Regular troops, in traversing this rugged country, are exhausted by the shortest marches, while the people of the region go straight through wood and ravine, plunging into the thick forests and following narrow paths, through which pursuit is impossible, and where an invading force does not dare to send out detachments for fear of having them cut off by a sudden guerilla attack. It was here and in the Basque provinces to the west, with their population of hardy and daring mountaineers, that the troops of Napoleon found themselves most annoyed by the bold guerilla chiefs, and here the Carlist forces long defied the armies of the crown. Tomas Zumalacarregui, the "modern Cid," as his chief historian entitles him, was a man of high military genius, rigid in discipline, skilful in administration, and daring in leadership; a stern, grave soldier, to whose face a smile rarely came except when shots were falling thick around him and when his staff appeared as if they would have preferred music of a different kind. To this intrepid chief fear seemed unknown, prudence in battle unthought of, and so many were his acts of rashness that when a bullet at length reached him it seemed a miracle that he had escaped so long. The white charger which he rode became such a mark for the enemy, from its frequent appearance at the head of a charging troop or in rallying a body of skirmishers, that all those of a similar color ridden by members of his staff were successively shot, though his always escaped. On more than one occasion he brought victory out of doubt, or saved his little army in retreat, by an act of hare-brained bravery. Such was the "Uncle Tomas" of the Navarrese, the darling of the mountaineers, the man who would very likely have brought final victory to their cause had not death cut him off in the midst of his career. Few were the adherents of Don Carlos when this able soldier placed himself at their head,—a feeble remnant hunted like a band of robbers among their native mountains. When he appeared in 1833, escaping from Madrid, where he was known as a brave soldier and an opponent of the queen, he found but the fragment of an insurgent army in Navarre. All he could gather under his banner were about eight hundred half-armed and undisciplined men,—a sorry show with which to face an army of over one hundred and twenty thousand men, many of them veterans of the recent wars. These were thrown in successive waves against Uncle Tomas and his handful of followers, reinforcement following reinforcement, general succeeding general, even the redoubtable Mina among them, each with a new plan to crush the Carlist chief, yet each disastrously failing.