On the other flank of Suchet’s position the high valleys of the Pyrenees were swarming with small bands, forming a link between Mina and a division of the Catalonian army stationed about the Seu d’Urgel, which was a fortified castle, closing the passage leading from the plain of that name to the Cerdaña: this division in conjunction with Rovira, and other partizans, extended the irregular warfare on the side of Olot and Castelfollit to the Ampurdan; and the whole depended upon Taragona, which itself was supported by the English fleet in the Mediterranean. Aragon may therefore be considered as an invested fortress, which the Spaniards thought to reduce by famine, by assault, and by exciting the population against the garrison; but Suchet baffled them; he had made such judicious arrangements that his convoys were secure in the interior, and all the important points on the frontier circle were fortified, and connected, with Zaragoza, by chains of minor ports radiating from that common centre. Lerida, Mequinenza, and the plain of Urgel in Catalonia, the fort of Morella in Valencia, were his; and by fortifying Teruel and Alcanitz he had secured the chief passages leading through the mountains to the latter kingdom: he could thus, at will, invade either Catalonia or Valencia, and from Mequinenza he could, by water, transport the stores necessary to besiege Tortoza. Nor were these advantages the result of aught but his uncommon talents for war, a consideration which rendered them doubly formidable. The situation of the French in Catalonia was different. Macdonald, who had assumed the command at the moment when Napoleon wished him to co-operate with Suchet, was inexperienced in the peculiar warfare of the province, and unprepared to execute any extended plan of operations. His troops were about Gerona and Hostalrich, which were in fact the bounds of the French conquest at this period; for Barcelona was a military point beyond their field system, and only to be maintained by expeditions; and the country was so exhausted of provisions in the interior, that the army itself could only be fed by land-convoys from France, or by such coasters as, eluding the vigilance of the English cruizers, could reach Rosas, St. Filieu, and Palamos. Barcelona like the horse-leech continually cried for more, and as the inhabitants as well as the garrison depended on the convoys, the latter were enormous, reference being had to the limited means of the French general, and the difficulty of moving; for, although the distance between Hostalrich and Barcelona was only forty miles, the road, as far as Granollers, was a succession of defiles, and crossed by several rivers, of which the Congosta and the Tordera were considerable obstacles; and the nature of the soil was clayey and heavy, especially in the defiles of the Trenta Pasos.