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powerfully affected when I saw the corpse of one, whom
I had so lately marked as blooming with youth and health; but my eyes

soon became accustomed to horrors. On Monday morning, June 19th, I
hastened to the field of battle: I was compelled to go through the forest
de Soignês, for the road was so completely choked up as to be
impassable.--The dead required no help; but thousands of wounded,
who could not help themselves, were in want of every thing; their
features, swollen by the sun and rain, looked livid and bloated. One
poor fellow had a ghastly wound across his lower lip, which gaped
wide, and showed his teeth and gums, as though a second and unnatural
mouth had opened below his first. Another, quite blind from a gash
across his eyes, sat upright, gasping for breath, and murmuring, "De
l'eau! de l'eau!" The anxiety for water, was indeed most distressing.
The German "Vaser! vaser!" and the French "De l'eau! de l'eau!" still
seem sounding in my ears. I am convinced that hundreds must have
perished from thirst alone, and they had no hope of assistance, for even
humane persons were afraid of approaching the scene of blood, lest
they should be taken in requisition to bury the dead; almost every
person who came near, being pressed into that most disgusting and
painful service. This general burying was truly horrible: large square
holes were dug about six feet deep, and thirty or forty fine young
fellows stripped to their skins were thrown into each, pell mell, and
then covered over in so slovenly a manner, that sometimes a hand or
foot peeped through the earth. One of these holes was preparing as I
passed, and the followers of the army were stripping the bodies before
throwing them into it, whilst some Russian Jews were assisting in the
spoilation of the dead, by chiseling out their teeth! an operation which
they performed with the most brutal indifference. The clinking
hammers of these wretches jarred horribly upon my ears, and mingled
strangely with the occasional report of pistols, which seemed echoing
each other at stated intervals, from different corners of the field. I could
not divine the meaning of these shots, till I was informed, that they
proceeded from the Belgians, who were killing the wounded horses.
Hundreds of these fine creatures were, indeed, galloping over the plain,
kicking and plunging, apparently mad with pain, whilst the poor
wounded wretches who saw them coming, and could not get out of
their way, shrieked in agony, and tried to shrink back to escape from
them, but in vain. Soon after, I saw an immense horse (one of the
Scotch Greys) dash towards a colonel of the Imperial Guard, who had

had his leg shattered; the horse was frightfully wounded, and part of a
broken lance still rankled in one of its wounds. It rushed snorting and
plunging past the Frenchman, and I shall never forget his piercing cry
as it approached. I flew instantly to the spot, but ere I reached it the
man was dead; for, though I do not think the horse had touched him,
the terror he felt had been too much for his exhausted frame. Sickened
with the immense heaps of slain, which spread in all directions as far as
the eye could reach, I was preparing to return, when as I was striding
over the dead and dying, and meditating on the horrors of war, my
attention was attracted by a young Frenchman, who was lying on his
back, apparently at the last gasp. There was something in his
countenance which interested me, and I fancied, though I knew not
when, or where, that I had seen him before. Some open letters were
lying around, and one was yet grasped in his hand as though he had
been reading it to the last moment. My eye fell upon the words "Mon
cher fils," in a female hand, and I felt interested for the fate of so
affectionate a son. When I left home in the morning, I had put a flask of
brandy and some biscuit into my pocket, in the hope that I might be
useful to the wounded, but when I gazed on the countless multitude
which strewed the field, I felt discouraged from attempting to relieve
them. Chance had now directed my attention to one individual, and I
was resolved to try to save his life. His thigh was broken, and he was
badly wounded on the left wrist, but the vital parts were untouched, and
his exhaustion seemed to arise principally from the loss of blood. I
poured a few drops of brandy into his mouth, and crumbling my biscuit
contrived to make him swallow a small particle. The effects of the dose