Bayonne, as all good little girls and boys who take prizes at school for geography and history are aware, is a fortified town commanding the passes of the West Pyrenees, and is a high road to Spain. It was here that the citadel which formed the key to an entrenched camp of Marshal Soult was invested by a portion of the army of the Duke of Wellington in 1814. The whole neighbourhood teems with memories of the halcyon days of the British arms. One comes to many a spot immortalized by a story which makes the Briton’s heart beat faster with patriotic pride. The arms of England may still be seen upon the vault of the cathedral, and in the cemetery lies many a gallant officer and brave soldier of the Coldstream Guards who fell in the sortie of April 14, 1814. It was here—— But for further particulars look up your history. The dead past can bury its dead; my business is with the present.

I had a terrible fright coming from Bordeaux to Bayonne. The railway runs for a portion of the way through the Landes, a vast tract of heaths and ash-coloured sands and brackish streams. The inhabitants of this strange district lead hard and terrible lives. Food is scarce, and, what is worse, they can get very little water that is fit to drink, most of Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s favourite beverage that finds its way to the Landes being salt and nauseous. I reached the Landes after the moon had risen. Owing to a little accident on the line, we were detained at a wayside station for half an hour. I lit a pipe, and strolled outside and made my way down a kind of road that skirted a wild, uncultivated heath. The road was very lonely, and everything looked weird in the moonlight. I was alone, for my companion had sacrificed comfort to a tight boot, and declined to walk. All of a sudden I saw a gigantic shadow thrown on the ground in front of me. I looked up and beheld a man twelve or fourteen feet high stalking towards me with strides that covered ten feet of ground at a time. On, on the giant came at a terrific pace, and the great beads of perspiration broke out upon my brow. He was a wild-looking giant, with long black hair, and a huge sheepskin covered his body. His legs were the longest and the thinnest I had ever seen in my life. I didn’t believe he was human. I made up my mind he was a creature from the fable world, and that I was about to be carried away to his haunt, wherever it may be, and devoured. I thought of Jack and the Beanstalk, and I expected the creature every moment to say, ‘Fee, fo, fum!’ and refer to the fact that the blood of an Englishman had saluted his olfactory organs. Just as I was going to drop on my knees and shriek for mercy, the giant suddenly halted, put a big pole which he carried in his hand behind his back, and stood stock-still in the moonlight, a living, breathing tripod.

I held my breath, and waited for the dÉnouement. The giant raised his cap, and asked me, in excellent French, if I could tell him what the time was. Then I took a calmer view of him, and suddenly it dawned upon me that my giant was no giant at all, but merely a shepherd of the Landes mounted upon enormous stilts.

I am not the first traveller who has been startled by such an apparition. The inhabitants of this district walk upon stilts from childhood to old age. They would not be able to get over the sandy ground studded with prickly heather in ordinary boots and shoes. They stride over hedges and ditches in this way at a pace which no horse can keep up with, and while they are watching their flocks they stick a long pole in the ground, and, resting their backs against it, stop in this position for hours knitting stockings. The spectacle to the unaccustomed eye is one of the most startling that can be conceived. I told my stilted friend the time, and, wishing him good-night, walked back to the station; but it was a long time before I got over the ‘turn’ which his sudden apparition in the moonlight had given me.

In Bayonne I spent the Mardi Gras and had my ‘carnival.’ The people of the South know how to be merry and enjoy themselves, and they can disguise themselves humorously and in good taste. All night long the quaint streets were crowded with hundreds of masquerading revellers, and the fun was fast and furious. Many of the costumes were Spanish, and really fine pieces of colouring. The ladies were particularly charming, though I fancy some of them must have suffered the next day with rheumatism in the lower limbs, for the roads were damp and muddy, and the wind blew keenly. Wet roads and keen winds are hardly suited to extra short skirts and pink fleshings and dainty little shoes and head-dresses of gauzy lace.

They certainly were not rheumatic on the night of the Mardi Gras, for I procured a box at the theatre and watched the grand carnival ball at its height during the small hours. The masked ball at the Paris Opera House is a grander sight for variety and richness of costume, and the crowd of revellers is greater, but no ball that I have ever witnessed came near to this little Bayonne celebration in mirth and unforced gaiety and rollicking good humour. Heavens, how the natives danced! How they whirled round and round, and capered and kicked their legs up, and laughed and shouted, and threw themselves heart and soul into the maddest of mad quadrilles! I left the theatre at four in the morning, and the Bayonne lads and lasses, masked, disguised, and brilliantly costumed, were hard at it still; and when I got outside into the cool air of the early morning there were still dozens of masqueraders, male and female, promenading the public square arm-in-arm, with never a cloak or a wrap about them, yet not a single cough or sneeze broke in upon the merry laughter that floated on the cool and humid air. I hurried towards my hotel with my overcoat buttoned to my chin, and on my way I passed a little sylph in an airy pink ballet costume, seated on a stone bench, and listening to the old, old story from the lips of a youthful Spanish matador; and the little sylph in pink gauze had taken great care not to sit upon the delicate texture of her skirts. I could understand that the tender passion had warmed her heart, but it must have also spread a glow all over to enable her to listen to the vows of her swain in that costume and on that seat without a single chatter of the teeth.

