gena, who admitted me as a sort of supernumerary on
his staff, will depend on the reception of this, the first instalment of
my experiences in Spain.

An act of unjustifiable barbarism or stupidity, or both--for barbarism
is but another form of stupidity--was perpetrated by some Carlists
outside Irun while I was negotiating for that indispensable horse. An
ambulance-waggon, displaying the Red Cross of Geneva, had sallied from
the town, and was fired upon. The Paris delegate I had met at Hendaye
was in charge of it, and averred that it was wantonly and wilfully
attacked. I thought it, singular that nobody was hurt, and reasoned that
the man was excitable, and got into range unconsciously. The duty of the
Geneva Society properly begins after, and not during a combat; and when
gentlemen are busy at the game of professional manslaughter, no
philanthropic outsider has any right to distract them from their
occupation by indiscreet obstruction. The Parisian did not view it in
that light, and downfaced me that these rustics, to whose aid he was
actually going, tried to murder him of malice prepense. It was useless
to represent to him that these rustics may have never heard of the
modern benevolent institution for the softening of strife, and may have
regarded the huge Red Cross as a defiant symbol of Red Republicanism,
and perhaps a parody of what is sacred. So in the estimation of that
citizen of the most enlightened capital in the universe, these Basques
were ruthless boobies with an insatiable passion for lapping blood. But
mistakes and exaggerations will occur in every war. The only way to
obviate them is to put an end to war altogether--_which will never be
done_! When Christ came into the world, peace was proclaimed; when He
left it, peace was bequeathed. War has been the usual condition of
mankind since, as it had been before; and Christians cut each other's
throats with as much alacrity and expertness as Pagans, often in the
name of the religion of peace.

I heard two eminent war-correspondents lecture recently, and I noticed
that those passages where fights were described were applauded to the
echo. The more ferocious the combat the more vigorous the cheers. The
faces of small boys flushed, and their hands clinched at the vivid
recital. The nature of the savage, which has not been extirpated by
School Boards, was betraying itself in them. Yet these two
war-correspondents thought it an acquittal of conscience after the