ican Government was imposed upon the country, equally as
inefficient as it had been before. The star of the Carlist Cause seemed
to be in the ascendant. Never--up to that date--had Don Carlos's army
been so numerous or better equipped. The Carlist factories were turning
out their own guns and munitions. They held excellent positions from
which to strike southwards towards Madrid, and on which to fall back for
protection if necessary.

Everything pointed to a successful issue of their enterprise, backed up
as it was by the Church of Rome, and tired and worn out as the country
was by successive revolutions, mutinies of troops, unstable Governments
and hopeless bankruptcy. So I thought my chance had come to see some
fighting of real ding-dong nature by paying Don Carlos a personal visit.
Not that I thought my military qualifications, attained by a few months'
residence at the "Shop" as a cadet, in any way qualified me to be of any
real military value to Don Carlos, but rather because I thought that Don
Carlos's experience, after several years of the waging of war, would be
of some considerable value to myself. Thus it came about that I decided
to spend the forthcoming Christmas holidays attached to his army, being
satisfied that I should be welcome, for I had a first cousin and two
other relations who had been A.D.C.'s to Don Carlos from the beginning of
the campaign.

I duly made application to our Governor at the "Shop," General Sir
Lintorn Simmons, R.E., for permission to proceed to Spain during the
holidays and be accredited as an English officer. This, of course, was
refused, as I was not an officer, only a cadet, and fairly young at that.
But I was told that if I chose to proceed to Spain on my own
responsibility I was at liberty to do so, provided I returned to Woolwich
on the date at which the new term began.

I have my doubts whether any young fellow of eighteen ever felt so
elated, so important, so contented as I did on my journey from London to
Bayonne. As I had my British passport I did not feel in the least
concerned as to not being allowed to cross the frontier, which happened
to be at the time in the hands of the Government troops, into Spain. The
railways in the north of Spain had practically ceased to exist. The
journey was made along the old roads in every kind of coach that had been
on the road previous to the construction of the railways across the
Pyrenees. One particular coach I travelled in was pra