The Basque Country. Painted by Rornilly Fedden. Described by Katharine
Fedden. (A. and C. Bleak. 20s.)--Mr8. Fedden has written a pleasant book mainly about the French Basques, and the attractions of her book are inoreased by her husband's spirited water-oolour drawings of Basque towns and villages. She begins with a short history of this mysterious and attractive people, and an account of their laws and language. She then describes in turn Bayonne, St. Jean de Luz, Mauloon, St. Jean Pied-de-Port, and other places, with frequent digressions on Basque customs and traditions which are more interesting than topography. It Is odd that anyone writing about this country should not mention the desperate Pyrenean campaign of 1813-14, in which Wellington and Soult were well matched ; all the places named, from the mountain-passes up to Bayonne and Orthez, are famous in British and French military history, but Mrs. Fedden ignores the whole affair. She devotes a particu- larly good chapter to the pastoral plays and " masoarades " which have survived in the valley of Tardets—the old province of La Soule. It is curious to learn that while Basque is still spoken currently on the French side of the mountains, it is rapidly dying out on the Spanish side. This is precisely the opposite to what one would have expected.
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