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"Let us stray up the river-bank a few hundred yards," he said, "seize a boat, and row ourselves across." No sooner was the proposition made than it was adopted; but we were saved from the ephemeral disgrace of posing as petty amphibious pirates, degenerate Schinderhannes of the Bidassoa. We saw a boat; a girl was near.
The heavy rains during the past night had rendered the Bidassoa no longer fordable, and the bridge of Bera being the only retreat left open, it was fortunate for them that they took advantage of it before we had time to occupy the post with a sufficient force to defend the passage, otherwise they would have been compelled, in all probability, to have laid down their arms.
Were Irun or Fontarabia in the hands of the Carlists, there was the always-present danger of shells being pitched into them from a gunboat in the Bidassoa; and Renteria, outside of which the Republican troops only stirred on sufferance, was to all intents as serviceable to the Carlists as if it were tenanted by a Carlist garrison, which would thereby be condemned to idleness.
It fell to my lot to partake of his princely hospitality and dine with him at his quarters, a farmhouse in a village on the Bidassoa, and I never saw a better dinner put upon table. The career of this amiable Amphitryon, to our great regret, was cut short, after exercising for about a year a splendid but not very wise hospitality.
Though held at bay for a while by the sieges of San Sebastian and Pampeluna, as well as by an obstinate defence of the Pyrenees, Wellington succeeded in the very month of the triumph at Leipzig in winning a victory on the Bidassoa, which enabled him to enter France. He was soon followed by the Allies.
But so little was it to his liking to stay in the rear that he escaped from the hospital, and managed not only to fight at Bidassoa, but to get wounded again! He was, of course, reproved by his colonel; but who could be seriously angry with a youngster for such conduct? So when he was sent back to England to get healed of his wounds, he was made a captain at the early age of twenty-one.
My companions were desirous of pushing forward, and the provisional alcalde of the village gave us a trap to take us on. There is an excellent road by the mountain-side, until a tunnel to the right is reached, when we entered a most picturesque, well-wooded defile, through which the Bidassoa pours its waters.
The exchange of the two Princesses took place on the 9th of November, in the middle of the Bidassoa, with a host of petty and futile observances which excite mirth rather than admiration; but at the same time with a magnificence surpassing all that had ever previously been exhibited on such an occasion; the two Courts of France and Spain vying with each other in splendour and profusion.
Soult, after re-organising the divisions, made a great effort to help the French garrison left in Pamplona, but in vain. They were forced to capitulate and Marshal Soult had to take his troops back across the Bidassoa.
After our few days halt, we advanced along the banks of the Bidassoa, through a succession of beautiful little fertile valleys, thickly studded with clean respectable looking farm-houses and little villages, and bounded by stupendous, picturesque, and well wooded mountains, until we came to the hill next to the village of Bera, which we found occupied by a small force of the enemy, who, after receiving a few shots from our people, retired through the village into their position behind it.
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