On a dull damp October morning of the year 1833—concerning the more exact date of which it can only be ascertained that it was subsequently to the twentieth day of the month—a man rather above the middle height, wrapped in a military cloak of dark grey cloth, and wearing an oilskin schako upon his head, was seen proceeding through the streets of Pampeluna in the direction of the gate known as the Puerta del CÁrmen. Although the cloak and schako, which were all that could at first be distinguished of his dress, indicated their wearer to be an officer, it was observed, that on passing the guard-house at the gate, he took some pains to conceal his face, as though fearful of being recognised. Once outside the walls, he crossed the river Arga by the Puente Nuevo, and continued his progress along the Irurzun road. He had arrived at about cannon-shot distance from the fortress of Pampeluna, when a man, leading a small horse by the bridle, suddenly emerged from a place of concealment by the roadside. The officer hastily fastened on a spur which he had brought with him, put foot in stirrup, and mounted. For a few moments he remained motionless, gazing at Pampeluna, as though bidding a silent adieu to the friends he left behind him; then striking his single spur into his horse's flank, he rapidly disappeared. Two hours later he entered at full trot the village of Huarte Araquil, five leagues from Pampeluna. The officer alighted at the house of a friend, where there presently came to meet him a respectable inhabitant of Pampeluna, by name Don Luis Mongelos, and the vicar or parish priest of Huarte, Don Pedro Miguel IraÑeta. The latter, as well by his sacred character as by reason of the services that, at a former period, he had rendered to the cause of the Spanish monarchy, enjoyed some influence in his district.

The conference that Mongelos and IraÑeta held with the unknown officer lasted till a late hour of the night, when they separated to take a few hours' repose. At early dawn they reassembled, and set out for the valley of Berrueza, where they were told that they would find the chief of the Navarrese Carlists, Don Francisco Iturralde, whom they were desirous of seeing. They were fortunate enough to meet with him that same day at the village of Piedramillera.

In those early days of the Royalist insurrection, and in the state of anxiety and fermentation in which men's minds then were, the appearance in the Carlist camp of an officer of rank could not do less than excite, in the highest degree, the curiosity and interest of the inhabitants, especially of those who had taken up arms for Don Carlos. Accordingly, whilst the three strangers were with Iturralde, there was rapidly formed at the door of the latter's quarters a large group, composed of volunteers and peasants, and even of women and children. All were eager to know who the person in the colonel's uniform might be; but nevertheless, when he at last came out, and the crowd pressed forward to examine him, not one of the numerous assemblage could tell his name. The disappointed gazers were dispersing, when a party of officers came up; and no sooner did these behold the stranger, than they exclaimed simultaneously, and in a tone of mingled surprise and enthusiasm—"Zumalacarregui!"

Rarely has the axiom, that circumstances and opportunity make the man, been more fully exemplified than in the person of the chief whose name we have just written. For forty-five years he lived unknown and unnoticed beyond a very limited circle, remarked only by his own comrades, and by the generals under whom he served, as a good drill and an efficient regimental officer. After twenty-five years' service, he occupied the undistinguished post of colonel of a Spanish line regiment. The probabilities were, that he would end his life with the embroidered cuff of a brigadier-general, and be forgotten as soon as the earth had closed over him. One man died, leaving a disputed crown; and spurred on, as some say, by injustice done to him, as others maintain, by an enthusiastic devotion to a principle, Zumalacarregui, in the twenty months of life that were still accorded to him, raised and organized, by his own unaided energies, a numerous and efficient army, outmanoeuvered the practised leaders, and defeated the veteran troops that were sent against him, and made himself a name that has been repeated with respect and admiration by some of the highest military authorities in Europe.

Don Tomas Zumalacarregui, a native of Guipuzcoa, was twenty years of age when he first saw fire at Saragossa in 1808. When the French raised the siege, he returned home, and remained there till Guipuzcoa, following the example of the other Spanish provinces, declared against the usurpation of Napoleon. He then immediately joined Jauregui, better known as El Pastor or the Shepherd, on account of his having, like another Viriatus—but without becoming a bandit—exchanged the crook for the sabre. In spite of the youth of his new follower, El Pastor found him of great assistance; and it is even said that Zumalacarregui, ashamed of having for leader a man who could not write, undertook to teach him, and succeeded in so doing,. The war of independence at an end, Areizaga, captain-general of the Basque provinces, appointed Zumalacarregui his aide-de-camp; and finally, by his interest and recommendation, procured him a captain's commission in the line. In this new position the young officer made himself remarked for two things—an inflexible firmness of character, and an enthusiastic love of his profession. All his leisure was passed in the study of tactics, and he rarely opened a book that treated of any other subject.

