I employ the time in which my things are coming from the railway station to perfect my short epistle of this morning from Bordeaux. The country I have just passed through transports me at first sight most vividly into the Government Pskow, or Petersburg. From Bordeaux to this place there are uninterrupted pine forests, broom, and moorland, sometimes like Pomerania—as in the Strandwald behind the downs—sometimes Russia. But when I used my glass the illusion vanished; instead of the Scotch fir, it is the long-haired sea-pine, and the apparent mixture of juniper, raspberries, and such plants covering the ground is dissolved into all sorts of foreign-looking shrubs, with leaves resembling myrtle and cypress. The magnificence with which the broom develops its violet-purple blossoms here is astonishing; in between there grows a very yellow furze with broad leaves, the whole forming a gay carpet. The river Adour, on which Bayonne lies, is the frontier of this B flat of heath, which, in its softer idealization of a northern landscape, sharpened my homesickness. From St. Vincent the view stretches over the moor and pine-trees to the blue outlines of the Pyrenees, a sort of giant Taunus, but more bold and jagged in profile. The post-office is closed during the hot time of day, until four o’clock, so that I can only receive your letter in an hour, and should be doubly impatient had I not yesterday received your letter of the 23d; and the one lying here is older. I think of driving to Biarritz towards evening, and bathing there to-morrow, and then continuing my journey to the frontier. In Fuent Arabia I await intelligence as to whether G. is in St. Sebastian, then I shall visit him; but if he has returned to Madrid I shall content myself with having crossed the Bidassoa, shall return hither, and then proceed along the mountains to Pau; thence I shall turn to the right among the mountains, first to Eaux Bonnes and Eaux Chaudes, and next to Cauterets, St. Sauveur, Luz, Barrèges, and Bagnères de Luchon. I can not say that I am bored; a number of new impressions rise up within me, but I feel like a banished man, and in thought am rather on the Kamenz than the Adour. German newspapers I have not seen for six days, nor do I miss them.
San Sebastian, 1st Aug., 1862.
The road from Bayonne to this place is magnificent. To the left are the Pyrenees, something like Dent du Midi and Moleson; here, however, called Pic and Port, a changing Alp panorama. To the right the sea, a shore like Genoa. The transition to Spain is surprising. In Behobie, the last French place, one could believe that one was still on the Loire. In Fuent Arabia is a steep lane twelve feet wide; every window has its balcony and curtain, every balcony its black eyes and mantillas, beauty and dirt. On the market-place drums and fifes, and some hundreds of women, old and young, dancing among themselves, while the men stand by smoking and draped. The neighborhood up to this place is extraordinarily beautiful; green valleys and woody slopes, above them fantastic lines of forts, row after row. Bights of the sea with very small inlets, which, like the Salzburg Lakes in Bergkesseln, cut deep into the land. From my window I am looking at one of these, cut away from the sea by a rocky islet, steeply fringed by mountains, with forest and houses to the left, below the town and harbor. At about ten I bathed, and after breakfast we walked or slouched through the heat to the mount of the citadel, and sat for a long time on a bank. Some hundred feet beneath us was the sea; next to us a heavy fort battery, with a singing sentinel. This mountain or rock would be an island, did not a low isthmus connect it with the mainland. The isthmus divides two arms of the sea from each other, and thus from the citadel towards the north there is a fine view of the sea. To the east and west are the two arms, like two Swiss lakes; to the south is the isthmus, with the town on it, and behind towards the land, mountains stretching skyward. I should like to have a picture painted of it for you, and were we fifteen years younger we would both come hither. To-morrow or next day I return to Bayonne, but shall remain a few days at Biarritz, where the shore is not so beautiful as here, but still prettier than I had thought, and the life is somewhat more civilized. To my great content, I hear nothing from Berlin and Paris. I am very much sunburnt, and should have liked to lie in the sea for an hour. The water buoys me up like a piece of wood, and it is just cool enough to be pleasant. One is almost dry by the time one reaches the dressing-hut; then I put my hat on and take a walk en peignoir. Fifty paces off the ladies bathe, after the custom of the country. The customs and passport business are infinite, and the tolls incredible, or I should remain here longer, instead of bathing at Biarritz, where it is necessary to assume a costume.
Biarritz, 4th Aug., 1862.
I fear that I have made some confusion in our correspondence, as I have led you to write too early to places where I am not. It will be better to write to Paris, just as if I were there; the Embassy will then forward them, and I can give quicker information then as to any change in my travelling plans. Last evening I reached Bayonne from St. Sebastian, where I slept for the night, and am now sitting in a corner room of the Hotel de l’Europe, with a charming view of the blue sea, which drives its foam between wonderful cliffs against the lighthouse. My conscience reproves me for seeing so much that is lovely without you. Could I bring you here through the air, we would immediately return to St. Sebastian. Think of the Siebengebirge with the Drachenfels placed on the sea-shore; next to it Ehrenbreitstein, and between both an arm of the sea, somewhat broader than the Rhine, stretching into the land, forming a round cove behind the mountains. Here one bathes in transparent clear water, so heavy and salt that one floats, and can look through the broad rock entrance into the ocean, or landward, where the mountain chains rise ever higher and more azure. The women of the middle and lower classes are remarkably pretty, some of them handsome: the men are surly and uncivil; and the conveniences of life to which we are accustomed are wanting. The heat here is not worse than there, and I think nothing of it—on the contrary, thank God, I am very well. Yesterday there was a storm, the like of which I have never seen. On a stair of four steps on the harbor dam I had to try to mount thrice before I could get up; pieces of stone and halves of trees were flying through the air. Unfortunately, this led me to retract my place on a sailing vessel to Bayonne, little thinking that in four hours all would be quiet and serene. I thus lost a charming sea passage along the coast, remained another day in St. Sebastian, and yesterday left in the diligence, somewhat uncomfortably packed between dainty little Spanish women, with whom I could not interchange a word. They understood enough Italian, however, for me to make it clear to them that I was pleased with their outward appearance. I looked over a travelling plan this morning, how I could get from here, i.e., Toulouse, by railway, through Marseilles to Nizza, then by ship to Genoa, thence by Venice, Trieste, Vienna, Breslau, Posen, Stargard to Cöslin!—if Berlin were only passable. Just now I can not well get by.
