The transactions of the three days from the 8th to the 11th of January,
resembled so completely in all particulars the transactions of other
days during which it fell to our lot to keep guard beside the mayor's
house, that I will not try the patience of my reader by narrating them
at length. He will accordingly take it for granted that the ordinary
routine of watching and labour was gone through, that no attempt was
made on the part of the enemy to surprise or harass us, and that,
with the exception of a little suffering from extreme cold, and the
want of a moderate proportion of sleep, we had no cause to complain
of our destiny. When we first came to our ground we found the redoubt
in a state of considerable forwardness--quite defensible, indeed, in
a case of emergency; and we left it even more perfect, and capable
of containing at least a thousand men. It was not, however, with any
feeling of regret that we beheld a brigade of Guards approaching
our encampment about two hours after noon on the 11th; nor did we
experience the slightest humiliation in surrendering to them our tents,
our working tools, and the post of honour.
Now, then, we looked forward, not only with resignation, but with
real satisfaction, to a peaceable sojourn of a few weeks at Gauthory.
We had never, it is true, greatly admired these cantonments; but the
events of the last eight or ten days had taught us to set its true
value upon a settled habitation of any description, and we accordingly
made up our minds to grumble no more. But just as the line of march
was beginning to form, intelligence reached us that the place of our
abode was changed. Other troops, it appeared, had been introduced into
our former apartments; and we were in consequence commanded to house
ourselves in the village of Bidart. I mean not to assert that the order
was received with any degree of dissatisfaction; but feeling as at that
moment we did, it was, in truth, a matter of perfect indifference where
we were stationed, provided only we had a roof over our heads and an
opportunity was granted of resting from our labours.
The village of Bidart is built upon an eminence, immediately in rear
of the large common on which the advanced brigade lay encamped. It
consists of about thirty houses, some of them of a tolerable size, but
the majority cottages. Into one of the largest my friend and myself
were fortunate enough to be ushered; and as we found chimneys and
windows already formed, the former permitting us to keep fires alight
without the attendant misery of smoke, and the latter proof against the
weather, we sincerely congratulated ourselves on our change of abode.
Nor was it only on account of the superiority of these over our former
quarters that we rejoiced in this migration. The country round proved
to be better stocked with game, especially with hares, than any which
we had yet inhabited: and hence we continued, by the help of our guns
and greyhounds, not only to spend the mornings very agreeably, but to
keep our own and our friends' tables well supplied.
I have mentioned, in a former chapter, that the little town of Biaritz
stands upon the sea-shore, and that it was, at the period of which
I now write, regarded as a sort of neutral ground by the French and
British armies. Patrols from both did indeed occasionally reconnoitre
it; the French, in particular, seldom permitting a day to pass without
a party of their light cavalry riding through it. Yet to visit Biaritz
became now the favourite amusement amongst us, and the greater the risk
run of being sabred or taken, the more eager were we to incur and to
escape it. But there was a cause for this, good reader, and I will tell
thee what it was.
In peaceable times Biaritz constituted, as we learned from its
inhabitants, a fashionable watering-place to the wealthy people of
Bayonne and its vicinity. It was, and no doubt is now, a remarkably
pretty village, about as large perhaps as Sandgate, and built upon
the margin of the water. The town itself lies in a sort of hollow,
between two green hills, which, towards the sea, end in broken cliffs.
Its houses were neatly whitewashed, and above all it was, and I trust
still is, distinguished as the residence of two or three handsome
women. These ladies had about them all the gaiety and liveliness of
Frenchwomen, with a good deal of the sentimentality of our own fair
countrywomen. To us they were particularly pleasant, professing, I
know not how truly, to prefer our society to that of any persons
besides; and we, of course, were far too gallant to deny them that
gratification, because we risked our lives or our freedom at each
visit. By no means. Two or three times in each week the favoured few
mounted their horses and took the road to Biaritz, from which, on more
than one occasion, they with difficulty returned.
With the circumstances attending one of these escapes I may as well
make my reader acquainted. We were for the most part prudent enough
to cast lots previously to setting out, in order to decide on whom,
among the party, the odious task should devolve of watching outside to
prevent a surprise by the enemy's cavalry, whilst his companions were
more agreeably employed within. So many visits had, however, been paid,
without any alarm being given, that one morning, having quitted Bidart
fewer in number than usual, we rashly determined to run all risks
rather than that one of the three should spend an hour cheerlessly by
himself. The only precaution which we took was to picket our horses,
ready saddled and bridled, at the garden gate, instead of putting them
up, as we were in the habit of doing, in the stable.
