Ye gods! Is it for this I have travelled many hundreds of miles? Is it for this I have been saturating myself with the language and the legends of the Basques? I go to an hotel and order my lunch. At the next table to me are a young gentleman and a young lady. The young gentleman says, ‘Are you coming to the lawn-tennis ground this afternoon?’ and the young lady replies, ‘No; Jack’s going to drive me to St. Jean de Luz in his dogcart.’ It is all English—everywhere English, and nothing but English. The stationers’ shops are full of English valentines and English books; the grocers’ shops display English jams and English pickles; the chemists’ shops have their windows stocked with English patent medicines, and English pills and English plaisters; and, as I live, when I turn to make a mad dash for the railway-station, two little boys come along arm-in-arm, and as they walk they whistle ‘Grandfather’s Clock'!
Oh, for the lost illusions of my youth! Oh, for the Biarritz of my dreams! I am at Margate; I am at Brighton; I am at Eastbourne; I am anywhere and everywhere on the coast of England; but I can’t possibly be on the Biscayan shores, and almost within hail of the Spanish coast! Sadly I enter the train, and return to Bayonne and a foreign land. I like England in England; but to come to Biarritz and find everything British, to be abroad and to be run down by London nursemaids, and to have ‘Grandfather’s Clock’ all over again, is worse than earthquakes to me.
After the shock of the English nursemaids wore off, I appreciated Biarritz at its true value, and I ceased to wonder that it had such a large winter colony of English. All along this coast there are huge hotels, which are kept open in the winter solely on account of the English. At St. Jean de Luz, a lovely little seaside spot, I saw a whole dozen of English Mary Janes and Sarah Anns sitting on the Parade in the warm sunshine, and talking, I suppose, of the lovers they had left in dear old England far away. While I was in the post-office, an English nursemaid came in and sat down at the table, and put the stamps lovingly on a letter she had in her hand, and I was curious enough to look over her shoulder and read the address. It was ‘Private John Smith, The Barracks, Chelsea.’ How I wished I could see under the envelope! I should like to read a description of life on the Basque coasts from the pen of a true-born British nursemaid, reared in all the insular prejudices and antipathies.
If I had to choose the spot where I would spend my winter, it would not be Biarritz or St. Jean de Luz, but San Sebastian, the Spanish watering-place, where in the season the Spanish aristocracy are so numerous you can walk on their heads. I should want a chapter to do justice to this glorious spot, so I must pass it by with just a nod of friendly recognition, and continue my journey—a journey which was nearly being interrupted in a manner which, much as I desire novel experiences, I am heartily glad that I was spared.
My original idea was to return from Bayonne to Bordeaux, and then take the Pacific mail steamer for Lisbon, working from thence to Seville and Granada, and then to Madrid, and so up through Spain into France and home again. I had even gone so far as to send to the shipping office for the tickets. My messenger returned with the information that the ship would be the Valparaiso, but that we could not have berths until the agent received a telegram from Liverpool telling him if there were any vacant. On the day before we were to return to Bordeaux, we received a letter from the agent saying we could have berths. We packed up. We were on the point of starting to Bordeaux, when, sitting in my armchair after dinner, I fell asleep and had a dream. I dreamt that I was shipwrecked. I felt the water closing over my head. I struck out and tried to swim, but the great waves struck me and threw me back. I clung to spars; I shouted for help. I went through a whole catalogue of agonies; and, just as a big shark was opening his mouth to swallow me, I woke up with a start. ‘It is time to go,’ said Albert Edward. ‘The omnibus is at the door. Shall I send the luggage down?’ ‘No,’ I exclaimed, starting up and rubbing my eyes. ‘No; a hundred times no! I’ve had a dream, and nothing will tempt me to make that sea-trip now.’ A few days after, in the reading-room of our hotel in Madrid, I picked up a newspaper, and saw that the Valparaiso, the ship by which we should have sailed but for that dream, had been wrecked in Vigo Bay, and that all the passengers’ luggage had been lost.
I am always anxious for adventures which will furnish material for my books, but I very much prefer to rely upon my imagination for my shipwrecks. A good many people have described earthquakes without being in them, and I am sure I can give a good account of ‘an awful night at sea’ without being taken off in a small boat and losing my luggage.
Instead of going by sea, we went by land, and the next day found us in the sleeping-car en route from Bayonne to Burgos, our first halting-place on our way to Madrid. The French authorities arrange this journey admirably. You arrive at Hendaye, the French frontier, at five minutes past twelve, and here you have half an hour for luncheon. The train then goes on, and reaches Irun in five minutes, where the Spanish authorities, not to be outdone in politeness, give you an hour. It is a battle between France and Spain which shall have the buffet money. Seeing that you have an hour at Irun, I can in no other way account for the absurdity of giving you half an hour at Hendaye. A run of two and a quarter miles in an hour and a half is surely the best on record for a special express train like the Paris-Madrid mail bound on a journey of 968 miles.
At Irun we entered on Spanish territory, Spanish customs, and Spanish manners. We received the utmost courtesy at the station and in the Custom House, and everywhere along the line. And we did it all with a well-filled case of halfpenny cigars. No official in the world is so polite or appreciates politeness so much as a Spanish one. The French are artificially polite, the Spaniards are naturally so. Hats are raised everywhere, faces are wreathed in smiles, bows are low and stately. To the chiefs of stations, to Custom House officers, after a few words of courteous inquiry, we offered a cigar. If we had offered gold and precious stones our gift could not have been received with greater sweetness and recognition. And for those few cigars we were treated everywhere like princes. Gold-braided caps-in-hand, stationmasters wished us a pleasant journey, and guards came and mounted on the steps and peeped in and inquired as to our comfort. At the end of the journey I really felt ashamed that we had received so much for so little. On the return journey we are going to fill that cigar-case with penny ones.
The run through the Pyrenees in the blazing sunshine was magnificent. When the train stopped, high up upon the great mountains, we got out and let our faces bronze, inhaled the splendid mountain air, and contrasted the scene around us (it was Sunday afternoon) with the aspect of Tottenham Court Road and Camden Town. We pitied the people in London, and we wondered if they were having a fog and crouching over their fires with the gas alight, and we made up our minds, when we were rich enough to retire, to come and end our days in the sunshine of the Pyrenees. The difficulty must be to end your days there. Unless you go up to the top of a precipice, and throw yourself deliberately over, it is difficult to see what can kill you in such a splendidly healthy, bracing air—in a land of perpetual life-giving sunshine.
The guard of our train was a very wonderful man, I have heard of a sailor who had a wife in every port, but we almost came to the conclusion that our guard had a wife at every station. Whenever the train stopped there was a young woman waiting, who was instantly kissed on both cheeks by our guard. Some of the ladies he kissed had little boys and girls with them, and he kissed the children too. It was to us a matter of much speculation as to what this constantly-recurring lady waiting to be kissed by our guard could mean. It remains a mystery to this hour. Perhaps he was one of a very large family, and his sisters and his cousins and his aunts had scattered and settled all along the line.