III.

But Spain and the Pyrenees lie before us, and we cannot tarry longer at Biarritz.  We shall long feel the warm life of the fresh June days by the sea.  The breack rolls again into the court-yard; we pay our devoirs to mine host and our dues to his minions, and once more we start, this time toward the south.

We are to dip into Spain for a day, and have chosen to go by road as far on the way toward the frontier as St. Jean de Luz, before taking the train.  St. Jean lies on the crescent of the shore only eight miles away, and the road, like the sea-road to Bayonne, follows the curve of the higher land, and shows beach and hill and sea in turn as it trends over the downs.  It is another clear, taintless morning.  The sun is already high; but, though having the sky wholly to himself, he is forbearing in his power.  Palisades of poplars lend us their shadows; clumps of protecting firs stand aside for the road, each with a great gash down its side and a cup fastened below to catch the bleeding pitch.  Now we are facing the Pyrenees; a little to the left they rise before us, still miles away.  These are not the high Pyrenees; the monarchs stand in the centre of their realm, and are hardly to be seen, even distantly, until we shall in a day or two turn inland and approach them.  The mountain wall is broken and lower near the sea, both east and west; yet even here it rises commandingly, filling the horizon with its hazy hills.

The road is the counterpart of that to Bayonne.  We fly smoothly on, above its hard, thin crackle of sand.  We meet peasants afoot, and burdened horses, on their morning way to Biarritz or Bayonne.  The men ornament their loose, blue linen frocks and brown trousers with the bright scarlet sash so popular in this region.  Heavy oxen draw their creaking loads toward the same centres,—­their bowed heads yoked by the horns, which are cushioned with a woolly sheepskin mat and tasseled with red netting.  They pull strongly, for the loads are not light, and the clumsy wheels are disks of solid wood.  Little donkeys trot amiably by, with huge double panniers that recall the cacolet.  A file of marching soldiers is overtaken; small villages are passed, each one agog with the stir of our transit; while now and then we meet a dog-cart and cob or a stylish span, antennae of the coming season of fashion.

To the right is the accurate level of the sea-horizon; about us are the heath and furze and the sand-dunes; and far along to the south we can trace the arc of the beach, until it ends in the projecting hills of Spain.

* * * * *

St. Jean is reached almost too soon, for the drive has been exhilarating.  We enter by a long, narrow street, which is found to be alive with people.  A small procession is in motion, enlivened by a band.  Every one seems in holiday dress.  Our driver has before shown his easy conviction that streets were intended first for breacks, secondly for citizens; and now he urges his horses down this narrow way without a pause in their gallop.  The whip signals, the bells on the harness jingle furiously, the wheels clatter along the cobbles; and, almost before we have time to order a slackening, procession and by-standers, like a flock of sheep, go in disorder to the wall, and our breack sweeps by into the central square.