Note 240 — SIEGE OF SAN SEBASTIAN
Reading edition
“The peculiarity of the prospect was heightened by a long train of Spaniards, carrying officers and soldiers to the rear, who had been wounded in the late engagements, and who were always removed to proper hospitals as soon as it could be done with safety.
“The care of the sick and wounded necessarily employed a number of men; and they could nowhere receive such able attention as in the general hospitals established within the Spanish frontiers.
“The rugged mountain-road was not passable for spring-waggons, on which the wounded are usually conveyed to the rear, and they were therefore carried in blankets fastened at the sides to a couple of poles, and thus borne on the shoulders of the peasantry.
“This mode of conveyance on bad roads is far preferable to that of spring-waggons; but, as it required four men to carry one sick person, the transport of the small number of them gave the train a formidable appearance when seen extended for so great a length along the windings of the mountain track.”—Batty.