IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY.
Bayonne, as all good little girls and boys who take prizes at school for
geography and history are aware, is a fortified town commanding the
passes of the West Pyrenees, and is a high road to Spain. It was here
that the citadel which formed the key to an entrenched camp of Marshal
Soult was invested by a portion of the army of the Duke of Wellington in
1814. The whole neighbourhood teems with memories of the halcyon days of
the British arms. One comes to many a spot immortalized by a story which
makes the Briton’s heart beat faster with patriotic pride. The arms of
England may still be seen upon the vault of the cathedral, and in the
cemetery lies many a gallant officer and brave soldier of the Coldstream
Guards who fell in the sortie of April 14, 1814. It was here---- But for
further particulars look up your history. The dead past can bury its
dead; my business is with the present.
I had a terrible fright coming from Bordeaux to Bayonne. The railway
runs for a portion of the way through the Landes, a vast tract of heaths
and ash-coloured sands and brackish streams. The inhabitants of this
strange district lead hard and terrible lives. Food is scarce, and, what
is worse, they can get very little water that is fit to drink, most of
Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s favourite beverage that finds its way to the
Landes being salt and nauseous. I reached the Landes after the moon had
risen. Owing to a little accident on the line, we were detained at a
wayside station for half an hour. I lit a pipe, and strolled outside and
made my way down a kind of road that skirted a wild, uncultivated heath.
The road was very lonely, and everything looked weird in the moonlight.
I was alone, for my companion had sacrificed comfort to a tight boot,
and declined to walk. All of a sudden I saw a gigantic shadow thrown on
the ground in front of me. I looked up and beheld a man twelve or
fourteen feet high stalking towards me with strides that covered ten
feet of ground at a time. On, on the giant came at a terrific pace, and
the great beads of perspiration broke out upon my brow. He was a
wild-looking giant, with long black hair, and a huge sheepskin covered
his body. His legs were the longest and the thinnest I had ever seen in
my life. I didn’t believe he was human. I made up my mind he was a
creature from the fable world, and that I was about to be carried away
to his haunt, wherever it may be, and devoured. I thought of Jack and
the Beanstalk, and I expected the creature every moment to say, ‘Fee,
fo, fum!’ and refer to the fact that the blood of an Englishman had
saluted his olfactory organs. Just as I was going to drop on my knees
and shriek for mercy, the giant suddenly halted, put a big pole which he
carried in his hand behind his back, and stood stock-still in the
moonlight, a living, breathing tripod.
I held my breath, and waited for the dénouement. The giant raised his
cap, and asked me, in excellent French, if I could tell him what the
time was. Then I took a calmer view of him, and suddenly it dawned upon
me that my giant was no giant at all, but merely a shepherd of the
Landes mounted upon enormous stilts.
I am not the first traveller who has been startled by such an
apparition. The inhabitants of this district walk upon stilts from
childhood to old age. They would not be able to get over the sandy
ground studded with prickly heather in ordinary boots and shoes. They
stride over hedges and ditches in this way at a pace which no horse can
keep up with, and while they are watching their flocks they stick a long
pole in the ground, and, resting their backs against it, stop in this
position for hours knitting stockings. The spectacle to the unaccustomed
eye is one of the most startling that can be conceived. I told my
stilted friend the time, and, wishing him good-night, walked back to the
station; but it was a long time before I got over the ‘turn’ which his
sudden apparition in the moonlight had given me.
In Bayonne I spent the Mardi Gras and had my ‘carnival.’ The people of
the South know how to be merry and enjoy themselves, and they can
disguise themselves humorously and in good taste. All night long the
quaint streets were crowded with hundreds of masquerading revellers, and
the fun was fast and furious. Many of the costumes were Spanish, and
really fine pieces of colouring. The ladies were particularly charming,
though I fancy some of them must have suffered the next day with
rheumatism in the lower limbs, for the roads were damp and muddy, and
the wind blew keenly. Wet roads and keen winds are hardly suited to
extra short skirts and pink fleshings and dainty little shoes and
head-dresses of gauzy lace.
