houses jut out, one over the other. These projections give a relish of
local color to the crooking ways, intensified by the round-tiled roofs
and by occasional red or blood-colored beams and doorposts. Although we
are still on the French side of the frontier, Spanish influence is
already marked, while that of the Basques predominates over both. St.
Jean is also a summer resort, in a modest way, chiefly for quiet Spanish
families; and from the heavy stone sea-wall built along the beach we see
many of their villas. In days before the railroad went beyond, the port
exchanged regular and almost daily steamers with San Sebastian and
Santander, thus connecting with the Spanish rail, and giving a rather
important traffic advantage. It fostered, besides, extensive cod-fishing
and even whaling enterprises. Its harbor has suffered since; the rails
too have gone through to Spain, and St. Jean is left mildly and
interestingly mournful, in its lessened power, its decayed gentility.


IV.

In St. Jean de Luz, we are fairly in the country of the Basques. One
sees so many of that singular people in the streets, and along the
Biscayan shore generally, that inquiries about them are almost forced
upon the attention. The Basques are still the curiously ill-explained
race they have always been; the learned still disagree over their
origin, and the world at large scarcely knows of them more than the
name. They are scattered all through this lower sea-corner of France,
shading off near Bayonne; and are in yet greater numbers in the
adjoining upper edges of Spain. It seems strange that the beginnings of
this isolated race should to-day be almost no better settled than in the
time of Humboldt or Ramond. Yet they contrive still to embroil the
philologists and historians. Here the race has lived, certainly since