In 1822, under the constitutional regime, Zumalacarregui, being of known Royalist opinions, was deprived of his company. He joined Quesada, who was at the head of the realistas in Navarre, and from him received command of a battalion, which he kept till, at the end of the war, it was disbanded in common with all the Navarrese corps. Whilst holding this command, his skill and merit, and a certain air of superiority, which was natural to him, excited the envy and dislike of some of his brother officers; but to the intrigues and artifices employed to injure him, he only opposed a redoubled zeal in the execution of his duty. Subsequently he commanded a regiment with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and was at last made full colonel of the 3d light infantry. The excellent state into which he brought this corps, caused it to be sent from Valencia to Madrid, to form part of the military pageant by which Queen Christina's first arrival at the capital of Spain was celebrated. This piece of duty, it was expected, would have procured Zumalacarregui his brigadier's rank; but the only thing he got by it was a fall from his horse, from the effects of which he afterwards suffered.

Zumalacarregui's last command in the service of Ferdinand was that of the 14th of the line. A curious narrative of the circumstances that occurred whilst he had this regiment, is to be found in a letter from the Carlist general, Don Carlos Vargas, who was at that time aide-de-camp to Eguia, captain-general of Galicia, in which province the 14th was quartered.

"From time immemorial," says Vargas, "there had existed in the district of the Ferrol a society of robbers, regularly sworn in and organized, having branches all over the country, and so well directed in their operations, that it was found impossible to make an end of them, or to discover who they were. When any one of the associates was seen to falter, or was suspected of an intention to betray his companions, he was immediately assassinated, and almost always in some horrible manner. Persons of every class and description belonged to this association—even women, old men, and government functionaries of high grade. From 1826 to 1832, a merchant of the name of C—— was at the head of it—a very wealthy man, with respect to whom no one could explain how it was that in so few years he had accumulated such great riches. The public authorities, whose duty it was to discover and suppress so infamous a society, had been drawn into it by bribery or intimidation, or both; so that, instead of preventing the robberies, they protected the robbers, and gave them all the opportunities in their power. In spite of his known zeal, energy, and activity, General Eguia had been unable to destroy, or even discover, this numerous band. He had been deceived by the apparent zeal of the alcalde mayor of the Ferrol, Don V.G. D——, and of an escribano, named R——, a captain of royalist volunteers. These two men denounced and prosecuted sundry small offenders who formed no part of the grand association; and, by the good understanding between them, baffled all the efforts of the captain-general."

Eguia, finding that the robberies continued to as great an extent as before, and that the temporary governor of the Ferrol did not aid him efficaciously in detecting their perpetrators, removed him from his post and conferred it on Zumalacarregui, with whose character he was well acquainted. The latter in a very few days obtained a clue to the whole confederacy, and arrested C—— and other rich accomplices. Various anonymous offers of large sums of money were now made to Zumalacarregui, and repeated threats of assassination held out to him; but he was neither to be bribed nor frightened, and the wealthy and influential confederates set every engine at work to bring about his dismissal and ruin. Being known as a Royalist, the events that occurred at La Granja in 1832 facilitated the designs of his enemies. At the same time Brigadier-General Chacon, then commanding the royal corps of marines at the Ferrol, and who has since been political chief of Madrid and one of the cabinet, was also manoeuvring against Zumalacarregui, whose character, it appears, awed him considerably. Under a pretext that a Carlist pronunciamento was contemplated, Chacon shut himself up in the arsenal with his marines, and persisted in remaining there in spite of the assurances of safety given to him by the governor. At last, having had an interview at Santiago with the Captain-General Eguia, the latter succeeded in tranquillizing his fears, and the marines came out of their stronghold, looking very like a parcel of children whose nurse has threatened them with a bugbear. Notwithstanding the absurdity of Chacon's demonstration, it attracted the attention of the Christino party, then in power; and as at that period all the officers of rank known to entertain Royalist opinions were deprived, one after the other, of their commands, there was nothing surprising in the same measure being adopted with regard to Zumalacarregui, although nothing could be alleged against him, whether as a man of honour or in a military or political point of view. As soon as he left the Ferrol, the proceedings against the robbers became paralysed; those of them who had been taken were set at liberty, and resumed with impunity their course of crime.

In July 1833 Zumalacarregui took up his residence at Pampeluna, where, three months later, he learned the death of Ferdinand VII. and the declaration of General Santos Ladron in favour of Don Carlos. He would probably have immediately departed to join the insurgents, had not the authorities of Pampeluna had their eyes upon him. General SolÁ, then governor of that fortress, hearing that he had been negotiating the purchase of a horse, sent for him and enquired if such were really the case. Zumalacarregui replied that even if it were so, it need not surprise any body, for all his life he had been accustomed to keep a horse. "Nevertheless," returned SolÁ, "for the present your SeÑoria must be pleased to do without one." And this was the motive of the clandestine manner in which Zumalacarregui left Pampeluna.

