[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTAT011.1 Apra 4th, 1893.

Sin,—Every year the truth of Burns's "the best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a-gley " comes more home to me. From the time I was ten the pass of Roncesvalles has had a fascination for me. Then the habit of ballad-singing was popular, and a relative of mine had a well-deserved repute in that line. Amongst her old-world favourites were " Roland the Brave" and "Durandarte." The first told how Roland left his castle on the Rhine, where he used to listen to the chaunting in the opposite convent, in which his lady-love had taken the veil on the false report of his death, and "think she blessed him in her prayer when the hallelujah rose ;" and followed Charlemagne in his Spanish raid, till "he fell and wishel to fall" at Roncesvalles. The second, how Duran- dart& dying in the fatal pass, sent his last message to his mistress by his cousin Montesinos. In those days I never could hear the last lines without feeling gulpy in the throat :— "Sweet in manners, fair in favour,

Mild in temper, fierce in fight— Warrior nobler, gentler, braver,

Never shall behold the light."

They may not be good poetry, but Monk Lewis, the author, never wrote any others as good. Then Lockhart'e "Spanish Ballads" were given me, and in one of the best of those stirring rhymes, Bernardo del Carpio's bearding of his King, I read

"The life of King Alphonse I saved at Roncesval,

Your word, Lord King, was recompense abundant for it all ; Your horse was down, your hope was flown ; I saw the falchion shine That soon had drunk thy royal blood had I not ventured mine," &c.

Then, a little later, a family friend who had been an ensign in the Light Division in July, 1813, used to make our boyish pulses dance with his tales of the week's fighting in and round Roncesvalles, when Soult was driven over the Pyrenees and Spain was freed. And again, later, came the tale of Taillefer, the Conqueror's minstrel, riding before the line at the battle of Hastings, tossing his sword in the air, and channting the "Song of Roland," and of the "Peers who fell at Ronces- Yalles." So you will believe, Sir, that my first thought when I got to Biarritz, with the Pyrenees in full view less than twenty miles off, was, 'Now I shall see the pass where Charlemagne's Peers, and five hundred British soldiers as brave as any Paladin of them all, had fought and died.' The holidays galloped, and one day only was left, when at our morning conference I found that my companions were bent on Font- arabia and San Sebastian, and assured me we could combine the three, as Roncesvalles, they heard, was close to Fontarabia. Then my faith in Sir Walter—combined, I fear, with my defective training in geography—led me astray, for had be not written in the battle-canto of " Marmion ":-

"Oh, for one blast of that dread horn, On Pontarabian echoes borne,

That to King Charles did come, When Roland brave, and Oliver, And every Paladin and Peer,

At Roncesvalles died," &c.

Now, of course, if Charlemagne could hear the horn of Roland on the top of the pass where he turned back, "borne on Fon- tarabian echoes," then Fontarabia must be at the foot of the pass, where Roland and the rearguard were surrounded and fighting for their lives. In a weak moment, I agreed to Fon- tarabia and San Sebastian, and so shall most likely never see Roncesvalles. It is fourteen miles distant as the crow flies,.

or thereabouts ; and I warn your readers that the three can't be done in one long day from Biarritz.

However, I am bound to admit that Fontarabia and San Sebastian make a most interesting day's work. I had never been in Spain before, and so was well on the alert when a fellow-passenger, as we slowed on approaching Irma Station,. pointed across the sands below us and said, "There's Fon- tarabia 1" There, perhaps two miles off, lay a small grey town on a low hill with castle and church at the top, and gate- way and dilapidated walls on the aide towards ua, looking as, though it might have gone off to sleep in the seventeenth century,—a really curious contrast to bustling Biarritz from which we had just come. We went down to the ferry and took a punt to cross the river, which threaded the broad sands, left by the tide. It was full ebb ; so our man had to take us a long round, giving us welcome time for the view, which, when the tide is up, must be glorious. Our bare-footed boatman,

though Basque or Spaniard, was quite "up to date," and handled his punt-pole in a style which would make him a, formidable rival of the Oxford watermen in the punt race by Christ Church meadow, which, I suppose, is still held at the end of the summer term. A narrow, rough causeway led us from, the landing-place to the town-gate in the old wall, where an

artist who had joined the party was so taken with the view up the main street that he sat down at once to about as, difficult a sketch as he will meet in a year's rambles. For from the gateway the main street runs straight up, the hill to the ruined castle and church at the top. It is narrow, steep, and there are not two houses alike all the way up. They vary from what must have been palaces of the grandees— with dim coats-of-arms still visible over the doorways, and elaborately carved, deep eaves, almost meeting those of their opposite neighbours across the street—to poor, almost squalid houses, reaching to the second storey of their aristocratic

neighbours', but all with deep, overhanging, though uncarved, eaves, showing, I take it, how the Spaniard values his shade.