They certainly were not rheumatic on the night of the Mardi Gras, for I
procured a box at the theatre and watched the grand carnival ball at its
height during the small hours. The masked ball at the Paris Opera House
is a grander sight for variety and richness of costume, and the crowd of
revellers is greater, but no ball that I have ever witnessed came near
to this little Bayonne celebration in mirth and unforced gaiety and
rollicking good humour. Heavens, how the natives danced! How they
whirled round and round, and capered and kicked their legs up, and
laughed and shouted, and threw themselves heart and soul into the
maddest of mad quadrilles! I left the theatre at four in the morning,
and the Bayonne lads and lasses, masked, disguised, and brilliantly
costumed, were hard at it still; and when I got outside into the cool
air of the early morning there were still dozens of masqueraders, male
and female, promenading the public square arm-in-arm, with never a cloak
or a wrap about them, yet not a single cough or sneeze broke in upon the
merry laughter that floated on the cool and humid air. I hurried towards
my hotel with my overcoat buttoned to my chin, and on my way I passed a
little sylph in an airy pink ballet costume, seated on a stone bench,
and listening to the old, old story from the lips of a youthful Spanish
matador; and the little sylph in pink gauze had taken great care not to
sit upon the delicate texture of her skirts. I could understand that the
tender passion had warmed her heart, but it must have also spread a glow
all over to enable her to listen to the vows of her swain in that
costume and on that seat without a single chatter of the teeth.
From Bayonne, before going to Biarritz, I determined to push further
into the interior of the Basque country, and see for myself this strange
race of people as they are in their mountain homes. Many of the
inhabitants of Bayonne are Basque, and all the servants in the hotels.
From coachmen, waitresses (there are very few waiters in Basque hotels),
peasants, and fishermen, I gleaned a good deal of useful information
before starting; but years of study might be devoted to this
extraordinary people, the aborigines of Western Europe, who have seen
Celts, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Vandals, and Saracens pass away
like shadows, and still linger on themselves, retaining their old
traditions and superstitions and their old language, which is like no
other European tongue. Of their habits and customs, and of their homes,
I shall have something to say presently; but I cannot resist giving here
a specimen of this extraordinary Basque language, which one hears to-day
freely talked, not only in the mountains and the valleys, but in the
busy streets of the big towns.
The following paragraph I take from a dialogue between two Basque
peasants, which is printed in a Basque paper. An election in the
department was fixed for February 27, and it is concerning the merits of
the Conservative and the Republican candidate that Batichta and Piarres
are engaged in animated converse:
‘BATICHTA ETA PIARRES.--Canden igande arratsaldean, bezperetaric
lekhora, ikhus, en gintuen Batichta eta Piarres, bi etcheco jaun
adiskide handiac, bici bicia mintzo pilota plaza hegal batean.
Huna, gero entzun dugunaz, car cerasaten.’
The linguist will see how utterly unlike any European tongue these words
are. There is a suggestion of Arabic now and then, and a slight
resemblance to a few Finnish and Spanish words; but, as a whole, it is
absolutely original. Here is the translation: ‘Last Sunday, in the
afternoon, on coming from vespers, we noticed two landowners--Batichta
and Piarres--two good friends. They spoke very excitedly at the corner
of the Jeu de Paume ground, and here is what they said----’ Then
follows a long political conversation.
The Basques are strongly anti-Republican. Hundreds of young men are
leaving their villages and going to South America to avoid serving in
the army of the Republic. Their fathers would rather let their children
go from them to the great land beyond the seas than see them fighting
for a Government which they detest. The Basque population swarms in such
places as Ecuador, Uruguay, the Brazils, Chili, and the Spanish-speaking
portions of South America. Many of them return in after-years, rich and
prosperous, to their native mountain homes, and build magnificent
châteaux on the site of the old paternal cottages. When they return they
are called ‘Americans'; and this rather bothered me, as one day, near
Cambo, I had grand villa after villa pointed out to me as the residence
of an ‘American.’ By cross-questioning my guides I arrived at the truth.
