Of the second of the two episodes graphically set forth in this article, Captain Ewart was himself an eye-witness; the account of the first is taken from letters addressed to the author by the late Captain Sir Edward Hulse, Bart., of the Scots Guards

It is related in Sir William Napier’s Peninsular War, and has been handed down through successive generations, how during the bitterest periods of that campaign French and British soldiers met and filled their water bottles at either side of a stream, shouting friendly remarks across from bank to bank, while neither side fired a shot.…