It was well for us that even this slender precaution had been taken. We
had sat about half an hour with our fair friends, and had just ceased
to joke on the probability of our suffering the fate of Sampson, and
being caught by the Philistines, when on a pause in the conversation
taking place, our ears were saluted with the sound of horses' hoofs
trampling upon the paved street. We sprang to the window, and our
consternation may be guessed at when we beheld eight or ten French
hussars riding slowly from the lower end of the town. Whilst we were
hesitating how to proceed, whether to remain quiet, in the hope that
the party might retire without searching any of the houses, or expose
ourselves to certain pursuit by flying, we observed a rascal, in the
garb of a seaman, run up to the leader of the patrol and lay hold of
his bridle, enter into conversation with him, and point to the abode
of our new acquaintances. This was hint enough. Without pausing to
say farewell to our fair friends, who screamed, as if they, and not
we, had been in danger, we ran with all haste to the spot where our
horses stood, and, springing into the saddle, applied the spur, with
very little mercy, to their flanks. We were none of us particularly
well mounted; but either our pursuers had alighted to search the
house, or they took at first a wrong direction, for we got so much
the start of them before the chase fairly began, that possibly we
might have escaped had we been obliged to trust to our own steeds as
far as the pickets. Of this, however, I am by no means certain, for
they were unquestionably gaining upon us, as a sailor would say, hand
over hand, when, by great good fortune, a patrol of our own cavalry
made its appearance. Then, indeed, the tables were turned. The enemy
pulled up, paused for an instant, and took to their heels; whereupon
our troopers, who had trotted forward as soon as they saw what was
the matter, put their horses to the speed and followed. Whether they
overtook their adversaries, and what was the issue of the skirmish,
if indeed any skirmish took place, I cannot tell; for though we made
an attempt to revenge ourselves upon our late pursuers, we soon found
that we were distanced by both parties, and were, perforce, contented
to ride quietly home, congratulating each other by the way on our
hairbreadth deliverance. From that time forward we were more prudent.
Our visits were indeed resumed, and with their usual frequency; but we
took care not again to dispense with the watchfulness of a sentinel,
who, on the contrary, took his station henceforth on the top of one of
the heights, from which he commanded a view of the surrounding country
to the distance of several miles. Though, therefore, we were more than
once summoned to horse because the enemy's dragoons were in sight, we
generally contrived to mount in such time as to preclude the necessity
of riding, as we had before done, for life or liberty.
By spending my mornings thus, or in a determined pursuit of game,
and my evenings in such society as a corps of gentlemanly young men
furnished, nearly a fortnight passed over my head before I was aware
that time could have made so much progress. It seldom happens, however,
that any period of human existence, whether extensive or contracted,
passes by without some circumstance occurring calculated to awaken
painful emotions. I recollect, in the course of this fortnight,
an event which, though I was no farther concerned in it than as a
spectator, made a deep and melancholy impression on my mind. I allude
to the loss of a large vessel, during a tremendous storm, on the rocks
which run out into the sea off Bidart.
The precise day of the month on which this sad shipwreck occurred I
have forgotten; but I recollect being sent for by my friend, during
the progress of one of the heaviest gales which we had witnessed,
to come and watch with him the fate of a brig, which was in evident
distress, about a couple of miles from the land. The wind blew a
perfect hurricane on shore; and hence the question was--would the
ship succeed in weathering the cape, or would she strike? If she got
once round the headland, then her course to the harbour of Secoa was
direct; if otherwise, nothing could save her. We turned our glasses
towards her in a state of feverish anxiety, and beheld her bending
under a single close-reefed topsail, and making lee-way at a fearful
rate every moment. Presently a sort of attempt was made to luff up
or tack; it was a desperate one. I cannot even now think without
shuddering of the consequence. The sail, caught by a sudden squall,
was torn into a hundred shreds: down, down she went before the surge;
in five seconds she struck against a reef, and in ten minutes more
split into a thousand fragments. One gun only was fired as a signal of
distress; but who could regard it? We possessed no boats; and had the
contrary been the case, this was a sea in which no boat could live.
Powerless, therefore, of aid, we could only stand and gaze upon the
wreck, till, piece by piece, it disappeared amid the raging waters. Not
a soul survived to tell to what country she belonged, or with what she
was freighted; and only one body was drifted to land. It was that of
a woman apparently about thirty years of age, genteelly dressed, and
rather elegantly formed; to whom we gave such sepulture as soldiers can
give, and such as they are themselves taught to expect.