It has been already shown that although, from earliest manhood, Zumalacarregui employed himself diligently in cultivating those qualities, and acquiring that knowledge, by the judicious application of which he afterwards gained such celebrity, his really public and important life extended over a period of little more than a year and a half. But within that short space how much was comprised! What hardship and exertion—what efforts both mental and bodily—what an amount of activity, excitement, peril, and success were accumulated in those few months of existence! From the peculiar circumstances under which Zumalacarregui's achievements occurred, an historian was very difficult to be found for them. Those who surrounded him were generally speaking men of action, less skilled in handling the pen than the sabre; and moreover, during the six years' struggle, in which most of those who survived its sanguinary contest took part to its close, the succession of events was so rapid, the changes were so constant, that the incidents of to-day might well cause those of yesterday to be imperfectly remembered. Even the newspaper emissaries who hovered about the scene of the contest, striving to collect intelligence, were foiled in so doing by the constant movements of the Carlist general, by the wild country and inclement season in which he carried on his operations. In the year 1836, a young Englishman, whom a love of adventure and zeal for the cause had induced to draw his sword in behalf of Charles V., published a narrative of twelve months' service with Zumalacarregui. There is much in his book to amuse and interest, and Captain Henningsen, as we have reason to know from other sources than the internal evidence of his writings, is a gallant and accomplished officer. His descriptions are graceful and agreeable, the sketches and anecdotes he gives are the very romance of civil warfare—not that, as we believe, he either did or had any occasion to embellish his account of a campaign which abounded in the picturesque and the dramatic. He was only with Zumalacarregui, however, during the latter half of his career, when the forces of the Carlists had already assumed a certain numerical importance, and their resources were on the increase. Of its earlier portion he could speak but from hearsay; and it was during that earlier period that Zumalacarregui had the greatest difficulties to contend with—difficulties in overcoming which he displayed extraordinary talent and perseverance. Besides this, we have always looked upon Captain Henningsen's book rather as a slight, though interesting and truthful, narrative of personal adventure, than as a record of Zumalacarregui's career; nor does he claim for it a higher character than the one we are disposed to concede to it. "I have merely," he says, "drawn a rough sketch with charcoal on a guard-house wall—neither memoir, travels, nor history—but which may have the merit of being a sketch from the life." This is a correct definition. But the character and exploits of Zumalacarregui were worthy of a chronicler who should treat the subject more seriously—and such a one has lately been found. A personal friend, who followed him from the first day that he took up arms for Don Carlos, a native of the province in which the war was chiefly carried on, fully acquainted with its state and the feelings of its inhabitants, as well as with the incalculable disadvantages under which Zumalacarregui laboured and the few advantages he enjoyed, has undertaken the task. Ten years after Zumalacarregui's death, the Carlist general, Don Juan Antonio Zaratiegui, has written, from the country of his exile, the memoirs of his former leader.

Although the arrival of Zumalacarregui was hailed with the most lively joy by the insurgents, and notwithstanding that he was senior in rank to any officer then with the Navarrese Carlists, there were still difficulties in the way of his taking the command. The whole force in Navarre consisted but of nine hundred men—peasants for the most part, many without arms, others with old and unserviceable ones; yet was the colonelcy of this ragged and badly equipped regiment an object of competition. Iturralde, who held it, refused to give it up, although—with the exception of Juan Echevarria, the priest of Los Arcos, who afterwards made his name infamous for his crimes and excesses—all the officers and influential persons there assembled were desirous he should resign it in favour of Zumalacarregui. Captain Henningsen relates that Iturralde sent two companies of infantry to arrest his rival, who, "reversing the game, sternly commanded them to arrest Iturralde, and was obeyed." Of this we see no mention in the book before us, where we are told, on the contrary, that Zumalacarregui, finding Iturralde obstinate in retaining the command, was mounting his horse with the intention of departing and offering his services to the Alavese Carlists, when he was prevented on so doing by the mass of officers and persons of distinction in the camp, who compelled him to return to his quarters, promising that they would find means of arranging matters satisfactorily. The captains formed up their companies, and marched them to the parade-ground. When all were assembled, Major Juan Sarasa, who was looked upon by the soldiers as second in command, drew his sword, and exclaimed in a loud voice, "Volunteers! In the name of King Charles the Fifth, Colonel Don Tomas Zumalacarregui is recognised as Commandant-General of Navarre!" It is certain that as Don Carlos was then far away from Navarre, and ignorant even of what was going on there, he could not make this nomination; but neither had he appointed Iturralde nor any of the other chiefs who commanded in the various provinces. Under such circumstances this was perhaps the most proper and solemn way of conferring the command, especially when the choice fell upon the officer of the highest rank there present. Before sheathing his sword, Sarasa ordered the guard of honour at Iturralde's quarters to be relieved, and that Iturralde himself should be kept under arrest until further orders from the new chief. All this having taken place without opposition or disturbance, Zumalacarregui made his appearance upon the parade, passed the troops in review, and then causing them to form a circle round him, he addressed them at some length.

