Part 46 (2/2)
The father of our favourites we found, though taciturn at first, a very well-informed man; he confirmed all that I had gathered from works I had read on the subject of the Basques--their language and manners; and regretted that the unpropitious state of the weather prevented our witnessing any of the usual out-of-door amus.e.m.e.nts, common at the season. He described the eloquence and wit of the common people as something wonderful; but their _comedies_, he said, were seldom fitted for more refined ears than their own. The character of their amus.e.m.e.nts, he added, was grave, as their improvised tragedies prove; the language lends itself to poetry with such singular facility, that poets are by no means rare; and, amongst the lower cla.s.s, some are, as I had heard before, singularly gifted, but they never write down their compositions, which are, therefore, difficult to collect. The airs of their songs are almost always melancholy and solemn, and require fine voices to give them effect. I have since been told, by a Basque gentleman of taste and information, precisely the same; and, as he sings well, he kindly allowed me to hear some of their melodies, which remind me much of the saddest of the Irish native airs. His opinion was, that there is great similarity in the character of the Basque and Irish; and he tells me, that the _sound_ of many of their words is alike; but when they speak together all proves to be _mere_ sound; for they do not understand a syllable of either tongue.
The greater part of the language seems to me corrupted by the introduction of French and Spanish words, probably required to express wants, which the original Basque had acquired in the course of time;
”When wild in woods the n.o.ble savage ran,”
he did not want much that he afterwards sought for words to express his desire to obtain. But the genuine words, in which there is no mixture of another language, may well puzzle the learned; for they are most singular: as for instance,
Oghia Bread Uhaitza River Hoora Water Haicha Stars Hala s.h.i.+p Harhibat Stone Egura Wood Eskia Hand Mahatsac Grapes Sahmahia Horse Etchia Habitation Begitatiha Face
Our next destination was to St. Jean Pied de Port; and we took our way across the mountains of Musculdy, the scenery the whole way being exquisitely beautiful, and richly cultivated in the plains. We continued mounting without cessation for nearly two hours; and as we walked the greatest part of the time, we met with a few adventures by the way. We were joined, in a very steep part, by a party who were travelling from Mauleon to St. Just. We had been struck with the brilliant colours of the young woman's dress as we pa.s.sed her and her mother, and a boy accompanying them; she was leaning against a stone wall, where she had rested her large white bundle, and her att.i.tude was free and graceful in the extreme, as she bent her head on her hand evidently fatigued. She wore a headkerchief of deep chocolate-colour, striped with blue, and bordered with bright yellow; her stuff petticoat was scarlet, edged with black velvet; she had tucked up her green-striped gown, and thus displayed its crimson lining; her shawl was of fine red merinos, embroidered in glowing colours, of Spanish manufacture, as she afterwards informed us, _and smuggled_; her legs were bare, but she wore black shoes; and her umbrella, the constant appendage, was brown; her gait, as she walked along the road, with her white package on her head, was that of a heroine of a melo-drame. I never saw a more striking figure; for she was, though not pretty, remarkably well-made and tall, and all her motions were easy and unconstrained. She did not seem so communicative as her mother,--a pretty little _old_ woman, whose pride was evidently gratified by our admiration of her daughter's finery, and our pleasure in sketching her as she stood; her grat.i.tude was so great on our allowing her boy and her bundles to be put on the carriage, that she became quite enthusiastic in our praise; and the present of a small piece of silver enchanted her. She actually cried with pleasure; and yet we found she was not poor; but had been to see a son, who had ama.s.sed several hundred francs and set up in a _cabaret_ at Mauleon: this explained the gorgeousness of his sister's costume, which, at the risk of spoiling, she continued to wear on her journey home to their village, aware of the sensation her macaw-like appearance created wherever she pa.s.sed.
On a high hill, opposite that we were mounting, we observed a chapel, which we found was dedicated to the Sainte Madeleine, and held in much reverence throughout the country: pilgrims coming from great distances to visit her shrine, and sick persons thronging there in the hope of a miracle being performed in their favour. The same occurs at another chapel, on a neighbouring height, dedicated to St. Antoine; but there, it seems, the young men resort, in order, by the saint's intercession, to obtain an exemption from the chance of conscription. They entreat of Heaven that they may choose a _good number_, and be allowed to remain at home; and so firmly are they convinced of the efficacy of the saint's prayers, that hundreds had, we understood, lately taken their way to the holy mountain; for this was the season for the fatal lots to be drawn.
