y--Souvenirs of War--The Miqueletes--In a Fix--A
German Doctor's Warning.

THESE horrible and bloodthirsty Carlists turned out to be amiable
individuals on acquaintance. I suppose they could put on a frown for
their enemies, but for my companions and myself they had nothing but
open smiles and hearty hand-grips. One great recommendation was our
being billeted on the parish priest. His reverence had none of the Santa
Cruz in him; he was a gentle, zealous, studious clergyman, yet was
filled with the purest enthusiasm for the cause of what he regarded as
legitimacy. The Don Carlos who raised the standard in 1833, he
maintained, was the rightful heir to the throne of Spain. The law by
which the succession had been changed was an _ex post facto_ law, passed
after his birth, and not promulgated until Ferdinand VII. had a female
child. In May, 1845, that Don Carlos, really Charles V., resigned in
favour of his son, Charles VI., and in September, 1868, he, in his turn,
relinquished his rights to the present claimant to the throne, Charles
VII., whom might God preserve.

The Cura was unusually civil towards us because we were Irish, and as
Irish were presumably of clean lineage--that is to say, free from
kinship with Jews or infidels. As reputed descendants of settlers from
Bilbao, we were entitled to a full share in all the privileges of the
province of Biscay. This was as well to know. It was a consolation to us
to learn that it was an advantage to be Irish somewhere under the sun.
The King of Spain is but Lord of Biscay, and has to swear under the
oak-tree of Guernica to respect the fueros or customs of the province.
Don Carlos had so done; he was in Spain, it was true, but where he was
at the moment the Cura was unable to say; his court was perambulatory.

The fueros were abolished by the Cortes in 1841 and but partially
restored in 1844, so that in inscribing them as one of the watchwords on
their banner, the Basques were fighting for something more solid than
glory. They cling to their rights as Britons do to Magna Charta, only
with this difference--they have a clearer conception of what they are. I
had been trying to arrive at some knowledge of the fueros, and obtained
much information from a volume by the late Earl of Carnarvon.[D]
Guipuzcoa, Alava, and Biscay, though an integral part of the Spanish
monarchy, for ages enjoyed their own laws, and a recapitulation of some
which were in force in Biscay will be a fa