CHAPTER II.
OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN-THE BASQUE PROVINCES.
AWAY down in the south-west corner of France, on the Bay of Biscay, was a hamlet on a rock-bound coast, which has of late years suddenly sprung into the notice of the world. The sunshine of imperial favor ripened the modest bud of a humble village into a flower of remarkable beauty. What was a short time since quite unknown, is now the fashionable watering-place of France. Selected by the late Emperor as his autumnal resort, he built a handsome chateau, and named it Eugénie, and thus made the fortune of Biarritz.
Here we spent a few days of rest after a long and wearying journey. The coast is dangerous. The bay is rough to a degree that has become a proverb. An attempt was making under government direction to construct a breakwater, so as to enclose a "harbor of refuge," and one is greatly needed. A process, new to me, but perhaps common, was going on: that of building rocks, or blocks, to make the projecting pier. Thousands of square feet of rock are here in the hills, but, for some reason, it is preferred to form a concrete mass with stone and cement. These are made in cubes of six or eight feet, with two grooves underneath them, and when they have stood long enough to be proof against water, levers are thrust under them, a derrick hoists them upon a platform which is moved on a railway to the pier, where they are launched off into the deep. The fury of the waves at this point, especially in rough weather, is frightful. The new breakwater was recently swept away. Two or three workmen were caught by the waves rushing higher than was expected, and the poor fellows were carried off into a deeper ocean. This terrified the others, and they declined to expose themselves to such dangers. The priests came to the rescue. They set up an image of the Virgin on an overhanging rock. She looks down benignly on the work and the workmen. Not one has been swept away since she stood there!! Confidence is restored. The breakwater is gradually extending. It will cost an immense sum, and if the Virgin is so successful in saving the lives of the landsmen in building it, one would think she might just as easily save the sailors, and so render the harbor unnecessary.
On this stormy coast, where the surf breaks over huge rocks, and sometimes rushes curiously through them by passages worn in ages of incessant roll, there are several coves where the beach slopes gradually to the sea, and the smooth sand floor furnishes delightful bathing grounds. Here, in the season, the court used to disport itself in other robes than those of royalty, and among the crowds of fashionable people, who in fantastic deshabille indulge in the ocean bath, were daily seen the Emperor and Empress and the remarkable boy who astonished the mayor by being the son of an Emperor when only ten years of age!
A courier, or travelling servant, is usually more of a nuisance than assistance, but I had to have one. He had the Spanish name of Antanazio, was of course familiar with the language, and he spoke French also, but not a word of English. He was a half devout Catholic, and professed to be very discriminating in his faith, rejecting many of the notions of his countrymen, and swallowing others without a strain. He was a big fellow, so big that he could easily have taken me under one arm and my companion on the other, and marched into or out of Spain at any moment. He was the terror of the cabmen and porters and waiters, bullying, swearing, and pushing his way through the thickest of the fight, in those struggles that attend every arrival of a passenger in any part of the world. He was just about as honest as the race to which he belongs. Every traveller thinks his own courier a pattern of honesty. I have had them in a dozen different countries, and never yet was able to put the word honest into the certificate which they craved at the end of the journey. Some are better than others. Any one of them is worse than none, if you have a slight knowledge of the country. Antanazio was in league with every hotel man to get as much out of us as he could, and he made up for his frauds on a large scale by an excess of zeal to save a few coppers for us when a poor porter or sacristan was to be paid for service. The gnat and the camel were familiar to Antanazio. Yet he was one of the best couriers to be found, and he shall have the benefit of this notice.
Just before we leave France to go into Spain we pass a village, here mentioned only to cite an eloquent epigram inscribed around the dial of the clock on its tower: "Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat." Even so; each flying moment wounds: the last slays. And after quitting the Hendaye station, we dash across the river Bidassoa, which divides the two kingdoms. It would take us the rest of the day merely to read the history that invests this crossing with interest for all time. A little dry spot is in the bed of the river. There kings and queens and generals have met to settle affairs of state as on neutral ground, and the petty patch has come to be called the Island of Conference. Here, in the middle of the dividing river, Louis XIV. of France had his first meeting with Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, and they were married in the cathedral of St. Jean de Luz on the French side of the river. On the same spot the kings of France and Spain met in 1463 to negotiate; and here too, in 1645, Isabella the daughter of Henry IV. was exchanged for Anna of Austria, the one to be the wife of the king of Spain, and the other of France. In 1526, Francis I., who was a prisoner of Charles V., was here given up, and his two sons accepted as hostages in his stead. We go thousands of miles to visit a spot that has thus been made sacred and famous, yet one can hardly tell why he looks with interest upon ground so sanctified. The grass and the weeds grow just as freely, and the birds are as careless in their songs, and the water flows on as it always flows; but still no thoughtful traveller can pass such landmarks in the march of great events, without pausing to observe the effect which those events have had on the history of the world. And this is one of the greatest objects before us as we enter and traverse Spain. It is a land of history: of romance too; and perhaps both are equally interesting. For every line we cross, and every city and province we visit, is rich in association, even if the land is now but a great sepulchre of great peoples.
And we were in Spain. On the northern frontier, and in instant contact with the people of France, is a race that is Spanish only in name, and hardly that; a race that has, through all the mutations of government in this unstable country, maintained a sort of independence, with rights and privileges, manners and customs so peculiar to themselves, that they may be said to be in Spain, but not of Spain.
On the anniversary of the death of one of their number, the friends gather at the grave, and offer to the departed gifts of bread and fruit, as if they required supplies of food for the endless journey in another world. On the holidays, which are many in a year, they are wild in the dance, with the tambourine and bagpipe and castanet, being far more demonstrative in the height of their excitement than the more southern inhabitants of Spain. They are a proud race, and more proud of their ancestry than any thing else, the poorest peasant among the hills displaying on the door of his hut a coat of arms, and claiming descent from some ancient and illustrious house. As a race they have no trouble in reckoning their pedigree back to Tubal and Noah, and unless your tree of genealogy has branches springing out of a trunk that bears the name of Adam, these people are far ahead of you in the line of their ancestry.
They occupy the Basque Provinces, three divisions, small in extent, lying among the Pyrenees and on the Bay of Biscay. They are probably lineal descendants of the first settlers of Spain, and may be correct in their boast that they are not tainted with Roman or Moorish or Gothic-German blood. They still speak a language so strange and so formidable to a foreigner that it is said no one has been able to master it. There is a tradition among them that the devil himself spent five years in studying it, and was able to learn three words only. But after much inquiry I could not trace this tradition to any reliable source. In fact, it is said that one or two bold and persevering scholars have actually made some inroads into the language, but the discoveries made were a very poor reward for the time and labor spent.
Into this new yet ancient country we enter at once, for it is the northern gateway of Spain. At the outset of our journey we must "change cars," for the Spanish government, in granting license for a railroad to enter its domains, refused to allow it to be made of the same width with that of France, as it would in that case afford to the French facilities for invasion in case of war! The idea is very characteristic of Spain. And the same stupidity that dictates such an impediment to travel forgets that every train of passengers coming in from the north is an invasion that is just as fatal to the regime of Spain as would be another incursion of Goths or Gauls. Ideas, rather than arms, work revolutions now-a-days.
The mountains have stretched themselves across this frontier to the verge of the ocean, and on our right as we go south is a narrow pass between two precipitous hills, and thus a safe and easily defended path for ships is made. Within is a snug harbor, where the largest fleet may lie unseen, and unreached by the storms at sea. Out of this little port once sailed a man whose name...