CHAPTER XVII.
ARNEGUY--THE CACOLET--ROLANDO'S TREE--SNOW-WHITE GOATS--COSTUME--SAUVETERRE--THE PASTOR--NAVARREUX--SPANISH AIR.
WE arrived at St. Jean Pied de Port late in the day, and the aspect of affairs at Le Grand Soleil, where we stopped, was by no means exhilarating. Having pa.s.sed through the black, dirty kitchen, and climbed the dingy staircase, we were shown several rooms, which we _could not have_, by a very sour-looking old woman, who tried to persuade us to content ourselves with apartments without fire-places.
This we resisted determinedly, suggesting that ladies had a right to supersede male travellers, and, a.s.sisted by the eloquence of our invaluable _cocher_, we at length obtained possession of the disputed chambers. As it was soon discovered that we meditated remaining several days, no further opposition was made to our convenience, and the fat landlady, having reproved her thin sister into good humour, we were allowed to command, in the worst of all possible inns, where good-will held the place of performance in most instances, and where carelessness seemed carried to a perfectly Eastern excess.
We began to make immediate enquiries as to the possibility of entering Spain, of visiting the convent of Roncesvalles and the neighbouring mountains; and every sort of contradictory information was given us, enough to bewilder an ignorant traveller into giving up the projected expedition altogether. However, as we resolved that we would not be altogether disappointed, and recollected all the romances invented to deter our daring, by our friends at Pau, we ordered a guide and _cacolet_ and mule to be sent on before, and on the following morning set forth in the carriage as far as Arneguy, the last French town, from whence we were to cross the Gave of Bihobi, and trust ourselves to the perils of a Spanish journey.
Accordingly, we pursued the very good road to that frontier village--one of the most miserable I ever beheld, filled with soldiers and mud and ruin: here we alighted, and walked across the little bridge which divides the two kingdoms. Once _in Spain_, and having made a drawing of the spot, as a souvenir, we mounted our mule; seated comfortably in the arm chairs, slung at each side of the patient animal, and, with our muleteer and two servants on foot, began the scrambling ascent of one of the most rugged paths I ever beheld.
Every step, however, exhibited new and startling beauties; and the further we advanced the more sublime the mountains became: the foaming stream rus.h.i.+ng beneath us, the deep ravines and precipices, the wooded hills and enormous trees, all possessed a character quite unlike that of the two valleys of Bearn, which we had already seen; both of which led into Spain, as did this pa.s.s of Roncesvalles; but we now felt ourselves really in another country; and, as we pa.s.sed the opposite village of Ondarol, and heard that the last houses in France were left behind, and all the mountains, on each side of the ravine, belonged to Spain, there was something singularly agreeable in the idea. Our _cocher Francois_ had, at the village of Valcarlos, an opportunity of exhibiting his knowledge of Spanish; for the officer there, who took cognizance of us, could not understand either _patois_ or French.
We wound along the beautiful ravine of Valcarlos, by a road more stony and rugged than can be described, trusting to our mule, who kept his feet in a manner perfectly surprising; it was like mounting a ruined staircase, so steep was the path in many places; but, going slowly and carefully as we did, and seated in our comfortable panniers, we felt no inconvenience, and were scarcely conscious of the difficulties, sensibly understood by all our companions, who toiled through the mud, and over the stones and torrents with infinite cheerfulness and perseverance.
The beeches and chesnuts here grow to an immense size, and look so old in their winter guise that one might almost believe they had spread the shade over the paladins of Charlemagne. We could not do otherwise than indulge in this idea, when we reached a spot where an enormous _plateau_ of rock seemed to bar our further progress; and, beside it, we rested beneath a gigantic chesnut, which threw its naked arms far across the ravine below, and, when covered with leaves, must have been a majestic tree. A huge stone lay amongst others near it, and this was pointed out by our guide as the identical stone thrown by Rolando in his anger when his horse's foot slipped over the rock at the edge of which we stood.
