til it reached the mouth of the Ebro. The mountainous and broken
country lying between this river and the Pyrenees, and now known as
Catalonia, was inhabited by fierce tribes unconquered as yet by Roman or
Carthaginian. Its conquest presented enormous difficulties. There was
no coherence between its people; but each valley and mountain was a
stronghold to be defended desperately until the last. The inhabitants,
accustomed to the mountains, were hardy, active, and, vigourous, ready
to oppose a desperate resistance so long as resistance was possible, and
then to flee across their hills at a speed which defied the fleetest of
their pursuers.

Every man was a soldier, and at the first alarm the inhabitants of the
villages abandoned their houses, buried their grain, and having driven
away their cattle into almost inaccessible recesses among the hills,
returned to oppose the invaders. The conquest of such a people was
one of the most difficult of undertakings, as the French generals
of Napoleon afterwards discovered, to their cost. The cruelty of the
mountaineers was equal to their courage, and the lapse of two thousand
years changed them but little, for in their long struggle against the
French they massacred every detachment whom they could surprise among
the hills, murdered the wounded who fell into their hands, and poisoned
wells and grain.

The army which Hannibal had brought to the foot of this country through
which he had to pass, amounted to 102,000 men, of which 12,000 were
cavalry and 90,000 infantry. This force passed the Ebro in three bodies
of equal strength. The natives opposed a desperate resistance, but the
three columns pressed forward on parallel lines. The towns were besieged
and captured, and after two months of desperate fighting Catalonia was
subdued, but its conquest cost Hannibal twenty-one thousand men, a fifth
of his whole army. Hanno was for the time left here with ten thousand
infantry and a thousand cavalry. He was to suppress any fresh rising, to
hold the large towns, to form magazines for the army, and to keep open
the passes of the Pyrenees. He fixed his headquarters at Burgos. His
operations were facilitated by the fact that along the line of the sea
coast were a number of Phoenician colonies who were natural allies of
the Carthaginians, and aided them in every way in their power. Before
advancing through the passes of the Pyrenees Hannibal still further
reduced the strength of his force by w