CHAPTER III.
THE CITADEL.—BIARRITZ.—HOW THE VISITORS KILL TIME.—EN ROUTE FOR SPAIN.—ST. JEAN DE LUZ.—HENDAYE.—THE BIDASSOA CROSSED.—WINTER IN SPAIN.—IRUN.—CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICIALS.—ST. SEBASTIAN.—THE ALAMEDA PROMENADE.—THE PLAIN OF VITTORIA.
WHEN after breakfast we looked out of our window, we perceived on the opposite side of the way a grim old castle, with little grated windows sunk deep into its walls, like the eyes in a consumptive face. And well, indeed, should that old building hide its eyes from all creation, for did not its walls give shelter to the guilty trio who planned within them the devilish scheme of the massacre of St. Bartholomew,—the Duke of Alva, Catherine de' Medici, and her miserable offspring, Charles IX.?
A walk about Bayonne brings to notice of course a great amount of fortification, especially the citadel of Vauban, where Marshal Soult and the Duke of Wellington fought very hard and sacrificed a great number of the soldiers of their respective countries. Proceeding in another direction outside the town, the tourist will come to a cemetery where lie forgotten, mouldering in the dust of a foreign land, the remains of the officers of the British guards who fell during the fruitless siege of Bayonne. Down in a dim dell, amongst old trees whispering a requiem in the breeze of falling night, we stood over those solitary graves, near which there was no sign of life, and where the brambles of the wilderness did their utmost to impede the tributary footsteps of the two English pilgrims to this forgotten shrine of their brave countrymen, on which the last beams of sunset threw what seemed in imagination a bloody light.
On a fine southern morning, we climbed on to the top of a crazy diligence, swinging in a very top-heavy and uncomfortable manner over some very high wheels. The vehicle swayed to and fro in such a way that the last carriage of an express train on the narrow gauge would appear immovable compared with it. The banquette, with its hood, in which we were travelling for pleasure, seemed quite overburdened with politeness, and bowed in the most humble manner to everybody and everything it met. We were now on our way to Biarritz, a place we reached after an hour's drive in which there is nothing very remarkable to attract the traveller's attention.
Biarritz is a town situated on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, and consists chiefly of hotels and boarding-houses built on rocks. It is peopled generally by emperors, waiters, hawkers of spurious Spanish goods, and very idle ladies and gentlemen. Creatures like mermaids, with their extremities encased in mackintosh, are seen nearly all day long sporting about in the waters which break upon the yellow sand, and dancing quadrilles in the sea with very odd-looking fish of the male gender, also swathed in curious garments, which cause them at a little distance to resemble very badly rolled-up umbrellas, or an imperfect class of sausages. Barring the bathing, the amusements of Biarritz, or Biarits, as some of the natives write it, are very dear and rather silly. People revolve nightly on their own axes to the solemn strains of a horn band in a large casino, with expressions of countenance as serious and business-like as if they were undergoing a course of rotatory exercise recommended by their medical advisers as a stimulant after the chills of the bath; while the day is consumed, one hardly knows how, except it be in flirting, aquatics, scandal, abuse of one's neighbours, or in buying from gaudy coffee-coloured Spaniards trumpery which, under no conceivable circumstances, could the most ingenious mind ever turn to any account. There is certainly grand food for the eye whichever way it may turn, "whene'er we take our walks abroad," for the long jagged line of the Spanish mountains is seen, now clear, dark, and sharp, now wild and storm-wrapped, rising loftily from the far blue main; and there is always playing on one's cheek, or with the flowing tress of many a pretty damsel, the pure strengthening air of the Bay of Biscay, sweeping with untainted breath from across the dark, wild waves of the rolling Atlantic. From the summits of the various sea-worn rocks and pinnacles which jut out from the land may be seen beautiful views of the white amphitheatre of Biarritz, formed by clusters of villas, casinos, and bathing pavilions along the curving shore, or piled on gentle hills, rising one above the other in picturesque confusion, with their sunny walls shaded here and there by green shrubberies, or gay with flaunting banners waving over shining terrace and grassy slope, the stately Villa Eugénie of the Empress commanding the whole. In front the restless waves are ever rolling in on the yellow sands, in their ceaseless chase from the Bay of Biscay, spread out so broad, blue, and beautiful; while to the south the distant skies seem walled up by that grand dark chain of the Spanish mountains, towering through clouds and tempests in wild and lofty grandeur, or melting away on the far horizon into the heat of the golden day and the spume of the tossing sea.
The people at Biarritz seem to be in a chronic state of masquerade. In some the disease takes a severe and malignant form, in others simply that of a mild and harmless lunacy. Very fierce and dirty individuals prowl about the streets, in what is popularly supposed to be the Spanish costume, namely, shabby velveteen inexpressibles, jackets covered with a perfect eruption of buttons and bobbins, and the calves of their legs swathed in linen bandages, as if they were in a general state of poultice. These individuals have dreadful long Spanish knives to sell, knives which, when any Englishman is so infatuated as to decline buying Birmingham cutlery at Biarritz, they grasp in a very portentous manner, opening and shutting them with an air of determination which is most alarming to the weak and nervous.
"Who comes in foreign trashery
Of tinkling chain and spur,