The ‘Americans’ were wealthy Basques who had made fortunes ‘across the
seas,’ and come home to be great men among their poorer compatriots.
There is a good deal of South America dotted about the Basque country.
You come upon the ‘Auberge de Monte Video,’ and the ‘Hôtel de Buenos
Ayres,’ and the ‘Auberge de Rio Janeiro.’ My coachman’s sister has
married and gone to Peru. My chambermaid’s brother is making money in
Chili. An old fisherman who told me all the legends of St. Jean de Luz
has two sons at Monte Video. Half the cottagers one talks to have
friends and relatives in South America. South America is the El Dorado
of the young Basque’s dreams. But when he has made his pile, he likes to
come back to the old home, and spend it among his people.
With all these travellers among them, you would think the Basque
peasantry would cease to be strongly conservative, that their ideas
would broaden, and their exclusiveness would be broken down. But it is
not so. They hate railways, and they hate the foreigners to come and
disturb their peaceful ways. At Cambo the other day I fell in with a
group of small landowners who were discussing the new railway schemes,
and they were purple with passion that such an idea should have been
mooted.
This conservative spirit among the Basque population is tremendously
worked upon at election time. It will be interesting to all who study
French politics (and who does not nowadays?) to see the sort of language
which a local Conservative candidate indulges in at the expense of the
Republic. Listen to this:
FOR GOD AND FOR FRANCE.
Electors of the Basses Pyrénées,--The struggle begins; the banners are
unfolded. On which side should good Catholics and simple and honest
folks range themselves? Under the banner of the Republic?
No; for it is this Republic whose dead weight lies upon our unhappy
country, and crushes out its life.
Who suppressed the catechism and prayers in our public schools?
Who has driven God from the army?
Who has driven the priest from the bedside of the sick and of the dying?
Who established the anti-Christian and immoral law of divorce?
Who, not content with paganizing France, has robbed her of her fortune
and her glory?
Who for the last ten years has augmented by milliards the debt of
France?
Who dishonours the armies of France by making them the Armies of the
Republic?
Who has left us in all Europe without a single alliance?
Who has led us to the very brink of war, from which God preserve us?
The Republic!
Will you vote for the Republic?
No; you will vote for God and for France--
And for the Conservative candidate.
This inflammatory address is placarded throughout the Basque villages of
the department concerned in the election. Crowds of the peasants stand
round the walls and read it sympathetically.
Everything is bright and pretty and quaint and picturesque in the Basque
country. The men, clean shaven and with fine Saracen faces, in their
dark blue berets and red waistbands; the women, with their red, or blue,
or black, or yellow toques; the half-Spanish, half-Swiss houses; the
carts drawn by yoked oxen; the waggons and diligences with their long
string of Spanish mules; the crosses and signs upon the doorways; the
Eastern custom of carrying gracefully water-jars upon the head; the tall
wooden crosses on every hill and highway--all these things, thrown into
relief by a background of glorious scenery, make an impression upon the
traveller which does not soon pass away.
The waitress in my hotel, who is at once waitress, _femme de chambre_,
and everything that is useful, is a wonder in her way. Of Spanish Basque
origin, she has travelled with families during her early life, and she
speaks Spanish, French, German, and Italian, as well as her native
Basque. She likes the English, she tells me, and is very proud of the
fact that she one day waited on the Prince of Wales when he came
incognito to breakfast at the Hôtel St. Martin, at Cambo (a beautiful
Basque village about twelve miles from Bayonne). No one knew the Prince,
and he and his companions made a good breakfast, and then went about and
talked with the villagers, and inspected the farms, and smoked their
cigars out on the terrace of the hotel, which overlooks a landscape not
to be matched in Switzerland. The Prince talked to my waitress, and
asked her what this was in Basque and what that was, and questioned her
as to the habits and customs of the country.
