or his haunts along wild shores, and if such happened to be gems, jewelry, liquors or other imperishable articles of worth they might well be considered in the light of buried treasure, especially liquid goods whose value increases with age.

And no doubt, too, many of the leaders of the smugglers, both by sea and by land, were most picturesque, quixotic and paradoxical characters, just as many of the piratical chieftains possessed such characteristics, for somehow, though just why is something of a mystery, leaders of lawless men appear to be more often blessed or cursed with such attributes than the ordinary mortal. Perhaps, however, it is the character that makes the man, and the psychological twists in their natures were responsible for their choice of a profession. Be that as it may, such men have and always will be interesting, and are the stuff of which popular heroes of legend and story are made, and their names and deeds will ever live on, embroidered of course with a deal of incidents and acts which never occurred or which they never performed. Robin Hood would have long since passed into oblivion had he been an ordinary highwayman or common robber. Dick Turpin would have been forgotten had he possessed uncouth manners and no attractive features. Scores of pirates and buccaneers were more successful, more bloodthirsty, more famous in their day than Morgan, Blackbeard, DeLussan, Bonnet

or Kidd, and yet scarcely a man knows their name or fame today, merely because of idiosyncrasies of the others who thereby became figures of romance and fiction and will never be forgotten.

And beyond question many a Contrabandista carried more contraband over the mountains, escaped more traps and lived to boast of his deeds, perhaps even held more wealthy persons for ransom, than those whose names are spoken in tones of awe and respect by the Spanish peasants of the Pyrenees. There was Don Q, who, legend has it, was a renegade priest, and, like many another robber and lawless character, ever looked upon the clergy as his special prey and enjoyed nothing more than forcing some stout and easy-loving padre to toil weary miles through the mountains, to dwell in a bare and rocky cave and subsist on the coarsest food exposed to jeers and insults of the smuggler-brigands while awaiting a ransom worthy of a king. And, also according to story, Don Q found his earlier experience in the Church of utmost value in his profession. Garbed as a friar, he could quite safely enter the towns, hear the carbineros' plan for his capture, acquaint himself with the doings of the citizens, the market for goods, and even make secret arrangements with his agents and customers, with never a suspicion that the shaven-headed, cassocked priest was the

outlaw for whose apprehension the guardias would have figuratively given their heads.

A very admirable sort of man this Don Qwhose initial stood for "quien" (who), ever a good friend to the poor, the needy or the infirm, and they tell many a tale of his looting the larders of the friars or robbing priests of their gold in order to provide food and necessities for the country folk in time of stress and misfortune. And likewise there is no end to the stories regarding his prowess and his successes as a contrabandista. Of his men leading the carbineros far astray on a false scent and leaving them, lost in fastnesses of the mountains, while Don Q. led his pack-train boldly and openly into a border town. Of how a party of guardias were met by a jolly friar and invited to spend the night with himself and his fellow priests in a lonely monastery where, so he assured them, Don Q's men were sure to drop in and could be captured. And with great relish the peasants go on to relate how the guardias agreed, and dined on fine fare and drank most excellent wines, and toasted their tired limbs and bodies before the roaring fire, and joked and told stories and roared with merriment in which their clerical hosts joined most heartily. How, wholly unsuspicious, the guardias suddenly found themselves looking into the muzzles of pistols in the hands of the supposed priests, and after being trussed up, watched the contra

bandistas throw off their disguises and go their way, leaving the raging, discomfitted officers helplessly bound in the monastery until the rightful occupants, after being released by the smugglers, returned. But before he had left, Don Q, who was ever it is said a man of his word, had reminded the guardias of his promise to show them the contrabandistas, which he had done, although to the hoodwinked guards that must have been cold comfort.

Even more fascinating and picturesque was that other famed and partly fabulous smuggler chief of the Pyrenees, one, Don Sebastian, who, like Don Q. was as much bandit as smuggler. Of him the peasants still speak with much of awe in their tones and with crossed fingers, for the superstitious folk credit him with having possessed the evil-eye, with delving in sorcery and witchcraft, and with being under the personal protection of the devil himself.

Who he was no one knew, and Don Sebastian never. divulged. Indeed, it is said certain overcurious persons who enquired too closely into the ancestry and antecedents of the bandit-smuggler, vanished most effectually and mysteriously, utterly destroyed by witchcraft, whisked away amid blue flames and a smell of brimstone, or dropped over a convenient cliff, according to the individual fancy of the story teller. But whether made away with by occult or corporeal methods, their fate served as