The impression which that shipwreck made upon me was not only far more
distressing, but far more permanent, than the impression made by any
other spectacle of which, during the course of a somewhat eventful
life, I have been the spectator. For several days I could think of
hardly anything besides, and at night my dreams were constantly of
drowning men and vessels beating upon rocks; so great is the effect of
desuetude, even in painful subjects, and so appalling is death when
he comes in a form to which we are unaccustomed. Of slaughtered men I
have of course seen multitudes, as well when life had just departed
from them as when corruption had set its seal upon their forms; but
such sights never affected me--no, not even at the commencement of my
military career--as I was affected by the loss of that ship, though
she went to pieces at too great a distance from the beach to permit
more than a very indistinct view of her perishing inmates. Yet there
is nothing in reality more terrible in drowning than in any other kind
of death; and a sailor will look upon it, I daresay, with precisely
the same degree of indifference which a soldier experiences when he
contemplates the prospect of his own dissolution by fire or steel.
In the course of my narrative I have not made any regular attempt to
convey to the mind of the reader a distinct notion of the peculiar
customs and language which distinguish the natives of this country.
Two motives have guided me to this. In the first place, it is
nowadays known to all who are likely to peruse what I write, that the
inhabitants of those provinces which lie at the immediate base of the
Pyrenees, are a race totally distinct, and essentially different in
almost all respects, from either the Spaniards or the French. They
speak a language of their own--namely, Basque--which is said by those
who profess to be acquainted with it to resemble the Celtic more than
any other known tongue. The dress of the men consists usually of a blue
or brown jacket of coarse woollen cloth, of breeches or trousers of the
same, with a waistcoat frequently of scarlet, grey worsted stockings,
and wooden shoes. On their heads they wear a large flat bonnet, similar
to the Lowland bonnet, or scone, of Scotland. They are generally tall,
but thin; and they present altogether an appearance as uncouth as
need be fancied. The women equip themselves in many respects as the
fishwomen of the good town of Newhaven are accustomed to do, with this
difference, that they seldom cover their heads at all--and, like the
men, wear wooden clogs. They are a singular race, and appear to take
a pride in those peculiarities which keep them from coalescing with
either of the nations among whom they dwell. But all this, as I said
before, is too generally known to render it imperative upon me minutely
to repeat it.
My second motive for keeping, in a great degree, silent on the head
of manners and customs is one the efficiency of which the reader will
not, I daresay, call in question--namely, the want of opportunity to
make myself sufficiently master of the subject to enter, _con amore_,
upon it. No man who journeys through a country in the train of an
invading army ought to pretend to an intimate acquaintance with the
manners and customs of its inhabitants. Wherever foreign troops swarm,
the aborigines necessarily appear in false colours. The greater part
of them, indeed, abandon their homes; while such of them as remain are
servile and submissive through terror; nor do they ever display their
real characters, at least in the presence of a stranger. Hence it is
that nine-tenths of my brethren in arms who write at all commit the
most egregious blunders in those very portions of their books where
they particularly aim at enlightening the reading public; and that
the most matter-of-fact story, spun out by the most matter-of-fact
man or woman who has visited the seat of the late war since the
cessation of hostilities, contains, and must contain, more certain
information touching the fire-side occupations of the people than
all the 'Journals' or 'Letters to Friends at Home' which this age of
book-making has produced. Frankly confessing, therefore, that any
account which I could give of the manners and habits of the Basques
would deserve as little respect as the accounts already given by
other military tourists, I am content to keep my reader's attention
riveted--if, indeed, that be practicable--upon my own little personal
adventures, rather than amuse him with details which might be true as
far as I know to the contrary, but which, in all probability, would be
false.
Proceed we, then, in our own way. From the day of the shipwreck up to
the 23d of the month, I have no recollection of any occurrence worthy
to be recorded. Advantage was taken, it is true, of that period of
rest to lay in a fresh stock of tea and other luxuries, with the means
of accomplishing which an opportune disbursement of one month's pay
supplied us. These we purchased in a market which certain speculating
traders had established, and which followed the movements of the army
from post to post. The grand depot of all was, however, Secoa, between
which port and England communication was regularly kept up; and thither
I and my comrades resorted for such more curious articles as habit
or caprice prompted us to purchase. Moreover, by coursing, shooting,
and riding,--sometimes to Biaritz, and the house of our pretty French
women; sometimes to St Jean de Luz, where, by the way, races were
regularly established; and occasionally to the cantonments of a friend
in another division--we found our days steal insensibly, and therefore
agreeably, away; nor was it without a feeling somewhat akin to
discontent that we saw ourselves again setting forth to take our turn
of outpost duty at the old station beside Fort Charlotte.