CHAPTER V 



La Junquera, October 27. 

 The Pyrenees are very pretty mountains ; wild and 

 picturesque, but not very grand hereabouts. The diligence 

 started at three in the morning, and reached the entrance 

 of the pass about daybreak, vi^hile the rosy hues of the yet 

 unrisen sun vi^ere creeping from peak to peak among the 

 distant hills. 



We passed the embattled brow^ of lofty Bellegarde, which 

 looms like a great pyramid with some steps cut in the top 

 of it ; and I got out of France at El Boulou without having 

 my passport examined on my passage through the country. 

 But, alas ! at Junquera, the very first place in Spain, I was 

 brought to a dead stand. 



My passport — a Foreign-office one, I had got counter- 

 signed at the Spanish Legation, in Cavendish-square ; and 

 as it ran, " Visto en esta Legacion de su Majestad Catolica. 

 Bueno para Espaiia," I naturally supposed it was good for 

 all Spain, or at least to enter the country anywhere I chose 

 as a person warranted respectable. 



But it now appeared that the signature of the Spanish 

 secretary of legation, to whom I had taken the trouble to 

 get a formal letter of introduction, was of no value without 

 the indorsement of some trumpery Spanish consul at Per- 

 pignan, who could know nothing about my respectability, 

 except that I was in possession of a genuine five-franc-piece. 



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