cks. Each battalion was led by a staff-officer, who was
splendidly, or wretchedly, mounted, as his luck had served him. The
company officers carried alpenstocks, and their orderlies had officers'
cast foraging-caps on top of their glazed shakoes. I noticed a battalion
of Cazadores, distinguished by the emblematic brass horn of chase
wrought on their collars, and two companies of Engineers in uniforms
entirely blue, with towers on their collars. These latter were robust,
sinewy young fellows. After the infantry came a company of the 2nd
Regiment of Mountain Artillery with four small pieces, each drawn by a
single mule, and behind them a squadron of Mounted Chasseurs, and a
long cavalcade of pack-horses and mules.

After a deal of exploration a driver was dug up, and after a deal of
negotiation he consented to take me to Los Pasages. Thanks to Republican
vigilance, but principally it may have been to the nature of the ground,
the road thither was clear. We started at six o'clock in the evening,
and after a lively spin through sylvan scenery drew up in less than an
hour at the outskirts of a village on the edge of a quiet pool, which we
had bordered for nigh a mile. No papers had been asked for, on leaving,
at the bridge over the Urumea, where a post of volunteers kept guard by
an antique and stumpy bronze howitzer, mounted on a siege-carriage, and
furnished with the dolphin-handles to be seen on some of the
last-century guns in the Tower Arsenal. No papers were asked for either
at the Customs' station, some hundred yards farther on; but the
Carabineros looked upon me as a lunatic, and significantly sibilated.
None were asked for at the approach to the village. Scarcely had I
alighted when a fishwife ran out of a cabin and addressed me in Basque.
I could not understand her, and motioned her away, when a winsome lassie
of some eighteen summers, tripping up the road, came to my aid, and
began speaking in French as if she were anticipating my arrival.

"Monsieur wants a shallop to go to France?"

I was taken aback, but answered, "Yes."

"Monsieur will follow me."

And she gave me a meaning sign--half a wink, half a monition. I
followed, and examined my volunteer guide more attentively. What a prize
of a girl! Hair black as night, but with a glossy blackness, was parted
on her smooth forehead, and retained behind, after the fashion of the
country, by a coloured snood, but two thick Gretchen plaits escaped, and
hung down t