The spirit of unsparing research, the aim after utilization, which distinguish our day, have their uses; but they can be, and not seldom are, pushed beyond the limits of reason and utility itself, in the mistaken pursuit of a supposed truth. We had been used to treat as fable the old Egyptian chronicles; but, in discovering the art of reading the hieroglyphics inscribed on the monuments of that wonderful country, and in considering the knowledge they impart, the present generation has been taught to entertain more forbearance for the national traditions of a great people. And so it is with the battle of Roncesvalles, which the writers of France, unwilling to avow the discomfiture of their great Charles by a handful of Spaniards, and fortifying their incredulity by the alleged paucity of historical proofs on the subject, had almost persuaded the world to disbelieve. But, in the times of Charlemagne, men were more adroit in wielding the sword than the pen ;-and the meagre annalists of his reign paid small regard to events, which happened in a secluded corner of the Pyrenees. A comparison, however, of the Arabian and Christian chronicles gives authenticity to the great leading facts in the pretended romance, and shows that not all of it is to be discarded as mere legendary lore.

The Pyrenees approach, in this region, to the very shores of the Bay of Biscay. In travelling by the great road from Bayonne to Spain, you wind along

over hill and dale; and while the peaked summits of the loftier mountains in the range rise before you in the distance, whitening above the hazy outline of the rest, just beneath you, on the right, are spread out the blue waters of the Atlantic, rippled, it may be, by breezes, which come from the distant fields of your native land. At length, having toiled up an ascent of more than ordinary difficulty, you speedily arrive at a little plateau, and gain sight of the frontier town of Saint Jean de Luz.

Far to the left is the tall and pointed Pic du Midi, soaring upwards among the clouds. Nearer at hand are the group of summits called Trois Couronnes. Below are the buildings of Saint Jean de Luz, clustered around a little indentation of the sea. Cast your eyes upon that lofty church by the road side. Its piles of solid masonry, the heavy buttresses which sustain its sides, its high walls, its narrow windows far up from the ground,—in short, the whole aspect of the edifice, will remind you of a fortress rather than a temple of Christian worship, and suggest to your mind the reflection that you are amid the scenes of ancient border warfare.Every thing in the structure of the town itself serves to confirm the idea.

You proceed a little further on to the village of Orogno, in sight of the strong-hold of an old feudal chieftain, while the hills appear to increase in steepness, and you alternately climb over their sides, or descend into the deep shade of the valleys, overlooked

by the huge masses of the surrounding mountains ; and thus things continue until you reach the banks of the Bidassoa. I arrived at the Pont d'Angoulême, as the bridge is called by the French, just at the termination of evening twilight, when the moon was bathing every object in a flood of silvery light, and the bright evening star twinkled above the peaks of the Trois Couronnes. The majestic mountains in the distance, the hills clothed in verdure about me, the river, and the little hamlet on its banks, acquired a mellowness of tint from the moonlight, which enhanced the beauty and impressiveness of the scene, and added to the romantic emotions awakened by the sight of Spain.

While nature has done much to render these localities interesting, the industry of man has contributed to their present beauty; for although we figure to ourselves these mountains as being rough, precipitous, and savage, yet the fact is far otherwise. Fertile fields of light green maize, small orchards, occasionally a vineyard, sometimes rich pastures with cattle feeding upon their herbage,— such are the familiar forms of cultivation, which appear along the gentle slope of the mountains.The hill tops are covered with trees, overlooking here and there a humble cottage; and where the steepness of the acclivities, or the sharpness of some peak more elevated than the rest, forbids a careful tillage, wild flowers, sweet thyme, and luxuriant brake spring up on all sides, and the foot of the

adventurous traveller scares the mountain goat from his covert among the rocks.

Nor should the wayfarer, whom one meets among these mountain scenes, pass unnoticed in the sketch I present. Here you see a barefooted pilgrim, with a scallop shell in his hat, bound to the shrine of Santiago de Compostella, to discharge his vow. There is a capuchin friar, with sandals only to protect his naked feet, a handkerchief bound around his head, and a short cloak thrown over his shoulders and reaching only to his elbow, while his bushy beard and whiskers and the stout staff in his hand by no means tend to remove the unfavorable impression, which the wildness of his air, and the singularity of his costume create. If you have looked back with a doubting and suspicious eye upon the wandering monk, you will not be reassured, by the object which greets you on the elevation over which the road is about to ascend; for, until a near inspection convinces you of the fact, you would not believe that the truculent-looking personage, who stands there shouting to you and flourishing his hat in one hand and a staff in the other, was only a lame beggar, exerting himself with all his might to awaken your compassion betimes, that you might cast him a liard from the coach window as you pass.

Occasionally you may chance to encounter some of the peasantry journeying in their own peculiar mode, in large double panniers swung like a saddle across the back of a mule, with the husband

perhaps in one basket and his good woman in the other, oppressing the poor beast with their double burden. If, weary of the slow ascent of your carriage up the side of some long hill, you feel disposed to precede it on foot, you may probably overtake a black-eyed Basque maiden, who trips unconcernedly along the pebbly road, although her feet are bare, carrying home from the village market of Bayonne a heavy load upon her head with the careless ease of a robust frame and a light heart, and who will readily enliven your path with cheerful chat in French or Spanish, a little dashed perhaps with the Doric roughness of her native Basque, but still intelligible and clear. She belongs to that mountain race, who, like the Welch in Britain, claim to be the primitive lords of the country, and retain the spirit of hardy industry and sturdy independence, which distinguished their sires.

It was in the depths of these mountains, upon a little spot of ground in the midst of the Bidassoa, called the Isle of Pheasants, that the memorable treaty of the Pyrenees was concluded. Spain, at that time, was governed by Don Luis de Haro, in the name of Philip IV., and Cardinal Mazarin reigned equally absolute in France; for Louis XIV. was yet in his minority, and yielded a blind submission to the will of his Minister. The two

statesmen had grown weary of a war, which neither country was then capable of conducting with vigor, and which thus dragged itself along in trifling