We were glad, and yet sorry, to leave La Force and its generous supporters—glad to escape the sight of so much physical and mental deformity, and sorry that we could not effectually aid the noble efforts made in its behalf.
From La Dordogne to Bayonne extends the dreary desert of the Landes,—a desert only broken by pine-forests and shepherds’ huts, and offering no enticement to the impatient travellers bound to Spain. We did, however, spend a day at Arcachon near Bordeaux, for the place had been praised in our hearing as a second and more attractive Biarritz, and we wanted to know how far we might recommend it to friends at home.
I don’t think I can recommend any one to go to Arcachon, quiet and pretty as it is. In the first place, the air is so oppressively soft that we both felt stupefied by it, much as if we had taken morphine; and in the second, the houses are all built in such gimcrack style that one feels to be living in a sixpenny peep-show. But, on the other hand, there are sweet-smelling forests of young pine very refreshing to the sight and sense (if people preserve their sight and senses in soporific Arcachon), and salt-baths, and the pleasant feeling that here, if nowhere else in the world, it would be quite possible to become oblivious of every care and responsibility under the sun!
CHAPTER II.
THE MISCONCEPTIONS OF LUGGAGE.—THE COMFORTS OF SPANISH RAILWAY TRAVELLING.—OUR LIBRARY.—FROM THE TROPICS TO THE STEPPES.—GREGORIA AND ISIDORA.—JOURNEY TO MADRID.
OS billetes de primera clase para Burgos?” (Two first-class tickets to Burgos) with astonishment repeated the young woman acting as collector at the railway station of Biarritz. “To Burgos! to Burgos!”