Despite the steep gradients, where traffic is hardly possible except by ox-carts, there are over 350 m. of admirably engineered roads, maintained solely by the local tax-payers. After San Sebastian, the capital (pop. 1900, 37,812), the chief towns are Fuenterrabia (4345) and Irun (9912). Other towns with more than 6000 inhabitants are Azpeitia (6066), Eibar (6583), Tolosa (8111) and Vergara (6196). Guipuzcoa is the smallest and one of the most densely peopled provinces of Spain; for its constant losses by emigration are counterbalanced by a high birth-rate and the influx of settlers from other districts who are attracted by its industrial prosperity. For an account of its inhabitants and their customs, language and history, see BASQUES and BASQUE PROVINCES. FOOTNOTE: [1] A small island in the Bidassoa, called La Isla de los Faisanes, or l'Isle de la Conference, is celebrated as the place where the marriage of the duke of Guienne was arranged between Louis XI. and Henry IV. in 1463, where Francis I., the prisoner of Charles V., was exchanged for his two sons in 1526, and where in 1659 "the Peace of the Pyrenees" was concluded between D. Luis de Haro and Cardinal Mazarin. GUIRAUD, ERNEST (1837-1892), French composer, was born at New Orleans on the 26th of June 1837. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where he won the _grand prix de Rome_. His father had gained the same distinction many years previously, this being the only instance of both father and son obtaining this prize. Ernest Guiraud composed the following operas: _Sylvie_ (1864); _Le Kobold_ (1870), _Madame Turlupin_ (1872), _Piccolino_ (1876), _Galante Aventure_ (1882), and also the ballet _Gretna Green_, given at the Opera in 1873. His opera _Fredegonde_ was left in an unfinished condition and was completed by Camille Saint-Saens. Guiraud, who was a fellow-student and intimate friend of Georges Bizet, was for some years professor of composition at the Conservatoire. He was the author of an excellent treatise on instrumentation. He died in Paris on the 6th of May 1892.