motive power was a donkey or a horse, and the conveyance consisted of a
wooden frame or yoke fitting across the animal's back, with a seat
projecting from each side. One seat was for the driver, usually a lively
Basque peasant-woman; the other was for the passenger. There was a small
arm-piece, at the outside of each seat, and generally there was a
cushion. This was once a favorite means of travel between Bayonne and
Biarritz. It was expeditious, enlivening,--and highly insecure; that was
one of its charms. Throughout the ride there was a ludicrous titillation
of insecurity; but it was greatest at the start and at the finish. For,
the seats being evenly balanced, to mount was in itself high art. Driver
and passenger needed to spring at precisely the same instant, or the
result was dust and ashes. Trial after trial was needed by the neophyte;
he must be, as an eye-witness[3] of long ago aptly describes it, "as
watchful of the mutual signal as a file of soldiers who wait the command
'make ready,--present,--fire!' A second's delay,--a second's
precipitation,--proves fatal; the seat is attained, and at the same
moment up goes the opposite empty seat, and down goes the equestrian
between the horse's feet.... In descending, it is still worse; because
there is more hurry, more impatience, on arriving at the end of a
journey; and an injudicious descent does not visit its effects upon one
but upon both travelers; for unless the person who descends be extremely
quick in his motions, his seat flies up before he has quite left it, and
oversets him, and the opposite weight, of course, goes plump to the
ground,--with as fatal effects as cutting the hammock-strings of a
middy's berth."

[3] INGLIS.


[Illustration]