vessels born of the instinct of the pirate and fisherman, it had
remarkable sea qualities: it was equally well suited to landlocked and
to open waters. Its system of sails, complicated in stays, and very
peculiar, allowed of its navigating trimly in the close bays of Asturias
(which are little more than enclosed basins, as Pasages, for instance),
and also freely out at sea. It could sail round a lake, and sail round
the world--a strange craft with two objects, good for a pond and good
for a storm. The hooker is among vessels what the wagtail is among
birds--one of the smallest and one of the boldest. The wagtail perching
on a reed scarcely bends it, and, flying away, crosses the ocean.

These Biscay hookers, even to the poorest, were gilt and painted.
Tattooing is part of the genius of those charming people, savages to
some degree. The sublime colouring of their mountains, variegated by
snows and meadows, reveals to them the rugged spell which ornament
possesses in itself. They are poverty-stricken and magnificent; they put
coats-of-arms on their cottages; they have huge asses, which they
bedizen with bells, and huge oxen, on which they put head-dresses of
feathers. Their coaches, which you can hear grinding the wheels two
leagues off, are illuminated, carved, and hung with ribbons. A cobbler
has a bas-relief on his door: it is only St. Crispin and an old shoe,
but it is in stone. They trim their leathern jackets with lace. They do
not mend their rags, but they embroider them. Vivacity profound and
superb! The Basques are, like the Greeks, children of the sun; while the
Valencian drapes himself, bare and sad, in his russet woollen rug, with
a hole to pass his head through, the natives of Galicia and Biscay have
the delight of fine linen shirts, bleached in the dew. Their thresholds
and their windows teem with faces fair and fresh, laughing under
garlands of maize; a joyous and proud serenity shines out in their
ingenious arts, in their trades, in their customs, in the dress of their