From the first formation of a Carlist force in Navarre, the men had been in the habit of receiving two reals, about fivepence sterling, a-day. This rate of pay had been established by General Santos Ladron, and continued by Iturralde, with the view of attracting volunteers. The necessary funds had hitherto been supplied from certain moneys that had been found at the beginning of the war in the hands of various subordinate administrations. These funds, however, were now nearly exhausted, and Zumalacarregui's first announcement to the soldiery was, that he should reduce their pay one-half till times were better. Considering the circumstances under which he had assumed the command, this was a bold step. Most generals would have sought rather to conciliate their men by an increase than to risk exciting discontent by a reduction. Nevertheless, owing to Zumalacarregui's tone of mingled firmness and conciliation, this alteration was made without exciting a murmur.

Releasing Iturralde from his arrest Zumalacarregui appointed him second in command, whilst Sarasa cheerfully descended to the third place—thereby proving that in what he had done in favour of Zumalacarregui, the good of the cause he had espoused was his only motive. The command in chief, however, was merely ad interim. On the arrival of Colonel Eraso, who was then detained in France, it was to be given up to him. But when Eraso made his appearance, so convinced was he of Zumalacarregui's superiority of talent, that he insisted, in spite of the latter's urgent entreaties, in taking only the second post.

Upon assuming the command, Zumalacarregui at once determined on adopting a defensive system of warfare—the only one, indeed, that was practicable with his wretched resources and handful of men. Just at that time General Sarsfield was marching with a strong column to the scene of the insurrection; and at his approach the Castilian Carlists, under Melino and Cuevillas, fled and dispersed to their homes. Sarsfield moved on, and occupied Vittoria with little opposition. Soon afterwards Zumalacarregui, who had betaken himself to the banks of the Ebro in hopes of seizing some arms and horses, received an urgent summons to repair to Bilboa, then held by the Royalists, and which Sarsfield was advancing to attack. He hastened to obey the call, but only arrived at that extremity of Navarre nearest to Biscay, in time to meet the remnant of the Biscayan Carlists flying before the triumphant Christinos. The troops in the Basque provinces, which, the evening before, had amounted to five or six thousand men, were now reduced to as many hundreds. Their arms, ammunition, and artillery, the latter consisting of four guns, had been abandoned, and were in the power of the conquerors; and so complete was the dissolution of the Carlist forces, that a vast number of persons who were compromised by their conduct or opinions, seeing themselves without defence, crossed the frontier into France. Zumalacarregui, with three scanty, ill-armed battalions, which he had formed out of the handful of Navarrese peasants before alluded to, was now the only hope of the cause. The war was, to all appearance, at an end; and so it undoubtedly would have been but for Zumalacarregui's extraordinary qualities. When he left Pampeluna, the three Basque provinces and the greater part of the Rioja, or plains of the Ebro, were held by the Carlists. Merino had just issued a proclamation announcing himself to be at the head of twenty thousand Castilian volunteers. In all, there were nearly forty thousand men under arms for Don Carlos, and ready to support the Navarrese rising. Suddenly this brilliant perspective had disappeared like a scene in a play, and the twelve or fifteen hundred men, half-naked, without uniform, and badly armed, who were assembled in the valley of the Borunda, found themselves alone and unprotected in front of a formidable and well-provided foe. All was confusion and panic, when Zumalacarregui opposed his zeal and energy to the contagion of alarm that was rapidly spreading amongst his men. His precautions, his decided and inflexible character, gave life to a cause apparently at the last gasp. Encouraging some, rousing others from the lethargy into which they were sinking, he proceeded resolutely with the organization of his three battalions, introduced strict discipline and subordination, and procured five hundred muskets, and a supply of cartridges, from Biscay and Guipuzcoa. General Villareal, who had saved one battalion from the wreck of the Alavese troops, joined him; and the juntas and deputations of the various provinces named Zumalacarregui commander-in-chief of all the Carlist forces.

