TERRIBLE JOURNEY

Evening Post, Issue 50, 27 August 1935, Page 9

TERRIBLE JOURNEY

TRAMP OVER PYRENEES

CATALAN REFUGEE

MISTAKEN FOR BEAU

(Received August 27, 10.15 a.m.)

PARIS, August 26.

After a terrible journey across the Pyrenees on foot, Senor Juan Casanovas, ex-President of - the . Catalan Parliament, has arrived here. He eluded the guarcts posted at his home at Barcelona, wfliere he has been confined awaiting court-martial since the October Revolution, motored to the mountains, and! began an eighteen hours' climb in smow and darkness.

"Don't ask me how I escaped," he remarked to an interviewer. "You don't suppose it is easy. Don't ask me where I crossed the/Pyrenees. I expected momentarily to be stopped by Customs officers. I heard a shot, followed by • voice saying, 'Be careful; these animals are dangerous when wounded.' Two marksmen had mistaken me for a bear."

Senor Caaaaovas injured his knee in a fall six hours before reaching Foix, the first town he reached in France.

The Pyrenees extend for about 240 ■miles from the Bay of Biscay to Cape Creus; The main crest of the range constitutes the Franco-Spanish frontier and the chain is conventionally divided into three sections, the Central, the Atlantic, or Western, and the Mediterranean or Eastern- The Central Pyrenees include mountains of over 11,000 feet, the highest summits of the whole chain, towards the westward the height gradually diminishes, while in the east, except for one breach, the mean-eleva-tion is maintained until a rather, sudden decline occurs in the extreme eastern -portion. This threefold division is only valid so far as the elevation of the mountains is concerned and does not represent the geological structure or general configuration. The culminating section, in fact, is a series of chains, and low passes, occur only at the two extremities of the range where the principal railways and highways run between France and Spain. A third railway, via the Pass of Somport, was opened seven years ago. There are only five passes practicable to motors in the mountains themselves.