DANGEROUS JOURNEY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 201, 28 August 1935, Page 7

DANGEROUS JOURNEY

SENOR CASANOVAS ESCAPES ELUDED FRONTIER GUARD PARIS, Aug. 26. After a terrible journey across the Pyrenees by foot, Honor Juan Casanovas, former President of tho Catalan Parliament, has arrived here. He eluded the guards posted at his home in Barcelona, where he was confined awaiting a court martin I since the October revolution. He motored to the mountains and began an eighteen hours’ climb in snow and darkness. He told an interviewer: “Do not ask me how I escaped; you do not suppose it was easy. (Do not ask where I crossed the Pyrenees. ]. expected to bo stopped at any moment by Customs officers. I heard a shot, followed by a voice saying, ‘Be careful; these animals are dangerous when wounded.’ Two marksmen had mistaken me for a hoar.” Senor Casanova injured his knee in a fall six hours before reaching Foix, the first town 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 elevation 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 geo logical 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 practical® to motors in the mountains themselves.