No. 11. MONT-DE-MARSAN TO BIARRITZ.
Just before reaching Pontoux and in that village the road is paved. The road goes to the right after the open space in Pontoux, and there continue to be wide views at intervals across the River Adour down below on the left. The town of Dax is not entered unless one wishes to make a slight détour to the left. It can be plainly seen across the river from the main road. The hot mineral springs, for which Dax still has a small reputation, were known to the Romans as Aquæ Tarbellicæ, and Hare writes of the ‘curious Roman fortifications destroyed in 1856.’ The church was rebuilt in the seventeenth century.
The scenery continues of the same forest character until near Ondres, and only two other villages are passed—St. Géours-de-Marenne, with a quaint semi-fortified type of church, and St. Vincent-de-Tyrosse, with a modern church shaded by big plane-trees. When this latter village is passed cork oaks begin to abound, and near Ondres come the first glimpses of the sea horizon of the Bay of Biscay.
The road crosses one of the group of small lakes scattered over the hilly country between the Adour and the sea. They are the only lakes in France.
Some of the lower peaks and a confusion of dark green foot-hills of the western extremity of the Pyrenees are boldly conspicuous as one goes due south on the last few miles to
BAYONNE
A portion of the town is on the north bank of the Adour, but all that is interesting is reached when the long bridge has been crossed.
It is to a very large extent through its history that Bayonne makes many appeals to the visitor, and particularly to the Englishman, for it is the capital of the country of that remarkable people the Basques. It stands on a noble river, with a magnificent mountainous country to the south, contrasted with the level wastes of Les Landes to the north, and its history as a possession of England almost to the beginning of the Renaissance, and as the centre of Wellington’s victories preceding Napoleon’s abdication in 1814, is of thrilling interest.
Bayonne was included in the vast possessions of the Dukes of Aquitaine, and it passed with them into the hands of England for three centuries. The rule of the English kings was considerate, and Bayonne and Bordeaux prospered through their extensive exports of wine to England. Bayonne, in fact, reached its greatest prosperity while it was an English possession.