le, and are rewarded
for your zeal by finding, when you cross the border a few days
afterward, that the houses at San Sebastian look strikingly French.
Biarritz is bright, crowded, irregular, filled with many sounds, and not
without a certain second-rate picturesqueness; but it struck me as
common and cocknified, and my vision travelled back to modest little
Etretal, by its northern sea, as to a more truly delectable
resting-place. The southwestern coast of France has little of the
exquisite charm of the Mediterranean shore. It has of course a southern
expression which in itself is always delightful. You see a brilliant,
yellow sun, with a pink-faced, red-tiled house staring up at it. You
can see here and there a trellis and an orange tree, a peasant woman in
gold necklace, driving a donkey, a lame beggar adorned with ear-rings, a
glimpse of blue sea between white garden walls. But the superabundant
detail of the French Riviera is wanting; the softness, luxuriousness,
enchantment.

The most picturesque thing at Biarritz is the Basque population, which
overflows from the adjacent Spanish provinces and swarms in the crooked
streets. It lounges all day in the public places, sprawls upon the
curbstones, clings to the face of the cliffs, and vociferates
continually in a shrill, strange tongue, which has no discoverable
affinity with any other. The Basques look like the hardier and thriftier
Neapolitan lazzaroni; if the superficial resemblance is striking, the
difference is very much in their favor. Although those specimens which I
observed at Biarritz appeared to enjoy an excess of leisure, they had
nothing of a shiftless or beggarly air, and seemed as little disposed to
ask favors as to confer them. The roads leading into Spain were dotted
with them, and here they were coming and going as if on important
business--the business of the abominable Don Carlos himself. They struck
me as a very handsome race. The men are invariably clean shaved; smooth
chins seem a positively religious observance. They wear little round,
maroon-colored caps, like those of sailor-boys, dark stuff shirts, and
curious white shoes, made of strips of rope laid together--an article of
toilet which makes them look like honorary members of base-ball clubs.
They sling their jackets, cavalier fashion, over one shoulder, hold
their heads very high, swing their arms very bravely, step out very
lightly, and when you meet them in the country at eventide, charg