To all intents and purposes the royal party were simply English
tourists, when suddenly a grand carriage drove up to the hotel. A French
duke and another gentleman alighted, and, bowing themselves into the
presence of the Prince, invited him to a grand breakfast at Biarritz;
and a third gentleman arrived almost immediately with an invitation from
the English consul. ‘Thanks,’ said the Prince, laughing; ‘I have
breakfasted excellently, and I’m going to spend the day here. Let me
enjoy myself in this delightful spot, like good fellows, and go back and
say you couldn’t find me.’
My _femme de chambre_ ran on for a quarter of an hour eulogizing the
Prince. She has the five-franc piece which he gave her when he paid his
bill, and it is to go to her family when she dies as a precious legacy.
She believes in royalty tremendously, for the royal family of Portugal,
she tells me, always stop at this hotel, and they laugh and talk with
her always like old friends. ‘Ah,’ she says, ‘your royal folks when they
travel are simple and easily pleased, and they make no fuss. It is your
people of small rank who are proud and cold and want so much attention.
There is a little German countess who comes here in the season _en
route_ for Biarritz, and she travels with a dog and two servants, and
she must have the whole of the first-floor reserved for her, and she
will take nothing from the servants of the hotel. Her dog even will not
notice us, but walks past us with his tail in the air.’
I let my _femme de chambre_ chatter on. She tells me stories of the
Empress Eugénie in the old Biarritz days, and tears come into her eyes
as she speaks of the dead Prince Imperial. They worship the memory of
the imperial family of France all round this district, and have many a
pleasant tale to tell of the young lady who lived so much among them in
the days before the love of an emperor raised her to the throne. When
she has quite finished her royal and imperial anecdotes, I
cross-question her as to Basque habits and customs and superstitions. My
head is full of the beautiful Basque legends and ghost stories which I
have lately picked up, and I ask her if it is true that the people still
believe in them. Then she informs me that her venerable father and
mother are Basque peasants, and that they themselves believe in
witchcraft and sorcery, and all the spells of the Evil One, and all the
bad spirits that haunt the mountains and the woods. Her papa has, in
fact, just moved out of his house on account of sorcery. He lost last
year six cows, and he was so convinced that they had been bewitched, and
that a spell had been worked upon his house, that he quitted it, and
built another close by. He then sent for the priest to come and bless
it, and after that he painted up a big white cross on the front door to
keep the evil spirits from entering therein. ‘Superstitious!’ she says.
‘Ah, mon cher monsieur, I have travelled and seen the world, and I know
better; but when I go to my native village and say I do not believe in
witches and charms and the evil spirits of the night, the peasants cross
themselves, and my old father and mother weep and curse themselves for
allowing me to leave home and become “une fille perdue.”’
Wandering about the Basque villages, I have gleaned a few of their
superstitions. No man, woman, or child among them will be out of doors
after midnight, for they all believe that wicked spirits are abroad, and
that terrible misfortune will befall anyone who meets them. On certain
feast days they light a great fire, and the whole family kneels and
prays round the burning wood until it is all reduced to ashes. These
ashes are then carefully collected and scattered on the fields to make
them fruitful. If any man neglects to propitiate the spirits by strewing
these ashes, his crops will fail.
One afternoon I come to a little auberge on the slope of a lonely
mountain on the Spanish side. A great white cross is roughly chalked on
the door, and outside sits an old woman talking with the landlord and
his wife. They are listening with rapt attention, and cross themselves
again and again. Presently the old crone goes away, and I sit on the
bench and call for something ‘for the good of the house,’ and gradually
get the landlord to tell us what the old lady was talking to him about.
