Note 3 — Part VI.

The blockade system, as it was called, much extolled at the time, did not prevent the occurrence of various Carlist expeditions into Castile and Arragon, any more than it hindered large bodies of rebels from establishing themselves, under Cabrera and others, in Catalonia and Arragon, where they held out till after the pacification of the Basque provinces. If any hope was really entertained of starving out the Biscayan and Navarrese Carlists, or even of inconveniencing them for supplies of food, it proved utterly fallacious. Although two-thirds of Navarre, nearly the whole of Guipuzcoa, and a very large portion of Alava and Biscay Proper, consist of mountains, so great is the fertility of the valleys, that the Carlists never, during the whole struggle, experienced a want of provisions, but were, on the contrary, usually far better rationed than the Christino troops; and, strange to say, the number of sheep and cattle existing at the end of the war, in the country occupied by the Carlists, was larger than at its commencement. Money was wanting, tobacco, so necessary to the Spanish soldier, was scarce and dear, but food was abundant, although the number of mouths to be fed was much greater, and of hands to till the ground far less, than in time of peace. This, too, in one of the most thickly populated districts of Spain, and in spite of the frequent foraging and corn-burning expeditions undertaken by the Christinos into the Carlist districts, especially in the plains north of Vittoria and the valleys of southern Navarre.