Meanwhile, Sarsfield's movements appearing too dilatory to the Christino government, he was replaced by General Valdes, and appointed Viceroy of Navarre. The arrival of winter, however, and a heavy fall of snow, in some degree paralyzed the operations of the Christinos, whilst this occasioned incredible sufferings to the Carlists. One battalion of the latter, in passing from Navarre to Guipuzcoa, across the mountains of AralÁr, lost 460 men out of 620, of which it consisted. Numbed by cold, and worn out by fatigue, they remained to die upon the road, or dragged themselves for shelter to lonely hamlets and isolated farmhouses, where many of them were discovered and taken by Christino detachments sent to hunt them down. "Truly," says Zaratiegui, "it was a lamentable sight to behold these unfortunate men, who were unable to move hand or foot, thus persecuted. But even in this state of impotence and peril, not one of them chose to avail himself of the pardon which the Christino generals at that time freely offered to those who should renounce Don Carlos. Doubtless a great proof of how noble and constant was their first resolution."

In order not to inconvenience the inhabitants, Zumalacarregui was in the habit of distributing his troops over large districts, himself frequently remaining with only a handful of men about him. On one of these occasions an incident occurred which is related at considerable length by General Zaratiegui, who evidently attaches the greatest importance to his late chief's most trifling actions, and, in the course of his book, compares him to or sets him above various renowned heroes of ancient and modern times. The anecdote, however, is curious, as showing the constant state of vigilance and anxiety in which the Carlists were kept during these early days of their uprising.

"Zumalacarregui had taken up his quarters in the hamlet of Zabal, which consisted of only four houses; and, as the season was unfavourable for a bivouac, he had scattered the troops through various small villages in the neighbourhood. With himself there remained only a guard of fifteen or twenty men, and a few aides-de-camp. It was in the middle of December, when the nights are at the longest, and consequently the most favourable time of the year for an enemy to accomplish a surprise. The Carlist general lay awake in his bed, watching for the dawn, which seemed to him longer than usual in appearing; till at last his own restlessness and impatience made him fancy that the Christinos were coming to surprise him. A distant noise which he heard, and which resembled the trot of horses, confirmed the hallucination. He sprang from his bed, and, nearly naked as he was, descended the stairs, opened the door of the house, and tried to snatch away the musket of the sentinel posted there, in order to defend himself against the approaching enemy. The sentry, at once recognising him, kept him off with his hand, and said firmly—'General, leave me my arms; when needful, I shall know how to use them.' The man had only joined the Carlists three days before, and, excepting his musket, bore no mark or sign of his new profession, not even a cartouch-box; and, to complete the singularity of the scene, he was mounting guard bareheaded. The horses, of which Zumalacarregui, with extraordinary fineness of ear, had detected the approach at a very great distance, soon afterwards made their appearance. They were mounted by the men whose duty it was to go from one village to another during the night, collecting rations. Things returned to their previous state of tranquillity, and the sentinel was rewarded for his steadiness and presence of mind.

"This incident," concludes Zaratiegui, "recalls to my recollection an anecdote told by a Spanish author, of the great Captain Gonzalo de Cordova. When that hero was laying siege to a fortress on the island of Cephalonia, which was defended by the Turks, he was many times seen to get up in his sleep, and to cry out to his soldiers to come and repel the enemy; and it is also said, that owing to these alarms the Spaniards more than once escaped a surprise."

Without reference to a map, it would be difficult for our readers to appreciate a description of the extraordinary marches and countermarches by which Zunalacarregui avoided his enemy until such time as he was able to fight him. Sarsfield had no sooner established himself in his vice-royalty at Pampeluna, that he collected all the troops he had at his disposal, and began running after the Carlist chief. He displayed great activity, made forced and rapid marches, and on arriving one evening at the town of Puente la Reyna, found himself, by the result of a well-planned movement, within an hour and a half's march of Artajona, where Zumalacarregui had halted. Sarsfield made sure of coming to blows the next morning; but he had forgotten to take into consideration the insensibility to fatigue, and capacity of exertion, of the Navarrese mountaineers. In the middle of the night, Zumalacarregui turned out his men in dead silence, without sound of drum or trumpet, and began retracing his steps along the road which he had that day followed. The next morning, before Sarsfield arrived at Artajona, Zumalacarregui was at Dicastillo, a long day's march off, and precisely at the same distance from the Christino general at which he had been when the latter commenced his pursuit. Sarsfield found matter for reflection in this, and perceiving, doubtless, that a war in such a country as Navarre, and against such a man as Zumalacarregui, was likely to prove a shoal upon which more than one military reputation would be wrecked, he confided the direction of operations to Generals Lorenzo and Oraa, and returned to Pampeluna, whence he no more issued forth.