The print made by the hoof as it slid along the surface is _clearly visible_ to poetical eyes, and this is one of the numerous _Pas de Roland_ so celebrated in the Pyrenees, where the great hero's course is marked in many directions.
As we desired to avoid the possibility of a similar accident happening to us, we dismounted from our _cacolet_, and walked across the ledge to some distance: and, after a short repose beneath the shelter of the overhanging rocks, which a violent shower made most convenient at the moment, we prepared to retrace our steps; satisfied with having advanced so far on the same route taken by ”Charlemagne and all his peerage.”
The return was infinitely less easy than the advance, for we had now to descend; and we felt the motion much more, for the mule could not so well keep its feet in spite of the guide's a.s.sistance. We had sundry adventures by the way at _Posadas_--tasted the bitter Spanish _ordinaire_ wine from a wine-skin, and the excellent maize bread and cream cheese of the country, and returned to Arneguy, much gratified with our trip.
These mountains must be exquisitely beautiful in summer, when all the fine trees are in full grandeur, for I never saw any larger or more flouris.h.i.+ng. It is the custom for the French to decry everything Spanish, even to the natural productions; and I had often been told that the moment the French side was quitted all was barren and worthless; I found, however, on the contrary, that the mountain-scenery greatly increased in sublimity the nearer we advanced towards Roncesvalles, and on our return that which had looked well on our way had dwindled into tameness in comparison with what we had left. Our driver, in the true spirit of his country, laboured to convince us that even the Basque on the Spanish side was inferior to that on the French--a fact we were not in a condition to decide on, as readily as we could with respect to the scenery. I think, as a general rule, that a foreign traveller may always be sure, if a country is abused in France, it possesses attractions for him, and _vice versa_; for the ”toute beaute” of a French amateur is invariably a piece of formality or common-place, unendurable to the lovers of the really beautiful.
Flocks of snow-white goats, with long hair, were climbing up the steepest parts of the mountains; and a few stragglers, with their pretty kids, greeted us on our rugged road: a party of Zingari, with scowling brows but civil demeanor, hurried past us, with a swiftness rather unusual to their indolent race, unless indeed they were afraid of pursuit--as our muleteer seemed to hint by his exclamation of alarm as they appeared. Besides these, and a traveller mounted on a mule, who was, we understood, a rich merchant of Pampeluna, who constantly made the _trajet_ by that bad road, we were little disturbed in our solitude.
The Gave sounding far below, the smaller brawling cataracts crossing our rocky path, the overhanging rocks and gigantic trees, the constantly-changing scene, and the novelty of the whole, made our wild and strange journey altogether delightful. We were congratulated on our return that the rain, which overtook us on our way, had not been snow; for in these regions the path is sometimes obstructed in the course of half-an-hour; and a sad story was related to us of a courier despatched to Roncesvalles in suns.h.i.+ne, having been overwhelmed by the snow on his return the same evening. Whether this was a _mountain_ fable we could not be sure; but we had heard so many terrors, and experienced none, that we found it difficult to give credit to all the histories of travellers eaten by wolves and destroyed by avalanches, such as had arrived at Pau from the heights of Gabas and Urdos throughout the winter, only to be contradicted after they had had their effect for the given time.
From St. Jean Pied de Port--where the female costume is pretty, and whose a.r.s.enal, and the fine view from it, are all that claim the slightest attention in the most slovenly of ugly towns, and whose church portal tells of former magnificence long since swept away--we took our departure by St. Palais to Sauveterre, crossing the Pays Basque, which is perfectly lovely as to scenery, and, in fine weather, is worth a long journey to visit--so varied, rich, and agreeable is the country in all directions. Sauveterre is a neat, clear, respectable town, finely situated, well-enough paved, and having many attractions--particularly a magnificent ruin of a strong castle, which is called that of the Reine Jeanne, but is, evidently, originally of much more ancient construction.
One high tower is very commanding, and must have been formidable in its time: that of the church, on still higher ground above, is of the same date, and is very curious: on the whole, Sauveterre is as picturesque a town as any we had seen, and we were sorry that bad weather a good deal masked its beauties.
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