ld be cruel
and foolish to oppose them to regular troops. As guerrilleros, they
were without parallel, being content with short commons, and ever ready
to play ball after the longest march; but they were ignorant of
soldiering as technically understood. In the copses and crags of their
own provinces they were invincible, and could carry on the struggle
while there was a cartridge or an onion left in the land. But where the
tactics of the "contrabandista" no longer availed, where surprises were
impossible and mysterious disappearances not easy, and where the bulk of
the people were not willing spies, the aspect of affairs was different.
They were mediocre marksmen with long-range arms of precision, and had
no proper conception of allowances for wind or sun. Target-practice was
not encouraged, and yet it was not through thrift of ammunition, for the
waste of powder in every skirmish was extravagant, and one could not
rest a night in a village held by the Carlists without being disturbed
by frequent careless discharges.

With the bayonet, as far as I could learn, they were impetuous in the
onset, and stubborn, especially the Navarrese. But bayonet-charges
cannot carry stone walls or mud-banks; and in the face of the almost
incessant peppering of breech-loaders, rushes of the kind have become
slightly old-fashioned. To the Carlists, in any case, was due the credit
of readiness to have recourse to the steel whenever there was a rift for
hand-to-hand fighting. Their military education unfortunately confined
itself to the rudiments of the drill-book. They fell in, dressed up,
formed fours by the right, extended into sections on column of march and
went through the like movements very well--so well that it was a pity
they had not an opportunity of adding to their stock of knowledge. They
had an instinctive aptitude for skirmishing, and were expert at forming
square, the utility of which, by the way, is as questionable nowadays as
that of charging.

More attention was paid to discipline than to drill. Pickets patrolled
the towns into which they entered, and repressed all disorder after
nightfall; outpost duty was strictly enforced; "larking" was not
tolerated, and punishments were always inflicted for known and grave
breaches of order.

CHAPTER XII.

Barbarossa--Royalist-Republicans--Squaring a Girl--At Iron--"Your
Papers?"--The Barber's Shop--A Carlist Spy--An Old Chum--The
Alarm--A Breach of Neutralit