The first encounter between Zumalacarregui and the Christinos took place on the 29th of December, near the village of Asarta. The Carlist force consisted of seven small battalions or corps, together about 2500 men, knowing, for the most part, little or nothing of a soldier's duty. Many of the muskets were useless, and the ammunition so scarce, that ten cartridges formed the allowance with which these troops went, for the first time, under fire. In the combat that ensued, the Christinos suffered considerable loss; and although the Carlists, who had most of them expended their ammunition, finally retreated in haste and disorder, the mere fact of having sustained for some time the assault of an enemy so far superior to them in discipline and equipments, inspired these raw recruits with fresh courage and confidence. The resistance that had been made contrasted advantageously with the facility with which, at the first commencement of the war, far larger bodies of the insurgents had been put to flight. Several Christino officers came over to the Carlists after this trifling action, of which the moral effect was altogether highly favourable to the cause of Don Carlos.

Dividing his forces into three detachments, Zumalacarregui sent two of these to draw off the attention of Lorenzo and Oraa, whilst he himself suddenly appeared before the royal manufactory of shot and shell at Orbaiceta, near the French frontier. The garrison, consisting of two hundred men, capitulated, although it might very well have held out the place against an enemy without artillery, until the arrival of assistance, which would have been certain to come in two or three days. Here were found two hundred excellent muskets, a brass four-pounder, and more than 50,000 cartridges; besides an immense quantity of round-shot and other projectiles, which at that time were useless to the Carlists, as they had no artillery.

When, instead of the news which they had been expecting to receive, of the extermination of the royalist faction, the Pampelonese learned that Orbaiceta was captured; and that Lorenzo and Oraa had succeeded in nothing except in knocking up their horses and fagging their men; they sent to Valdes, the general-in-chief of the army of the North, who was then in Biscay, imploring him to come and make an end of the Carlists. Valdes hastened to Pampeluna, and on arriving there at once made a sortie with five or six thousand men. Zumalacarregui posted himself in a narrow pass, on the road along which the Christinos were advancing, and awaited their arrival. Having done this, he sent out a number of officers and soldiers, who were well acquainted with the country, to observe the movements of the Queen's troops, and give notice of their approach. The evening was drawing in, when a peasant came up in all haste, laden with a large stone of a thin flat form, nearly a foot and a half long. On reaching the presence of Zumalacarregui, he laid it down, and requested the general to read what was written on it. One of the scouts having no writing materials, and thinking the peasant incapable of bearing a verbal message correctly, had taken this novel means of conveying intelligence to his chief. In danger of being outflanked, Zumalacarregui was compelled to abandon his advantageous position. The following day a skirmish took place without result; and at last Valdes, finding that he only fatigued his men uselessly, by pursuing an adversary whom it was impossible to overtake, remained for some days inactive.

A week had elapsed, which Zumalacarregui had passed at Navascues, busied in organizing his troops, and making various important administrative arrangements, when the approach of Oraa compelled him to a change of place. On the evening of the 17th of February, the Christino general having put up his infantry in the hamlets of Zubiri and Urdaniz, and the detachments of cavalry that accompanied him, at a large venta or inn between those two places, Zumalacarregui resolved upon a nocturnal attack.

It was at midnight that, by the light of a dozen trees, which had been set on fire, and served for gigantic torches, the Carlist leader formed up five companies in a thick wood, and after communicating to them his project, directed them how to proceed. The post of honour was assigned to a student of the name of Amezqueta, who, by his feats of courage, subsequently rose from the rank of a simple volunteer to that of colonel, and died in consequence of wounds received in action. One company was sent to open a fire upon Zubiri, in which Oraa himself was lodged; another was to attack the venta, where the cavalry were quartered; and the remaining three were to penetrate into the streets and houses of Urdaniz, which were occupied by five or six hundred Christinos.

The night had at first been bright and moonlit, but was now cloudy and dark; and Zumalacarregui, in order to avoid the terrible consequences that might ensue if his soldiers mistook one another for the enemy, ordered them to put on their shirts over their other garments. It happened to be Carnival time, and the men, not at once understanding the reason of this order, took it as a sort of masquerade proceeding, and made themselves exceedingly merry about it. The result showed how necessary a precaution it was. After various difficulties, occasioned by the bad roads and extreme darkness, the three detachments reached their respective destinations at about half-past two in the morning, and the fire against Zubiri and Urdaniz commenced almost at the same moment. In the first-named place, the Christinos kept themselves shut up in the houses, from the windows of which they returned the fire, guided in their aim by the flashes of their assailants' muskets. The sole object of the Carlists was, to keep them employed, in order that they might not interfere with what was going on at the two other points of attack. The cavalry at the venta having neglected all precautions, and possessing no effective means of defence, soon fell into the power of the Carlists; but at Urdaniz, which was held by infantry, and against which the expedition was more particularly directed, a hard-contested fight took place. The first picket which the Carlists encountered was cut to pieces to a man; the fire of a second outpost spread the alarm; but, nevertheless, the attacking party penetrated into the ground-floor of most of the houses, and a desperate contest ensued upon the stairs. The horses in the stables were either carried off or killed; and nothing would have been easier than to have set fire to the houses, and so ensured the destruction of all the Christinos. From this latter sanguinary measure, which a Cabrera or a Valmaseda would probably not have hesitated to adopt, Zumalacarregui abstained. "It did not agree," says his biographer, "with the principles of equity and justice which he observed relatively to the villages and their inhabitants;" from which we are left to infer, that the burning alive of five hundred Christino soldiers, could it have been done without injuring houses or peasants, would have been rather an acceptable holocaust to the Carlist chief.

