e recesses of the
mountains. But these projectiles were of little use without guns; and to
procure the latter the ingenuity of the Carlists was taxed to the very
utmost. Zumalacarregui remembered that, upon a sandy spot on the
Biscayan coast, an old iron twelve-pounder was lying neglected and
forgotten. This he ordered to be brought to Navarre. A rude carriage was
constructed, on which it was mounted, and it was then dragged by six
pair of oxen over mountains, and through ravines, to the Sierra of
Urbasa, where it was buried. Soldiers are very ingenious in inventing
appropriate names; and as soon as the Carlist volunteers saw this
unwieldy old-fashioned piece of ordnance, full of moss and sand, and
covered with rust, they christened it the Abuelo, or the Grandfather, by
which appellation it was ever afterwards known. The only artillery
officer at that time with Zumalacarregui was Don Tomas Reina, who now,
in conjunction with one Balda, a professor of chemistry, began to devise
means for founding some guns. In the villages and hamlets within a
certain circumference, a requisition was made for all articles composed
of copper and brass, such as brasiers, stew-pans, chocolate pots,
warming-pans, &c.; but as it was found impossible to get sufficient of
these, the three field-pieces were added, and the whole melted together.
In the midst of a forest this strange foundery was established, and
after numerous failures, occasioned by want of experience and of the
proper tools, Reina succeeded in making a couple of howitzers, which,
although of uncouth appearance, it was thought might answer the purpose
for which they were intended.

Never were the Christinos more confident of a speedy termination to the
war than when Mina took the command. The well-earned reputation of that
chief, his peculiar aptitude for mountain warfare, and intimate
acquaintance with the country of Navarre, which had been the scene of
his triumphs during the war against Napoleon, certainly pointed him out
as the most fitting man to oppose to Zumalacarregui. Forgetting that
similar hopes had been founded on the skill of Quesada and Rodil, and on
the imposing forces they commanded, hopes which had been so signally
frustrated, the Queen's partizans now set up a premature song of
triumph, soon to be turned into notes of lamentation. The Mina of 1834,
old and bed-ridden, with his energies, mental perhaps as well as
physical, impaired by long inaction, was a very d