert.
They were a fine-looking body of men, and appeared, I thought,