ere, I finally managed by a
liberal use of money to secure an ox-cart, and by virtue of great
generalship on the part of myself and servant, got all our baggage out
of the wrecked train and safely up to the inn.

Spaniards are provokingly slow, but by riding mule-back five miles away
I succeeded in seeing the local commander of the Carlist forces, and he
promised to send me the next day a pass through the lines, going either
south or north. I got him also to include in the pass my fellow
passengers. I did this because there was a Portuguese family who had
tickets for South America. They were then on their way to embark at
Lisbon, and the old gentleman, the head of the family, was very weak and
ill.

My safe plan would have been to return to France, make my way to Brest
and embark from there to New York, and that would have been my course
had I had any conception of the slowness of the Spanish officials and of
the fierce storms and snows that dominate the passes of the Pyrenees in
Winter.

We were informed by many officials, railway guards, Custom House
officers, Carlists, etc., that by crossing thirty miles south we would
pass the lines and get to a little town on the railway where trains left
frequently for Madrid. The Spaniards about the place would never have
let us start out on that perilous trip had it not been for the money
there was in it. I had secured at a round price three century old
bullock carts, and in the afternoon of the second day we got off. I had
all the women and the sick Portuguese in one cart, with the two other
carts ahead heaped with luggage. Thus there were eight bullocks, four
mules and (unlucky number) thirteen men engaged.

I had very misty notions as to our destination, but took it for granted
the baker's dozen of natives I had with me knew what they were about.
Snow was everywhere, and we were mounting up, up, up, on wheels, but I
supposed the highest altitude was only four or five miles away, and that
the down grade would be easy until we reached some snug inn where we
would find shelter for man and beast. Then an early start by daylight
and our novel jaunt would come to an end in civilization and a railway.
But I did not know Spaniards, their country, the Pyrenees, nor what
blizzards can blow in sunny Spain.

Myself and my servant Nunn trudged on alongside the cart with the women.
It took an hour to get out of sight of the fonda, and then we struck a
fine, wide military road that wo