From Bayonne, before going to Biarritz, I determined to push further into the interior of the Basque country, and see for myself this strange race of people as they are in their mountain homes. Many of the inhabitants of Bayonne are Basque, and all the servants in the hotels. From coachmen, waitresses (there are very few waiters in Basque hotels), peasants, and fishermen, I gleaned a good deal of useful information before starting; but years of study might be devoted to this extraordinary people, the aborigines of Western Europe, who have seen Celts, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Vandals, and Saracens pass away like shadows, and still linger on themselves, retaining their old traditions and superstitions and their old language, which is like no other European tongue. Of their habits and customs, and of their homes, I shall have something to say presently; but I cannot resist giving here a specimen of this extraordinary Basque language, which one hears to-day freely talked, not only in the mountains and the valleys, but in the busy streets of the big towns.

The following paragraph I take from a dialogue between two Basque peasants, which is printed in a Basque paper. An election in the department was fixed for February 27, and it is concerning the merits of the Conservative and the Republican candidate that Batichta and Piarres are engaged in animated converse:

The linguist will see how utterly unlike any European tongue these words are. There is a suggestion of Arabic now and then, and a slight resemblance to a few Finnish and Spanish words; but, as a whole, it is absolutely original. Here is the translation: ‘Last Sunday, in the afternoon, on coming from vespers, we noticed two landowners—Batichta and Piarres—two good friends. They spoke very excitedly at the corner of the Jeu de Paume ground, and here is what they said——’ Then follows a long political conversation.

The Basques are strongly anti-Republican. Hundreds of young men are leaving their villages and going to South America to avoid serving in the army of the Republic. Their fathers would rather let their children go from them to the great land beyond the seas than see them fighting for a Government which they detest. The Basque population swarms in such places as Ecuador, Uruguay, the Brazils, Chili, and the Spanish-speaking portions of South America. Many of them return in after-years, rich and prosperous, to their native mountain homes, and build magnificent chÂteaux on the site of the old paternal cottages. When they return they are called ‘Americans'; and this rather bothered me, as one day, near Cambo, I had grand villa after villa pointed out to me as the residence of an ‘American.’ By cross-questioning my guides I arrived at the truth. The ‘Americans’ were wealthy Basques who had made fortunes ‘across the seas,’ and come home to be great men among their poorer compatriots. There is a good deal of South America dotted about the Basque country. You come upon the ‘Auberge de Monte Video,’ and the ‘HÔtel de Buenos Ayres,’ and the ‘Auberge de Rio Janeiro.’ My coachman’s sister has married and gone to Peru. My chambermaid’s brother is making money in Chili. An old fisherman who told me all the legends of St. Jean de Luz has two sons at Monte Video. Half the cottagers one talks to have friends and relatives in South America. South America is the El Dorado of the young Basque’s dreams. But when he has made his pile, he likes to come back to the old home, and spend it among his people.

With all these travellers among them, you would think the Basque peasantry would cease to be strongly conservative, that their ideas would broaden, and their exclusiveness would be broken down. But it is not so. They hate railways, and they hate the foreigners to come and disturb their peaceful ways. At Cambo the other day I fell in with a group of small landowners who were discussing the new railway schemes, and they were purple with passion that such an idea should have been mooted.

This conservative spirit among the Basque population is tremendously worked upon at election time. It will be interesting to all who study French politics (and who does not nowadays?) to see the sort of language which a local Conservative candidate indulges in at the expense of the Republic. Listen to this:

For God and for France.

Electors of the Basses PyrÉnÉes,—The struggle begins; the banners are unfolded. On which side should good Catholics and simple and honest folks range themselves? Under the banner of the Republic?

No; for it is this Republic whose dead weight lies upon our unhappy country, and crushes out its life.

Who suppressed the catechism and prayers in our public schools?

Who has driven God from the army?

Who has driven the priest from the bedside of the sick and of the dying?

Who established the anti-Christian and immoral law of divorce?

Who, not content with paganizing France, has robbed her of her fortune and her glory?