Up we went to the church and castle, the ladies looking wist- fully into such shops as there were, to find something to buy ; but I fancy in vain. Not a tout appeared to offer his services;. or a shopkeeper, male or female, to sell us anything. Such of the Fontara,bians as we saw looked at us with friendly enough brown eyes, which, however, seemed to say : Silly souls Why can't you stop at home and mind your own business P Even at the end of our inspection, when we spread our lunch on a broad stone slab near the gate—the tombstone once, I should think, of a paladin—there being no houses of entertain- ment visible to us, we had almost a difficulty in attracting three or four children and a stray dog to share our relics.

The old castle is of no special interest, though there were a few rusty old iron tubes lying about, said to have once been guns, which I should doubt ; and Charles F. is said to have- often lived there during his French wars. The church is very interesting, from its strong contrast with those over the border,—square, massive, sombre, with no attempt at decora- tion or ornament round the high braes altars, except here and there a picture, and small square windows quite high up in the walls, through which the quiet, subdued light comes. The pictures, with one exception, were of no interest; but that one ex- ception startled and fascinated me. The subject is the "Mater Dolorosa," a full-length figure standing, the breast bare, and seven knives plunged in the heart ; a coarse and repulsive painting, but entirely redeemed by the intense expression of the love, the agony, and the sorely shaken faith which are con- tending for mastery in the face. The painter must have been suddenly inspired, or some great master must have stepped in to finish the work. San Sebastian does not do after Fontarabia ; a fine modern town, with some large churches and a big new bull-ring, but of little interest except for the fort which dominates the town on the sea-front. How that fort was stormed, after one repulse and a long siege of sixty- three days; how, in the two assaults and siege, more than four thousand gallant soldiers of the British and Allied Army fell; and the fearful story of the sack and burning of the old town by the maddened soldiers, is to me almost the saddest 'episode in our military history. I was glad when we had made our cursory inspection and got back to the station on our return to Biarritz. That brightest and most bustling of health-resorts was our head-quarters, and I should think for Young English folk must be about the most enjoyable above

ground. I knew that it was becoming a formidable rival of the Riviera for spring quarters, but was not at all prepared for the facts. Almost the first thing I saw was a group of young Englishmen in faultless breeches and gaiters, just ,come back from a meet of the pack of hounds; next came along some fine, strapping girls in walking-costume, bent, I

should think, on exploring the neighbouring battle-grounds; next, men and youths in flannels, bound for the golf-links, where a handicap was going on (I wonder what a French 'caddie is like ?); then I heard of, but did not see, the start of the English coach for Pau (it runs daily), and then youths on bicycles, unmistakable Britons,—though the French youth have taken kindly, I hear, to this pastime. There are

-four gigantic hotels at which friends told me that nothing is heard but English at their tables d'hAte ; and in the quiet and ex-

cellent small Hotel de Bayonne,' at which we stayed, having heard that it was a favourite with the French, out of the forty guests, or thereabouts, certainly three-fourths were English, and the other one-fourth mostly Americans. On Easter Monday, there was a procession of ears, with children in fancy dresses representing the local industries ; but the 'biggest was that over which the Union Jack waved, and a small and dainty damsel sat on the throne surrounded by boys in the orthodox rig of our man-of-war's-men and Tommy Atkins. In fact, a vast stream of very solvent English seem to have fairly stormed and occupied the place, to the great 'delight of the native cardrivers and shopkeepers ; and so grotesque was it that Byron's cynical doggrel kept sounding in my head as, at any rate, appropriate to Biarritz :—

"The world is a bundle of hay, Mankind are the asses that pull ; Each tugs in a different way, And the greatest of all is John Bull."

But, apart from all the high jinks and festive goings-on, there is one spot in Biarritz which may well prove a magnet to us, and before which we should stand with uncovered heads and sorrowfully proud hearts ; and that is the fine pdrch of the English church. One whole side of it is filled by a tablet, at the head of which one reads,—"Pristime virtutis memor.

This porch, dedicated to the memory of the officers, non- commissioned officers, and men of the British Army, who fell in the South-West of France from October 7th, 1813, to April 14th, 1814, was erected by their fellow soldiers and compatriots, 1882." Then come the names of forty-eight Line regiments, and the German Legion,

followed in each case by the death-roll, the officers' names given in full. Let me end with a few examples. The 42nd lost ten officers,—two at Nive, one at Orthez, and seven at 'Toulouse; the 43rd—five at Nivelle and Bayonne ; the 57th— six at Nivelle and Nive ; the 79th—five at Toulouse, of whom 'hree bore the name of Cameron; the 95th—six at the

home Nivelle, and Nive. Such a record, I think, brings

home to one even more vividly than Napier's pages the cost to England of her share in the uprising of Europe against Napoleon; and it only covers six months of a seven years'

struggle in the Peninsula ! At the bottom of the tablet are the simple words,—

ft

Give peace in our time, oh Lord I" VAVOTTES VIATOR.