evil and the Basque Language-Pyrenean Scenery-The Wolf-The Bear-

, dressed in a species of imitation of English sporting costume-in an old cut-away coat, and what is properly called a bird's-eye choker-the effect of which, however, was greatly taken off by sabots-addressed me, half in French, half in what he called English:-Did I wish to go to the baths, or anywhere else in the hills? The diligences had stopped running for the season; but what of that? he had plenty of horses and vehicles: he would mount me for the fox-hounds, if I wished. Oh, he was well known to, and highly respected by, Messieurs les Anglais; and it was therefore a fortunate thing for me to have fallen in with him. The upshot of a long conversation was, that he engaged to drive me up the glen

ght; "there are the Jurancon vineyards-the best in the Pyrenees; an

heather, is hereabouts taken up by perfect thickets and jungles of thriving box-wood; while the laurel and rhododendron grow in bushy luxuriance. Charming, however, as is the landscape, and thoroughly poetic the first aspect of the cottages, they are in reality wretched, ricketty, and unwholesome hovels. In fact, poor huts, and a mountain country, go almost invariably together. In German Switzerland, the cottages are miserable; and every body knows what an unwindowed stye is a Highland turf-built bothy. So of the Pyrenean cottages: many of them-mere hovels of wood and clay, so rickety-looking, that one wonders that the first squall from the hills does not carry them bodily away-are composed of one large, irregular room, having an earthen floor, with black, smoky beams stretching across beneath the thatch. Two or three beds are made up in the darkest corners; festoons of Indian corn, onions, and heads of garlic are suspended from the rafters; and opposite the huge open fireplace is generally placed the principal piece of furniture of the apartment-a lumbering pile of a dresser,

almond-shaped-another eastern characteristic. The dress, as I have said, is graceful, and the colours thoroughly harmonious. A tight-fitting black jacket is worn over a red vest, more or less gaudily ornamented with rough embroidery, and fastening by small belts across the bosom. On the head, a sort of capote or hood of dark cloth, corresponding to that of the jacket and petticoat, is arranged. In good weather, and when a heavy burden is to be carried, this hood is plaited in square folds across the crown of the head, forming a protection also from the heat of the sun. In cold and rainy days, it is allowed to fall down over the shoulders, mingling with the folds of the drapery beneath. Both men and women wear peculiarly shaped stockings, so made as to bulge over the edges of the sabot, into which the naked foot is thrust. The dress of the men is of a correspondingly quaint character. On their heads they invaria

crack with every man, woman, and child we encountered; and the black eyes lighte

are speaking

r. French!-no more to be compared with

speak Spa

ing of mules before him, wished to do a small stroke of business with me, I daresay we could manage t

said I, "you s

m from that part of the country; and he might have known that it was very little worth the hearing they could tell him. But, however, he spread his wings, and flew and flew till he alighted on the top of one of the Basque mountains, where he summoned all the best Basque scholars in the country, and there he was for seven years, working away with a grammar in

yellow with maize-fields, the river shining in the midst, and on either side the mountain-slopes-no mere hills this time, but vast and stately Alps, heaving up into the regions of the mist, rising in long, uniform slopes, stretching away and away, and up and up-the vast sweeps green with a richness of herbage unknown in the Alps, and faintly traced with ancient mountain-paths, leading from chalet to chalet; here and there a gully or wide ravine breaking the Titanic embankment; silver threads of waterfalls appearing and disappearing in the black jaws; and over the topmost clefts, glimpses of the snowy peaks, to which these stretching braes lead upwards. The mist lies in long, thin wreaths upon the bosom of the hills immediately around you, and you see their bluff summits now rising above it, and then grad

after all, monsieur, he is a gentlemanly beast; he never kills the sheep wantonly. He always chooses the best, which is but natural, and walks off with it. But the wolf-sacré nom du dia