Then he tells us that last night the old crone saw the ‘arguiduna’ in
the village graveyard--the ‘arguiduna’ of her son whom she buried a
month since. The ‘arguiduna’ is the soul of a dead person when it takes
the shape of a will-o'-the-wisp. This strange light came from her son’s
grave, and stopped close to her. As she moved away it followed her, and
accompanied her to the old home. On the threshold she stood still, and
her son’s soul in its fiery form circled three times round her, and then
slowly went up, up, up into the skies till it was lost among the stars.
‘And now,’ says the innkeeper, ‘the old mother is happy, for she has
been in great trouble about her boy, for he had been wild and had done
many evil things, and she feared it might not be well with his soul. Now
that she has seen the “arguiduna” go up like that to the skies, she
knows that his sins have been forgiven him, and that he is with the
blessed. She will weep for him no more.’
People who live in great cities, where ideas rush at railway speed, and
where the bustle and noise of modern life destroy romance and drive
fancy from the field, find it difficult to believe that such a
superstition as this can be implicitly believed by a whole race of
people living in civilized countries in the nineteenth century; but
these Basque people believe to this day in all the legends and fables
which their ancestors believed a thousand years ago. With them nothing
has changed, and to-day they have their Arguiduna; their Maitgarri, or
Fairy of the Lakes; the Lamia, a weird being inhabiting the wave-washed
coasts; the Jauna, or Spirits of the Wood; and the Sorguinas, the
Spirits of the Plains. In these and a hundred other spirits, evil and
good, in witches, sorcerers, and devils, the Basque people of to-day
believe as firmly and as devoutly as they did in the dark ages. Their
daily life, their habits and customs, are all shaped by these
superstitions, and their priests, unable to combat them, now tacitly
admit them, and even bless many of the charms which they use against the
spirits of darkness. And these people live many of them within walking
distance of a railway-station, and Liberal candidates address them and
canvass for their votes at election time.
Cambo is a lovely Basque village, about twelve miles from Bayonne.
Imagine a sweet Swiss valley shut in by an amphitheatre of olive-green
and purple hills! Through the valley winds a broad stream of silver
water. Fair white houses, and châlets with bright red roofs, throw back
the rays of a glorious sun that bathes the scene in golden light. Above
is a sky of cloudless blue. Far as the eye can reach all is luxuriance
and beauty. As one gazes upon the perfect landscape from the broad stone
terrace of the Hôtel St. Martin, a great peace steals into one’s soul,
and the cares and troubles of the outer world are for a time forgotten.
On the slope of the hill which faces this glorious scene stands a quaint
Basque village. The people live by the land, which yields a bounteous
harvest. They keep the simple manners and customs of bygone centuries;
they have been here, undisturbed by the rattle of traffic and the snort
of the railway engine, ever since the place came into existence; and
now, if you please, the French are going to desecrate their village with
a railway. There is to be a station at Cambo. The inhabitants are
furious; the landowners have refused to sell their land, and the
Government replies that if they persist it will be taken from them by
force.
My sympathies are with Cambo. A railway will destroy the poetry of the
place. All the Basque people ask is to be allowed to live quietly in
their homes. They don’t want to be hustled by a crowd of townsfolk,
whose ways are not their ways, and who speak a foreign language. Even
the rich ‘Americans,’ whose splendid châteaux dot the hills, are crying
out. They are Basque to the backbone, and they don’t want excursionists
gaping about their grounds, and driving over them in their winding,
tree-shaded roadways.
But I must not go Basque-mad, and imagine everyone is as interested in
the people as I am. Let us return to modern civilization, and go to
Biarritz. My coachman drives me there from Bayonne. He is a beautiful
creature, my coachman. He wears the old postilion jacket and hat. He is
trimmed with scarlet and silver lace, and my arithmetic stops short in
an attempt to add up his buttons. His little jacket alone costs £5; his
waistcoat costs £1; his hat costs 15s.; and his horses have bells all
over them, so that we make merry music as we dash along the roads, and
the whip cracks joyously, and the dogs bark a concert in our rear, and
the children pursue us at full speed, yelling for coppers; and that’s
how we go to Biarritz.