city was crowded with people and I had some difficulty in find’ ing a place to sleep at any hotel. At the end of three days, Captain Shellbruck, Chief of Staff, furnished me with an auto in which to travel to Madrid and after that to visit the Lincoln and Mackenzie’Papineau Battalions. Bob Kerr, Canadian Pol’ itical Commissar, accompanied me on this trip and directed the course we should follow.

As we left Albacete at 6 o’clock in the morning we passed

groups of soldiers marching to their breakfasts, singing as they swung along the streets:——

“Comrades the bugles are sounding Forward we march to the fray Gladly we enter the battle Fight for the new social day.”

We drove speedily along the highway in the quiet of the morning. It was harvest and threshing time for the peasants. Along the roads caravans of mule teams were slowly walking hauling the loads of wheat and other grains to the threshing floors. The ancient method of separating out the grain is still used in Spain. There is a large flat floor on which the grain is spread out in the straw. This is tramped over by mules dragging some rough log or scow. This tramping IS kept going for hours at a stretch. T

After this the threshed straw and chaff are thrown into the wind with a wooden fork and the wind “bloweth away the chaff” while the wheat falls on the floor. I could see the ‘piles

of grain on the side of the’ threshing floors, hundreds of which

were situated along the road to Madrid, and scores of peasant people toiling on them under the blistering heat of an August sun. One would never imagine the country was at war to see the peaceful work and patience of the peasants all over the country.

But this feeling fades as we are halted at the approach to villages and towns by‘ military guards to show our Salvo Con’

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