enean wolves ev

at night in his cottage they heard, hour by hour, the howling of the wolves, and often went out, but could see nothing. Poor Jacques did not return, and at sunrise they were all off in search; and sure enough they found a skeleton, clean picked, and the bones all shining in the snow. Only, monsieur, the feet were

was known by it to every Parisian. The Pyrenean Dominique was a wily monster, who had long baffled all the address of his numerous pursuers; and as his depredations were ordinarily confined to the occasional abstraction of a sheep or a goat, and as he never actually committed murder, he long escaped the institution of a regular battue-the ordinary ending of a bear or wolf who manages to make himself particularly conspicuous. At length the people of the district got absolutely proud of Dominique. Like the Eagle in Professor Wilson's fine tale, he was "the pride and the pest of the parish," and might have been so yet, were it not that on one unlucky day he was casually espied by the garde forestiere. This is a functionary whose duty it is to patrol the hills, taking note that the sheep are

n upon the wind, the herdsmen, stalking slowly across the fields, enveloped from head to foot in these long, grey, shapeless robes, looked like so many Ossianic ghosts flitting among the mountains. Each man carried, slung round him, a little ornamented pouch, full of salt, a handful of which is used to entice within reach any sheep which he wishes to get hold of. One and all, like their brethren of the Landes, they were busy at the manufacture of worsted stockings, and kept slowly stalking through the meadows where their flocks pastured, with the lounging gait of men thoroughly broken in to a solitary, monotonous routine of sluggish life. Many of these shepherds were accompanied by their children-the boys dressed in exact miniature imitation of their fathers. Indeed, the prevalence of this style of juvenile costume in the Pyrenees makes the boys and girls look exactly like odd, quaint little men

tain-town of Laruns; the steep slope of the heathy hill rising on one side of the single street from the very backs of the houses. M. Martin, on the Irish principle of reserving the trot for the avenue, whipped up the good old grey, and we rattled at a canter through the miriest street I ever traversed, driving throngs of lean, long-legged pigs r

e into the house-don't you see how big the door is?" As he spoke, it opened upon its portals. The old grey needed no invitation, and in a moment we found ourselves in a huge, dark vault, half coach-hous

ere is

up-stairs,

ok, plying the distaff. The fireplace and the kitchen department of the room were in the shadow at the back. Nearer the row of lozenge-pane windows, rose a dais-with a long dining-table set out-and smaller tables were scattered around. Above your head were mighty rafters, capitally garnished with bacon and hung-meat of various kinds. The floor rose and fell in smal

NEES P

here; but the people here were far more unsophisticated than the people beyond. They hav'nt learned to cheat here, yet," he whispered. "And, besides, you see a good Pyrenean auberge, and at the Wells y

stables also serve for pig-styes, sheep-folds, and poultry-yards, and as cleaning-day is made to come round as seldom as possible, it may be imagined that the town of Laruns is a highly scented one. Through some of the streets, brooks of sparkling water flow, working the hammers of feeble fulling mills. Webs of the coarse cloth pro

red, were followed by a roasted jigot of mutton, flavoured as only mutton can be flavoured which has fed upon the aromatic herbage of the high hills-the whole finished off with a c

all this giggling,

luck, Jeanne,

y. "Any child knows that to break a plate is good

hare cross the path, it is a bad omen; and if a cow kick over the milking-p

keep a sprig of vervene over the fire, we know very well t

of the o

vervain,

witches of

gossipping ensued, frequently broken by a pleasant chorus, sung in unison by the fresh, pure voices of the whole assembly. The effect, when they first broke out into a low, wailing song, echoing amongst the high houses and the hill behind, was quite electrifying. Then they set to work, scrubbing their pails

hill; and they jodle or jerk the voice from octave to octave, just as they do in the Alps. This said jodling appears, indeed, to be a natural accomplishment in many mountain countries. The songs of the shepherds at Laruns had jodling chorusses, but the airs were almost all plaintive minors, with long quavering phrases, clinging, as it were, to the pitch of the key-note, and only extending to about a third above or below it. The music was always performed in unison