THE Basques are a people apart and peculiar in the most acceptable application of the term. They are distinct from the Spaniards of the rest of Spain in type, language, law and custom. They are conservative, shrewd, industrious and intelligent in a high degree. The men possess the hardy and robust appearance common to mountaineers and the symmetry of form which is almost universal in Spain. The women are decidedly handsome, but of a type which is at variance with the characteristic of Spanish beauty. It is enhanced, moreover, by an erect and dignified carriage not usually belonging to peasants, and is attributable principally to a very unpeasantlike planting of the head on the neck and shoulders. But for the difference in dress, many of the village girls, who are universally blondes, might be mistaken for well-bred English or German ladies. But, like all women trained to severe manual labour, their beauty disappears with their youth.

In these provinces of mountain and valley everybody works; and, for the most part, they work their own land. Consequently, Basque farms are small. Five acres, or in other words, just so much land as a man, his wife and family can till, dictates the size of the holding. The Basques, who are the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain, and claim to be the oldest race in Europe, are grievously affected by genealogy. Peppery as the Welsh, proud as Lucifer, and combustible as his matches, as one writer has described them, these Nobleza de EspaÑa—they are noble by the mere fact of being born in these provinces—fire up when their pedigree is questioned. Yet they recognise no indignity in agricultural employment. Adam, the first gentleman who bore arms, occupied himself in husbandry, and you will not convince a Basque that Adam did not speak Basque.

But without accepting or controverting their pretensions to being the oldest inhabitants of the Continent, these Caballeros hijos de algo are admitted to be the aborigines of the Iberian Peninsula. They have held the provinces of Alava, Viscaya and Guipuzcoa for themselves; they have never been subdued or expelled. Liberty has been their immemorial birthright, and their lives the means by which they have preserved it. The Visigoths never conquered them; the Moors could not prevail against them; and they beat back the Franks who swarmed down upon Spain from the north. While they fought for their homes and their independence their arms were consistently victorious. They are born mountain fighters, and have been distinguished at all times for their great valour; but their Carlist tendencies brought disaster upon them. The conspicuous part they played in both the Carlist wars resulted in the loss of all their special privileges. In particular they resented the order countermanding their exemption from compulsory military service, which they had hitherto enjoyed, and it was thought that they would prove a failure as regular soldiers. But this fear was misplaced; and although Gonzalo de CÓrdova affirmed that he would rather be a keeper of wild beasts than a commander of Basques, the wearers of the blue blouses and red trousers of the Highland provinces have proved themselves exceptional soldiers when commanded by Basque officers.

To the dwellers on the sea-board, fishing affords a lucrative occupation, and they are considered to be among the best sailors in Spain. The islanders, dwelling in the sub-alpine towns in the midst of green hills, cultivate maize, which is the staple breadstuff, good milk, inferior cheese, and splendid apples. Oranges and palms flourish in the more sheltered districts; but the wine of the country, though wholesome and palatable, is distinctly thin. The hotels are generally very good, and the roads are amongst the best in Spain. The songs and dances of the Basques are of ancient origin, and are entirely different from those in other parts of the Peninsula. Their language is as difficult as Russian, and as ear-pleasing as Welsh. The devil is said to have devoted seven years to the study of it in the Bilboes, and to have mastered exactly three words. Pelota, which is played more or less all over Spain, is zealously cultivated only in the Basque provinces.

The game of pelota is not only interesting in itself, but it challenges the common impression that the Spaniards are an indolent people, who prefer to take their recreation with the least possible physical exertion. In point of fact, Spain is experiencing, in common with England, the dubious blessing of athletic professionalism. Her bull-fighters to-day are all “pros.,” and her pelota players belong to the same category. The game, which would resemble fives if it were not so vastly different, is the most fatiguing I have ever witnessed. So greatly does it tax the constitution, that the career of its paid devotees is limited to three, or at the most, four years. It is played with a four-ounce ball, which has a diameter of eight

inches, and is “volted” about a court, 175 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 40 feet high, by the players, whose hands are encased in leather gloves about two feet in length, protected by basket-work backs. The rallies between good players realise anything between twelve and twenty strokes; and although “soft returns” are not unknown, the majority of the strokes are delivered with all the force of which the players are capable. In a game of fifty up the players will wear a hole completely through the soles of their shoes.