Who for the last ten years has augmented by milliards the debt of France?

Who dishonours the armies of France by making them the Armies of the Republic?

Who has left us in all Europe without a single alliance?

Who has led us to the very brink of war, from which God preserve us?

The Republic!

Will you vote for the Republic?

No; you will vote for God and for France—

And for the Conservative candidate.

This inflammatory address is placarded throughout the Basque villages of the department concerned in the election. Crowds of the peasants stand round the walls and read it sympathetically.

Everything is bright and pretty and quaint and picturesque in the Basque country. The men, clean shaven and with fine Saracen faces, in their dark blue berets and red waistbands; the women, with their red, or blue, or black, or yellow toques; the half-Spanish, half-Swiss houses; the carts drawn by yoked oxen; the waggons and diligences with their long string of Spanish mules; the crosses and signs upon the doorways; the Eastern custom of carrying gracefully water-jars upon the head; the tall wooden crosses on every hill and highway—all these things, thrown into relief by a background of glorious scenery, make an impression upon the traveller which does not soon pass away.

The waitress in my hotel, who is at once waitress, femme de chambre, and everything that is useful, is a wonder in her way. Of Spanish Basque origin, she has travelled with families during her early life, and she speaks Spanish, French, German, and Italian, as well as her native Basque. She likes the English, she tells me, and is very proud of the fact that she one day waited on the Prince of Wales when he came incognito to breakfast at the HÔtel St. Martin, at Cambo (a beautiful Basque village about twelve miles from Bayonne). No one knew the Prince, and he and his companions made a good breakfast, and then went about and talked with the villagers, and inspected the farms, and smoked their cigars out on the terrace of the hotel, which overlooks a landscape not to be matched in Switzerland. The Prince talked to my waitress, and asked her what this was in Basque and what that was, and questioned her as to the habits and customs of the country.

To all intents and purposes the royal party were simply English tourists, when suddenly a grand carriage drove up to the hotel. A French duke and another gentleman alighted, and, bowing themselves into the presence of the Prince, invited him to a grand breakfast at Biarritz; and a third gentleman arrived almost immediately with an invitation from the English consul. ‘Thanks,’ said the Prince, laughing; ‘I have breakfasted excellently, and I’m going to spend the day here. Let me enjoy myself in this delightful spot, like good fellows, and go back and say you couldn’t find me.’

My femme de chambre ran on for a quarter of an hour eulogizing the Prince. She has the five-franc piece which he gave her when he paid his bill, and it is to go to her family when she dies as a precious legacy. She believes in royalty tremendously, for the royal family of Portugal, she tells me, always stop at this hotel, and they laugh and talk with her always like old friends. ‘Ah,’ she says, ‘your royal folks when they travel are simple and easily pleased, and they make no fuss. It is your people of small rank who are proud and cold and want so much attention. There is a little German countess who comes here in the season en route for Biarritz, and she travels with a dog and two servants, and she must have the whole of the first-floor reserved for her, and she will take nothing from the servants of the hotel. Her dog even will not notice us, but walks past us with his tail in the air.’

I let my femme de chambre chatter on. She tells me stories of the Empress EugÉnie in the old Biarritz days, and tears come into her eyes as she speaks of the dead Prince Imperial. They worship the memory of the imperial family of France all round this district, and have many a pleasant tale to tell of the young lady who lived so much among them in the days before the love of an emperor raised her to the throne. When she has quite finished her royal and imperial anecdotes, I cross-question her as to Basque habits and customs and superstitions. My head is full of the beautiful Basque legends and ghost stories which I have lately picked up, and I ask her if it is true that the people still believe in them. Then she informs me that her venerable father and mother are Basque peasants, and that they themselves believe in witchcraft and sorcery, and all the spells of the Evil One, and all the bad spirits that haunt the mountains and the woods. Her papa has, in fact, just moved out of his house on account of sorcery. He lost last year six cows, and he was so convinced that they had been bewitched, and that a spell had been worked upon his house, that he quitted it, and built another close by. He then sent for the priest to come and bless it, and after that he painted up a big white cross on the front door to keep the evil spirits from entering therein. ‘Superstitious!’ she says. ‘Ah, mon cher monsieur, I have travelled and seen the world, and I know better; but when I go to my native village and say I do not believe in witches and charms and the evil spirits of the night, the peasants cross themselves, and my old father and mother weep and curse themselves for allowing me to leave home and become “une fille perdue.”’

