This is extremely amusing; but, of course, too absurd to be true. Besides, the archives of Pampeluna do not afford the slightest hint of so singular a record.
Southwestern France, however, has many traditions of the Oriental origin of its inhabitants. Tarbes and Lourdes are said to have been founded by Abyssinian princesses. Belleforest, in his Cosmography, says Japhet himself came into Gaul and built the city of Périgueux, which for several ages bore his name. Père Bajole, of Condom, a Jesuit of the XVIIth century, is less precise in his suppositions, but thinks the country was peopled soon after the Deluge, and therefore by those who had correct notions of the true God. Moreover as Noah, of course, would not have allowed his descendants to depart without suitable advice as to the way of salvation, especially to the head of the colony, he concludes that many of the ancient Aquitanians were saved. The Sire Dupleix cites the epistle of S. Martial to show they had retained some proper notions of theology, which accounts for the rapid success of the first Christian apostles of the country.
But to return to the Basques in particular: In the Leyenda Pendadola—an old book of the XIth century—we read that “the first settlement in Spain was made by the patriarch Tubal, whose people spoke the language still used in the provinces of Biscay”—that is, the Basque. William von Humboldt likewise attributed to the Basques an Asiatic origin, and was decidedly of the school of MM. Erro and Astarloa, though he rejected their exaggerations. The Basque language, so rich, harmonious, and expressive, is now generally believed to be one of the Turanian tongues. Prince Lucian Bonaparte shows the analogy between it and the Hungarian, Georgian, etc.
The word Basque is derived from the Latin Vasco; for in Southwestern France it is quite common to pronounce the letter v like b—a habit which made Scaliger wittily say: Felices populi, quibus Vivere est Bibere.
The Basque country consists of several provinces on both sides of the Pyrenees bordering on the Bay of Biscay. Labourd, Soule, and Lower Navarre are now in the department of the Basses-Pyrenees, on the French side. The two provinces of Biscay and Guipuzcoa—a part of Alava and of Upper Navarre—belong to Spain. The whole Basque population cannot be more than 500,000. The people, as we have had a proof of, are proud of their ancient nationality; and though there is a difference of manners, physiognomy, and even of idiom in these sections, they all recognize each other as brethren. They are a noble race, and have accomplished great deeds in their day. Entrenched behind their mountains, they long kept the Romans at bay, drove back the Moors, and crushed the rear-guard of Charlemagne.
The Basques have always been famous navigators. The first suggestion that led to the discovery of America is said to have been given Christopher Columbus by Sanchez de Huelva, a Basque pilot. The Basques of Labourd certainly discovered Cape Breton. They were the first to go on whale-fisheries, which, in 1412, extended as far as Iceland. And Newfoundland seems to have been known to them in the middle of the XVth century. The first name of Cape Breton—isle des Bacaloas or Bacaloac—is a Basque name.
In the middle ages the Basques maintained a certain independence by means of their fueros, or special privileges, which had been handed down from time immemorial and confirmed by several of the kings of France. The wood of Haïtze is still pointed out as the place where the assemblies of the elders, or bilçars, were formerly held in the district of Labourd. Here came together the proprietors of the different communes to regulate their administrative affairs. The most of the assembly leaned on their staves or against the venerable oaks of the forest. But the presiding member sat on a huge stone, the secretary on another, while a third was used for recording the decrees of the assembly, to which the kings of France and Navarre were often forced to yield by virtue of their fueros.
And this country was never over-ruled by oppressive lords who held it in subjection by means of their fortified castles. The device of Bayonne—Nunquam polluta—seems to express the unstained independence that had never been subjected to feudal dominion. It doubtless had great families who distinguished themselves by their bravery and military services, and were noted for their wealth, like the casas de parientes majores—the twenty-four families of great antiquity—in Guypuzcoa, among which was the family of Loyola of Aspeïtia, to which the immortal founder of the Jesuits belonged, as well as that of Balda, his mother’s family; but they never pretended to the feudal authority of the great nobles of France and Spain. It was only in the XVth century that several Basque families, who had become wealthy, ventured to erect some inoffensive towers like those of Uturbi near St. Jean de Luz, occupied by Louis XI. while on the frontier arranging the treaty between the kings of Castile and Arragon.
It is said of the Basques of Spain: As many Basques, as many nobles. Many of their villages have coats of arms on all the houses, which contrast with the decayed lattices and crumbling roofs. The owners point to their emblazonry with the air of a Montmorency. When the Moors invaded the North of Spain, thousands of mountaineers rose to drive them out. As they made war at their own expense, those who returned alive to their cottages received the reward of gentlemen—the right of assuming some heraldic sign and graving it on their walls as a perpetual memorial of their deeds. In the valley of Roncal the inhabitants were all ennobled for having distinguished themselves at the battle of Olaso, in the reign of Fortunio Garcia. In the village of Santa Lucia, not far from Toledo, an old house of the XIIIth century is still to be seen with double lancet windows, which has its record over the door proving the part a former owner had taken at the bridge of Olaso—an azure field traversed by a river, which is spanned by a bridge with three golden arches surmounted by the bleeding head of a Moor.