text:  In the northeastern corner of Castile known as the Rioja Basilio Garcia agent for the Pope's bulls in the province of Soria--a man destitute of military knowledge and remarkable only for his repulsive exterior and cold-blooded ferocity--collected and headed a small body of insurgents; whilst in other districts of the same province several battalions of the old Royalist volunteers--a loose ill-disciplined militia as motely and unsoldierlike in appearance as they were unsteady and inefficient in the field--ranged themselves under the orders of a general-officer named Cuevillas and of the veteran Merino