The priest, although a sallow, sombre fellow, was a very good one, and seemed to realize the gravity of the situation, for, calling the chief to him, he warned him to be careful. That gentleman came up, and drawing himself up said very proudly: "Sir, we are soldiers, not robbers." I said I was very glad to know it, and demanded to be informed if I was a prisoner or not, and was told I was not, but with the same breath he said he would be obliged to detain us for a few days. There was a fonda, or inn, close by, and leaving my wife there, 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.