Sometimes they are in bands of fifteen or twenty strong, sometimes they are in hundreds.

Some of them are at ordinary times goatherds, shepherds, muleteers, and peasants; but a number of them are disbanded soldiers--the remains of armies we have defeated and broken up, and who prefer this wild life in the mountains to returning to their homes.

Our convoys are constantly attacked, and have always to be accompanied by a strong guard." "As we have no waggons with us, I should think that they would hardly care to molest us," Terence said.
"That renders it less likely, certainly, colonel; but they fight from hatred as much as for booty, and no French soldier who falls into their hands is ever spared.

Generally they are put to death with atrocious tortures.

At first there was no such feeling here and, when my regiment was quartered at Vittoria, some three years ago, things were quiet enough.