II.

San Sebastian is both a city unto itself, and a summer resort unto
others. As to the latter, it is among the most popular watering-places
in Spain, and is styled "the Brighton of Madrid." As to the former, it
is a home for twenty thousand human beings of its own; it earns a
sufficing competence, chiefly in exchanges with its surrounding
province; and it has a monopoly of centralization over a wide region,
for no other important Spanish city lies nearer than Pampeluna or
Burgos. Burgos is not actually so very remote,--only a short hundred and
fifty miles beyond; and we had spoken of a visit to its renowned
cathedral. But we had not reckoned with Spanish railway speed; it was
found that the time required solely to go and come would be nearly
fifteen hours! Unvisited, we saw, must remain the cathedral within which
the hot-headed Protestant missionary blew out the sacred light that had
burned for three hundred years. Owing to the Hispanian misconception of
horological values, Burgos is practically, if not actually, exceedingly
remote from San Sebastian.

The latter, however, is so fortunately close to the edge of France that
those who come as near as Biarritz or Pau should assuredly make this
brief dip over the border.

San Sebastian is strictly new; its predecessors have been burned five
times, one upon the other, the last being brought to ashes by the
soldiers of Wellington; and it is liable to be burned again whenever
France and Spain begin to fight again across it. It is an excellent
model for that worthy fowl, the phoenix, for it has risen with