I've never studied the history of the Basque people myself, but I was once told about a period in history when the Basques revolted against the Spanish. In and effort to put down the rebellion, the Spaniards trapped a group of Basque rebels in a castle. The rebels were grossly outnumbered and had absolutely no hope of emerging alive if they engaged in a direct battle with the Spanish.

But they did not despair. They knew that there were several secret tunnels out of the castle which would allow them to elude the Spanish entirely. They could have split up so that groups of them could escape through different tunnels out of the castle, but their leader decided that it would be better if they all took the tunnel that led them out to a secret route across the Pyrennes Mountains, so they could escape into France and reorganize there.

But disaster struck! The Spanish knew about the tunnel and figured that this is exactly what the Basques would attempt to do. So they intercepted them—and killed them all!

The moral of this story is:

Don't put all your Basques in one exit.

Don Firth

(sorry. . . .)