Ney, however, fell back upon Condeixa, where his main body was posted, and all farther pursuit was for the present abandoned.
At Casa Noval and at Foz d'Aronce, the allies were successful; but the French still continued to retire, burning the towns and villages in their rear, and devastating the country along the whole line of march by every expedient of cruelty the heart of man has ever conceived.

In the words of one whose descriptions, however fraught with the most wonderful power of painting, are equally marked by truth, "Every horror that could make war hideous attended this dreadful march.

Distress, conflagration, death in all modes,--from wounds, from fatigue, from water, from the flames, from starvation,--vengeance, unlimited vengeance, was on every side." The country was a desert! Such was the exhaustion of the allies, who suffered even greater privations than the enemy, that they halted upon the 16th, unable to proceed farther; and the river Ceira, swollen and unfordable, flowed between the rival armies.
The repose of even one day was a most grateful interruption to the harassing career we had pursued for some time past; and it seemed that my comrades felt, like myself, that such an opportunity was by no means to be neglected; but while I am devoting so much space and trespassing on my reader's patience thus far with narrative of flood and field, let me steal a chapter for what will sometimes seem a scarcely less congenial topic, and bring back the recollection of a glorious night in the Peninsula..