The traveller by the Paris-Madrid route leaves France at Hendaye, the charming little seaside town on the Bay of Biscay, and enters Spain at Irun, which is comparatively modern, is charmingly situated, and is about as much French as Hendaye is Spanish. But except that here the passenger has his luggage examined, changes trains, and puts his watch back twenty-five minutes to mark the difference that is observed between Paris and Madrid time, Irun is of no particular interest: unless, of course, the traveller has plenty of time on his hands, for in that case he will traverse the eight miles to Pasajes, the pretty land-locked harbour which, thanks to the enterprise of a private company, has been made the best port between CoruÑa and Cherbourg, and ships a third part of the entire exportation of the Spanish wine to France. Pasajes is perhaps the most picturesque port on the north coast of Spain. The tramway also runs over the eleven miles which separate Irun from San Sebastian. This city, which boasts some 33,000 inhabitants, and the favour of royal patronage, is historically interesting on account of the gallant assault by which it was taken by the English forces in the face of the strenuous defence made by the French veterans under General Rey in 1813; it is fashionable by reason of the annual visit of the ex-Queen Regent and the young King, who spend four months in each year in the handsome royal palace overlooking the sea, and it

is beautiful with a beauty that is entirely its own. Here you shall find the tamarisks and the geranium and heliotrope in full bloom far into the autumn, and the birds singing among the foliage, and the Spanish sunlight glinting through the trees and lying hot on the white horse-shoe of glistening sand. And even on the stillest day the blue Atlantic rollers break fiercely upon the rocks beneath the quaint bit of old town, and curl themselves magnificently along the firm, smooth beach. La Perla del Oceano, the bathing establishment, is a popular resort, and, in the season, thousands of bathers disport

themselves on the yellow sands. The old ramparts of the land defence works are now demolished, and their site is occupied by the handsome streets of the Parte Nueva, or New Town. The Calle de la Alameda, stretches across the isthmus that divided the old town from the new. And beyond the old town the gaunt eminence of Monte Orgullo, crowned by the castle of La Mota, rises sheer out of the sea, and forms a scene which fills the eyes with beauty and the mind with memories that do not easily fade. The Grand Casino, which cost £80,000, the bull-ring, the churches of Santa Maria and San Vicente, the Palacio de la Diputacion, and the Pelota Court—these lions of San Sebastian are but so many specks in the broad impression one carries away of ocean, and sky, and the black mountain frowning majestically through the golden sunshine.

Bilbao, the most important city in the Basque provinces, and one of the most progressive and flourishing places in Spain, is the capital of Viscaya, and gained its proud title of La Invicta Villa de Bilbao by successfully withstanding three sieges by the army of Don Carlos. The river Nervion, upon which it is situated, is navigable for steamers up to the town, eight and a-half miles from its mouth. The old town, which is composed of a mass of narrow streets, closely packed between the river and the hills—the city is built in a mountain gorge—was famous for its iron and steel manufactures in the days of Elizabeth; and Shakespeare uses the terms bilbo, a rapier, and bilboes,

fetters. The new town, on the more spacious left bank of the river, is well built; the principal streets are straight and broad, and the houses are substantial. Three stone and two iron bridges cross the river between the old and the new Bilbao. The city owes, of course, its prosperity mainly to the enormous deposits of iron ore on the left bank of the Nervion, which, though known since the earliest times, have only been systematically exploited during the last quarter of a century. Long lines of steamers are constantly loading iron ore, chiefly for Cardiff, Newport, Glasgow, and Newcastle; and the annual amount of British tonnage entering Bilbao exceeds, with the exception of Antwerp, that of any other foreign port in Europe. Pig iron is the staple export—red

wines, wool, and other products are numerous, but unimportant.

The iron ore mines (red and brown hematite) in the Somorrostro range and district are largely in the hands of English capitalists. These mines, which began to attract the attention of British iron masters about 1870, occur chiefly in the mountain limestone, and are worked in open quarries. Short railways and tramways have been made to San Nicolas on the Nervion; and a wire tramway has been constructed by the Galdames Mining Company, who possess a cliff of iron ore about a mile long and 280 feet high. The tramway carries the ore through a tunnel, 600 feet long, to the quay. The Landore Siamese Steel Company have important hematite mines connected with the river by a wire tramway, carrying baskets for loading.

Bilbao is largely modern and wholly commercial, and its public buildings are not notable. But its thoroughfares are full of movement, and the shady arenal, in the old town—the focus of the life of the whole city—contains the principal hotels, the chief cafes, and the New Theatre. The land which this beautiful promenade now occupies was at one time very boggy, and swept by the tides. Now the two principal avenues are asphalted. The Church of San NicolÁs de Bari, which faces it, is one of the city parish churches. It was built towards the end of the fifteenth century on the ruins of the sailors’ and fishermen’s little church. This church has suffered greatly on account of floods, especially during the year 1553. It was closed in 1740 as ruin threatened it. When it fell, the present one was begun in 1743. During the last war it was used as a provisioning station; and, after repairs, was opened for worship on the 21st of January, 1881.