“I cannot continue, my dear friend, for at this moment I hear firing.  As I have no love for fighting, and as I am not a soldier, my pulse trembles a little.  In due time I will give you further particulars of this war.

“Yours affectionately, etc., etc.”

“APRIL 22.

“MY EVER-REMEMBERED FRIEND: 

“To-day we have had a bloody skirmish on the outskirts of Orbajosa.  The large body of men raised in Villahorrenda were attacked by the troops with great fury.  There was great loss in killed and wounded on both sides.  After the combat the brave guerillas dispersed, but they are greatly encouraged, and it is possible that you may hear of wonderful things.  Cristobal Caballuco, the son of the famous Caballuco whom you will remember in the last war, though suffering from a wound in the arm, how or when received is not known, commanded them.  The present leader has eminent qualifications for the command; and he is, besides, an honest and simple-hearted man.  As we must finally come to a friendly arrangement, I presume that Caballuco will be made a general in the Spanish army, whereby both sides will gain greatly.

“I deplore this war, which is beginning to assume alarming proportions; but I recognize that our valiant peasants are not responsible for it, since they have been provoked to the inhuman conflict by the audacity of the Government, by the demoralization of its sacrilegious delegates; by the systematic fury with which the representatives of the state attack what is most venerated by the people—­their religious faith and the national spirit which fortunately still exists in those places that are not yet contaminated by the desolating pestilence.  When it is attempted to take away the soul of a people to give it a different one; when it is sought to denationalize a people, so to say, perverting its sentiments, its customs, its ideas—­it is natural that this people should defend itself, like the man who is attacked by highwaymen on a solitary road.  Let the spirit and the pure and salutiferous substance of my work on the ’Genealogies’—­excuse the apparent vanity—­once reach the sphere of the Government and there will no longer be wars.

“To-day we have had here a very disagreeable question.  The clergy, my friend, have refused to allow Rey to be buried in consecrated ground.  I interfered in the matter, entreating the bishop to remove this heavy anathema, but without success.  Finally, we buried the body of the young man in a grave made in the field of Mundo Grande, where my patient explorations have discovered the archaeological treasures of which you know.  I spent some very sad hours, and the painful impression which I received has not yet altogether passed away.  Don Juan Tafetan and ourselves were the only persons who accompanied the funeral cortege.  A little later, strange to say, the girls whom they call here the Troyas went to the field, and prayed for a long time beside the rustic tomb of the mathematician.  Although this seemed a ridiculous piece of officiousness it touched me.