This, too, is the land of the troubadour, and the quaint wild music chanted by the peasantry has a something about it irresistibly attractive, something one hears nowhere else; now dreamy, now bright, almost monotonous at times, then suddenly bursting into strains of sadness in which the whole depths of a life are portrayed. Then there is the ringing mountaineer song, too, with its clear and measured cadence, and a certain bravery in its tones which could easily foretell the difficult mastering of such a people, should it ever again be required.
The mixture of Spanish merchants and wanderers among the population gives to their parks and squares a pretty effect. They cross the Pyrenees with their showy wares, their strings of perfumed beads, bracelets, necklaces, rosaries, all made of the wood that grows at the foot of their mountains. Dressed in their own picturesque costumes, and carrying their merchandise of every imaginable color—red and bright yellow predominating—they accost you with a grace which renders them irresistible, and you find yourself rather poorer for the encounter.
I improved so rapidly in this climate, getting wholly rid of my cough and gaining twenty-five pounds in little over four weeks, that I concluded I was well enough to return to Paris, and thence, after another rest in England, home. I resolved, therefore, to see all that Pau offered to the sight-seer.
I drove with my kind friends several times to and around the varied and pretty villas: the primroses peeped at us from under the hedges, and here and there the rarest tropical trees and plants riveted our attention—and this in February, when the most of the world was ice-bound. The snow-capped mountains, however, rising around us on every side, would not permit us to entirely forget winter. The town itself, of twenty-one thousand inhabitants, is almost a miniature Paris, some squares duplicating those of the great city, and the bridges separating Pau and the Jurançon, though crossing a much prettier river than the Seine, heightening the resemblance.
The churches are costly and beautiful; one built by the Society of Jesus, entirely of white marble, and lined with exquisite pictures and gifts of the wealthy strangers who pass the season at the different hotels, is a perfect gem in its way.
The hotels, the Place Royale with its music every Thursday—weather permitting, as say our friends of the Central Park—where crowds walk up and down and listen to but little, I imagine, are all attractions for the health or pleasure seeker.
Very odd old houses with gabled roofs, and reminding you of Dutch pictures, start out occasionally from among the more modern and fashionable ones, and seem to tell the story of change and decay.
Not unfrequently a merry peasant wedding party, in a whole line of carriages trumpeting vigorously and raising the dust, pass you with shouts, and compel your curiosity to recognize and salute the bride. It is said the strangers with their wealth and fashionable follies are gradually obliterating these good old Béarnais customs, through the spirit of emulation they excite in a hitherto perfectly happy peasantry. Women, however, still walk the streets with their distaffs, and men knit as they guide the plough. Something of primeval innocence still remains. Certainly no country was ever more paradisiacally formed to retain it.
My time was limited, however; I could not stay and study these people and their customs as I would have wished. I could not visit the great summer resort, the famed Eaux Bonnes, so beautifully nestled, they told me, among the higher Pyrenees, but must exert all the strength I had to see before I left the great monument of Pau, the grand old