mbers deep under the earth.

After seventy miles of a southward run there are signs that the Landes
are not so everlasting and spacious as they seem. To the south-east, at
Buglose, where St Vincent de Paul was born, the Pyrenees show far and
faint and blue on the horizon. And then suddenly the River Adour
appears, and a country which was English. Dax was ours for centuries,
and so was Bayonne, whose modern citadel has had a rare fate for any
place of strength. It has never been taken; not even Wellington and his
Peninsular veterans set foot within its bastions.

This is the country of the Basques, that strange, persistent race of
which nothing is known. Their history is more covered by ancient clouds
than that of the Celts; their tongue has no cousin in the world, though
in structure it is like that of the North-American Indians. I met some
of them later, but so far know no more than two words of their
language.

The wind was cool at St Jean de Luz, but the sun was bright and the sea
thundered on the beach and the battered breakwaters. To the east and
south are the Pyrenees--lower summits, it is true, but bold and fine in
outline. The dominant peak, being the first of the chain, is Larhune (a
Basque word, not French), where English blood was spilt when Clauzel
held it for Napoleon against the English. Further to the south, and
across the Bidassoa, in Spain, rises the sharp ridge of the Jaisquivel,
beneath which lies Fuentarabia. Yonder by Irun is the abrupt cliff of
Las Tres Coronas, three crowns of rock. Here one is in the south-east of
the Bay, where France and Spain run together, and the sea, under the
dominion of the prevailing south-westers, is rarely at peace with the
land. To the northward, but out of sight, lies windy Biarritz; to the
south is blood-stained, battered and renewed San Sebastian, a name that
recalls many deeds of heroism and many of shame. The horrors of its
siege and taking might make one cold even in sunlight. But between us
and its new city lies the Bidassoa. Here, at St Jean de Luz, is the
Nivelle flowing past Ciboure. The river was once familiar to us in
despatches. The whole country even yet smells of ancient war. For here
lies the great western road to Spain. And more than once it has been the
road to Paris. It is a path of rising and falling empire.

During my few days at St Jean de Luz I had foregathered with some exiled
friends, walked to quiet Ascain, and regretted I lacked the time e