Wandering about the Basque villages, I have gleaned a few of their superstitions. No man, woman, or child among them will be out of doors after midnight, for they all believe that wicked spirits are abroad, and that terrible misfortune will befall anyone who meets them. On certain feast days they light a great fire, and the whole family kneels and prays round the burning wood until it is all reduced to ashes. These ashes are then carefully collected and scattered on the fields to make them fruitful. If any man neglects to propitiate the spirits by strewing these ashes, his crops will fail.

One afternoon I come to a little auberge on the slope of a lonely mountain on the Spanish side. A great white cross is roughly chalked on the door, and outside sits an old woman talking with the landlord and his wife. They are listening with rapt attention, and cross themselves again and again. Presently the old crone goes away, and I sit on the bench and call for something ‘for the good of the house,’ and gradually get the landlord to tell us what the old lady was talking to him about. Then he tells us that last night the old crone saw the ‘arguiduna’ in the village graveyard—the ‘arguiduna’ of her son whom she buried a month since. The ‘arguiduna’ is the soul of a dead person when it takes the shape of a will-o'-the-wisp. This strange light came from her son’s grave, and stopped close to her. As she moved away it followed her, and accompanied her to the old home. On the threshold she stood still, and her son’s soul in its fiery form circled three times round her, and then slowly went up, up, up into the skies till it was lost among the stars. ‘And now,’ says the innkeeper, ‘the old mother is happy, for she has been in great trouble about her boy, for he had been wild and had done many evil things, and she feared it might not be well with his soul. Now that she has seen the “arguiduna” go up like that to the skies, she knows that his sins have been forgiven him, and that he is with the blessed. She will weep for him no more.’

People who live in great cities, where ideas rush at railway speed, and where the bustle and noise of modern life destroy romance and drive fancy from the field, find it difficult to believe that such a superstition as this can be implicitly believed by a whole race of people living in civilized countries in the nineteenth century; but these Basque people believe to this day in all the legends and fables which their ancestors believed a thousand years ago. With them nothing has changed, and to-day they have their Arguiduna; their Maitgarri, or Fairy of the Lakes; the Lamia, a weird being inhabiting the wave-washed coasts; the Jauna, or Spirits of the Wood; and the Sorguinas, the Spirits of the Plains. In these and a hundred other spirits, evil and good, in witches, sorcerers, and devils, the Basque people of to-day believe as firmly and as devoutly as they did in the dark ages. Their daily life, their habits and customs, are all shaped by these superstitions, and their priests, unable to combat them, now tacitly admit them, and even bless many of the charms which they use against the spirits of darkness. And these people live many of them within walking distance of a railway-station, and Liberal candidates address them and canvass for their votes at election time.

Cambo is a lovely Basque village, about twelve miles from Bayonne. Imagine a sweet Swiss valley shut in by an amphitheatre of olive-green and purple hills! Through the valley winds a broad stream of silver water. Fair white houses, and chÂlets with bright red roofs, throw back the rays of a glorious sun that bathes the scene in golden light. Above is a sky of cloudless blue. Far as the eye can reach all is luxuriance and beauty. As one gazes upon the perfect landscape from the broad stone terrace of the HÔtel St. Martin, a great peace steals into one’s soul, and the cares and troubles of the outer world are for a time forgotten. On the slope of the hill which faces this glorious scene stands a quaint Basque village. The people live by the land, which yields a bounteous harvest. They keep the simple manners and customs of bygone centuries; they have been here, undisturbed by the rattle of traffic and the snort of the railway engine, ever since the place came into existence; and now, if you please, the French are going to desecrate their village with a railway. There is to be a station at Cambo. The inhabitants are furious; the landowners have refused to sell their land, and the Government replies that if they persist it will be taken from them by force.

My sympathies are with Cambo. A railway will destroy the poetry of the place. All the Basque people ask is to be allowed to live quietly in their homes. They don’t want to be hustled by a crowd of townsfolk, whose ways are not their ways, and who speak a foreign language. Even the rich ‘Americans,’ whose splendid chÂteaux dot the hills, are crying out. They are Basque to the backbone, and they don’t want excursionists gaping about their grounds, and driving over them in their winding, tree-shaded roadways.

But I must not go Basque-mad, and imagine everyone is as interested in the people as I am. Let us return to modern civilization, and go to Biarritz. My coachman drives me there from Bayonne. He is a beautiful creature, my coachman. He wears the old postilion jacket and hat. He is trimmed with scarlet and silver lace, and my arithmetic stops short in an attempt to add up his buttons. His little jacket alone costs £5; his waistcoat costs £1; his hat costs 15s.; and his horses have bells all over them, so that we make merry music as we dash along the roads, and the whip cracks joyously, and the dogs bark a concert in our rear, and the children pursue us at full speed, yelling for coppers; and that’s how we go to Biarritz.