When all the advantages calculated upon from this expedition had been obtained, the retreat was sounded, and, forming up his men with the greatest celerity, Zumalacarregui marched rapidly away, carrying off the arms, horses, and prisoners, that had been taken. With all his haste, however, early upon the following day Lorenzo and Oraa were close upon his heels; but the wary Carlist had omitted no precaution, and, in anticipation of a hot pursuit, had ordered four battalions to meet him at the neighbouring pass of Lizarraga, where he accordingly found them waiting his arrival, and immediately prepared to give the Christinos a warm reception. The latter, on arriving in front of the position, probably considered it too formidable a one to attack; for they forthwith retreated, leaving Zumalacarregui in the peaceable enjoyment of a triumph which greatly increased his reputation and the confidence of his followers.

Quesada, who succeeded Valdes in the command of the Queen's army, was the first to introduce the horrible system of reprisals, or, it should rather be said, to occasion it, by cruelty towards his prisoners. Valdes, if he had done little towards terminating the war, had at least not envenomed it, or rendered its character more ferocious than he had found it. Although it was impossible to suspect him of any leaning towards his opponents, he always showed great moderation and humanity, and caused the wounded Carlists who fell into his hands to be treated with as much care as if they had been his own men. Quesada, on the contrary, irritated at the failure of certain attempts he had made to seduce Zumalacarregui, and subsequently other Carlist leaders, from their allegiance to him they called their King, and acting under the influence of a disposition which many events in his life sufficiently proved to be cruel and bloodthirsty, had scarcely assumed the command when he gave the signal for reprisals, by shooting at Pampeluna the Carlist officer, Don Juan Hugalde, although Zumalacarregui had offered to give a Christino officer and two sergeants in exchange for him. This was followed by numerous similar acts of cruelty, which at last were cause that Villareal, by order of Zumalacarregui, shot more than a hundred prisoners who had been taken a short time previously at a village near Vittoria. Fortunately, at that particular period, the prisoners on neither side were very numerous. In an action near Segura, Leopold O'Donnell, cousin of the present governor of the Havannah, and son of the well-known Count of Abisbal, fell into the hands of the Carlists, with four other officers and a number of rank and file. The five officers were shot, in retaliation for some recent execution of Carlist prisoners; but Zumalacarregui, willing to make another effort for the establishment of a more humane system, spared the lives of the men, and ordered that seven amongst them who were wounded should be taken care of, and, when cured, sent back to Pampeluna. In return for this act of mercy, Quesada shot every prisoner he had, wounded or not. Amongst others, a Captain Bayona, who had received two desperate wounds, and was at the point of death, was dragged from his bed and shot on the public square of the village of Lacunza. Zumalacarregui might have repaid this atrocity by the slaughter of the Christino prisoners who were still in his power, but having promised them their lives, he would not recall his word.

A few days after this, four officers were made prisoners by Iturralde, who entered the town of Los Arcos with a battalion, and captured them before they had time to retreat to the fort. Quesada feeling very sure of the fate reserved for them, hit upon a stratagem by which he hoped to save their lives. He caused to be arrested at Pampeluna the parents of several Carlist officers of rank, shut them up in the citadel, and sent confessors to them. They were to be shot, he said, the very moment he should learn the death of the officers whom Iturralde had taken. The unfortunate captives begged permission to write to their sons and relatives in the Carlist army, and this request, which was what Quesada had reckoned upon, was granted. Those to whom the letters were sent presented themselves before Zumalacarregui in the most profound affliction, and implored him to show mercy to the four men on whose lives depended the existence of persons so dear to them. But Zumalacarregui, who saw at once that such a precedent would be in the highest degree dangerous, inasmuch as most of the Carlists had friends and near relatives in the Christino country, was firm in his refusal. The officers were shot, but Quesada did not dare to incur the odium which reprisals of the nature he had threatened would have heaped upon his head. It was remarked also that he was greatly discouraged by the proof he on this occasion obtained of his opponent's firmness and energy, and of the unlimited authority and influence he enjoyed over those under his command. The shooting of prisoners of war continued without intermission till the Eliot convention took place.

