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

maidens, in their songs. The mountain, that colossal ruin, is all aglow

in Biscay: the sun's rays go in and out of every break. The wild

Jaïzquivel is full of idylls. Biscay is Pyrenean grace as Savoy is

Alpine grace. The dangerous bays--the neighbours of St. Sebastian, Leso,

and Fontarabia--with storms, with clouds, with spray flying over the

capes, with the rages of the waves and the winds, with terror, with

uproar, mingle boat-women crowned with roses. He who has seen the Basque

country wishes to see it again. It is the blessed land. Two harvests a

year; villages resonant and gay; a stately poverty; all Sunday the sound

of guitars, dancing, castanets, love-making; houses clean and bright;

storks in the belfries.

Let us return to Portland--that rugged mountain in the sea.

The Man Who Laughs