Nature had formed Mina[81] for the service to which he had devoted himself. His constitution was equal to every privation and fatigue, and his courage was of that prompt and daring character which no circumstance, however sudden and disheartening, could overcome. Careless as to dress or food, he depended for a change of linen on the capture of French baggage or any accidental supply; and for days he could subsist on a few biscuits, or any thing chance threw in his way. He guarded carefully against surprise--slept with a dagger and pistols in his girdle; and such were his active habits, that he rarely took more than two hours of repose. Remote caverns were the depositories of his ammunition and plunder; and in a mountain fastness he established an hospital for his wounded, to which they were carried on litters across the heights, and placed in perfect safety until their cure could be completed. Gaming and plunder were prohibited, and even love forbidden, lest the guerilla might be too communicative to the object of his affection, and any of his chieftain’s secrets should thus transpire. Of the minor chiefs many strange and chivalrous adventures are on record. The daring plans, often tried and generally successful, and the hair-breadth escapes of several, are almost beyond belief. No means, however repugnant to the laws of modern warfare, were unemployed; while the ingenuity with which intelligence of a hostile movement was transmitted--the artifice with which an enemy was delayed, until he could be surrounded or surprised, appear incredible. Of individual ferocity a few instances will be sufficient. At the execution of an alcade and his son at Mondragon, the old man boasted that two hundred French had perished by their hands; and the Chaleco, Francis Moreno, in a record of his services, boasts of his having waited for a cavalry patrol in a ravine, and by the discharge of a huge blunderbuss, loaded nearly to the muzzle, dislocated his own shoulder, and killed or wounded nine of the French. The same chief presented to Villafranca a rich booty of plate and quicksilver, and added to the gift a parcel of ears cut from the prisoners whom on that occasion he had slaughtered. Profiting by the anarchy that reigned in this afflicted country, wretches, under political excuses, committed murder and devastation on a scale of frightful magnitude. One, pretending to be a functionary of the Junta, made Ladrada a scene of bloodshed. By night his victims were despatched; and, to the disgrace of woman, his wife was more sanguinary than himself. Castanos at length arrested their blood-stained career; and Pedrazeula was hanged and beheaded, and Maria, his infamous confederate, gavotted.