The month of April had arrived without any one of the Carlist leaders having received a communication, either verbal or written, from the prince for whom they had now been six months under arms. At last, on the 11th of April, Zumalacarregui, who was then in the valley of the Berrueza, received the much wished-for letter from the hands of a native of Burgos, who, in the disguise of a muleteer, managed to reach his camp. In this letter, which was dated the 18th of March 1834, Don Carlos declared that his "royal heart and soul were sweetly affected by the contemplation of the heroical efforts that were being made in the cause of religion and his legitimate rights." He promised to maintain the fueros of the provinces, approved all that had been done, and gave various and extensive powers to Zumalacarregui, whom he styled Mariscal de Campo of the royal armies. The enthusiasm which this document occasioned amongst the troops and the people of the provinces was so great, that Zumalacarregui declared it to be worth a reinforcement of twenty thousand men. It is probable also, although no express mention is made of it, that about or rather before this time, some small supplies of money had been received from the friends of Don Carlos in Spain, or other countries; for we find the junta of Navarre busied in providing new clothing for a part of the troops. The taxes levied in the districts in which the Carlists operated, and those duties on goods passing the frontier which they were able to collect, must at that period have been of very trifling amount, and insufficient to meet the expenses even of Zumalacarregui's small army.

During three months that Quesada had held the command, which he assumed with a force that he himself admitted to consist of 23,000 infantry, and 1400 horse, he had accomplished literally nothing. On the other hand, the Carlists had had several partial successes against himself and his subordinates; he had lost a vast number of men; and finally, at the action of Gulinas, near Pampeluna, Linares, one of his generals was so ill-treated by Zumalacarregui, that all the carts and vehicles in Pampeluna, including the bishop's carriage, were insufficient to carry the wounded into the town. After this last disaster, the Spanish government resolved to give Quesada a successor; and General Rodil, who had just returned from his expedition into Portugal, upon which he had gone in the vain hope of seizing the person of Don Carlos, was ordered to repair to the northern provinces with the troops under his command. After being detained some days at Madrid by Queen Christina, who had a fancy to review the division, Rodil, whose activity was his best quality, continued his march, and soon reached the Ebro with ten thousand infantry, a proportionate number of cavalry, and a prodigious train of baggage and artillery. It is said that more than a thousand carts, and a still greater number of baggage animals, followed his army. Generals Cordova, Figueras, Carandolet and others of note, formed part of his brilliant staff, and at Logrofio he was joined by Lorenzo and Oraa with their divisions. The imposing force thus got together was sufficient, it might well have been thought, to crush, ten times over, the few companies of raw guerillas under Zumalacarregui's command.

The clash of arms and note of war-like preparation that now resounded along the right bank of the Ebro, crossed the stream, and penetrated into the valleys of Navarre. The eyes of the Carlists, both soldiers and civilians, were fixed upon their chief, who, far from trying to conceal the approaching danger, rather exaggerated its magnitude. There was nothing he dreaded more than that his followers should think he was trying to deceive them. That, he knew, would destroy their confidence in him. He issued a proclamation to the troops, in which, after talking of the formidable preparations of the enemy, he put a question to them. "Volunteers!" he said, "shall you quail at the sight of this numerous array?" When the officer who read the proclamation in front of the assembled Navarrese battalions came to this question, a unanimous "No!" unpremeditated and heartfelt, burst from the lips of every man present. Upon learning this indication of the temper of the troops, Zumalacarregui resolved upon a movement of unparalleled audacity. He had information that on the following day Lorenzo and Oraa were to leave Logrofio for Pampeluna, followed twenty-four hours later by Rodil, with the troops he had brought from Portugal. Zumalacarregui determined to advance rapidly from the mountains amongst which he then found himself, and to fall upon Rodil's left flank, trusting that troops unaccustomed to that description of warfare would resist but feebly a sudden and unexpected attack. However this daring plan might have succeeded, it would certainly have been attempted, had not a totally unlooked-for, and, to the Carlists, a most important event occurred to prevent it.

At midnight, on the 11th of July, the Carlist troops were about to commence their march, when Legarra, the abbot of Lecumberri, suddenly appeared before Zumalacarregui, and placed in his hands a sealed letter of very small dimensions. The handwriting was unknown to the general, and the sole address consisting of the two words, "For Zumalacarregui," he asked Legarra, previously to opening the letter, whence and from whom it came. The sole information the abbot could give was that he had received it from the junta of Navarre, and had been desired to use all haste in its delivery. The general then opened and read the missive; and as he did so, all those who were present were able to note upon his countenance the great satisfaction with which the few words it contained inspired him. He immediately countermanded the march, ordered the horses to be unsaddled, and the troops to take up their quarters for the night.

The contents of the note which caused all these changes, were as follows:—

"Zumalacarregui: I am very near Spain, and to-morrow I trust by God's help to reach Urdax. Take the necessary measures, and communicate this to no one.