Provinces, with their dim purple valleys, looked like some vast mysterious ocean, heaving up its mighty billows to the skies. To the right, about a stone's sling from the road, lay the Atlantic ocean, glistening in the sunlight, skirted by the iron-bound coast of Cantabria, stretching far away until it lost itself in the haze of the horizon. On the left the mountain of La Rhune threw its vast shadow over the Bay of Biscay, whose gently heaving surface at that moment would have astonished those credulous worthies in England, who form their opinion of it by Braham's popular song, and imagine that its furious and insatiable billows are ever engulfing ships and men.

Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's contain superb monuments, reared by a grateful country to the memory of those who have served it well; but La Rhune is the mighty tomb of those heroes of the 43rd regiment, and a worthy one it is. Let the worldling be laid amid the city's hum, and the babe and the maiden beneath the willow; but the British soldier, what fitter spot can he have to sleep his last sleep in, amid the solemn stillness of primeval nature, than the ground he conquered at the bayonet's point! That wild heath-clad mountain, thought Î, contains the bones of my gallant countrymen, and it seemed at that moment as if the breeze came sighing down its side, and whispered in my ear, "Sie transit! sic transit!" whilst the never silent voice of the deep murmured in reply, "gloria mundi!"

I called Don Pablo's attention to the spot, and told him how, on the 7th of October, 1813, Lord Wellington's army surprised and defeated the French, by suddenly crossing the Bidassoa, and taking by assault their strong positions, which skilful engineers had been trying to render impregnable. One of the principal of these being La Rhune, which the 43rd carried with undaunted resolution, toiling up precipitous paths, and climbing crags, under a destructive fire of musketry.

The man of peace sighed after hearing my relation, and, crossing himself, repeated in an under tone a short prayer for the souls of the dead. At St. Jean de Luz we changed horses, and I got out to take a glance at the place. This ancient town is situated at the inner angle of a bay sixteen hundred yards by one thousand, sheltered on the north by the clayey heights of St. Barbe, and on the south by an isthmus of sand, at the extremity of which stands the fort of Socoa, consisting of a huge tower of heavy and massive architecture. Notwithstanding these natural defences against wind and water, the sea tyrannizes over everything. At a certain distance the ocean seems to overhang St. Jean de Luz, and its red-tiled roofs are half veiled by the spray of an angry surf, which appears rushing to the assault of the few feet of sand that still separate them from the town. Everywhere are to be seen wide breaches, pitiless rents, the results of a progressive and obstinate invasion; one would declare that the insatiable sea had already taken possession of the devoted land, doomed to submit to its capricious wrath.

In 1773 and 1781 the sea, irritated by the equinoctial gales, which usually spend their fury on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, broke through the sheltering dykes, rushed impetuously up the Nivelle, and inundated the town, which the terrified inhabitants hastily abandoned. On the 5th, 6th, and 7th of February, 1811, the sea, urged on by a fierce north-easter, carried away forty-five cubic yards from the massive stone quay on the side of Socoa, and twenty yards from the opposite extremity of St. Barbe, destroying, and rooting up at the same time, the

greater part of a new granite wall, sixteen feet thick, which had only been constructed a fortnight; damaged the quays which lined the Nivelle, and destroyed the soil, forming here and there enduring pools of water and heaps of sand. The inhabitants set eagerly to work to rescue from the insatiable element their houses, their fields, their city. They hastily rebuilt their demolished walls, and bulwarks were erected behind the ruins; but on the 25th and 26th, the tempest, exhausted for a moment, recovered strength, the furious waves again advanced, and all the works were carried away with a violence that is still remembered with awe in St. Jean de Luz.

Science inclines to the belief that the ocean is gradually retiring from the land, and the layers of shelly stones met with here and there in inland recesses, round flints, marine fossils, encrusted in cliffs near the sea-shore, added to traditional proofs, support this hypothesis. But along the coast, from Bayonne to St. Jean de Luz, it cannot be held, for the encroachments of the sea at Biaritz and the latter place are manifest from year to year.

The sub-marine shore of St. Jean de Luz is steep, and defended by sharp rocks at intervals, which offer a stout resistance to the waves. An obstinate struggle is continually going on between the invading waves and the conservative land. This contest may last for ages, but the sea must finally wear away the rocks, or overturn them; these will gradually be covered by the sands, and the waters, rendered calm by the absence of opposition, will roll inwards. It is merely a question of time, and perhaps, whilst other towns, now rejoicing in youth and strength, and far from the sea but near other dangers, are doomed to pass away; this amphibious little port may endure in happiness, albeit built on the verge of destruction.

The town of St. Jean de Luz is little more than one long street, bordered by houses of unequal elevation, many of which are of great antiquity. Little shops, stocked with the necessaries of life, and cheap finery, peep from beneath broad overhanging eaves. Here and there are a few handsome modern buildings, but they looked cheerless and silent, although most of them seemed to be inns. Narrow lanes branch off from the Grand Rue, and open upon the sea-shore, or the Nivelle. The church, vast and lofty, resembles those of Guipuzcoa, except that three tiers of galleries run round the interior of the edifice for the accommodation of the men, which I never saw on the other side of the frontier. Black mats scattered here and there mark the reserved places, and often descend from generation to generation. By the side of some of them stood here and there a slender wax taper which the women light during mass, whilst they pray for the souls of relations in purgatory. It is the custom of the females in this part of the Basque country, to go to mass enveloped in black cloaks, with lace-fringed hoods, so that on Sundays the streets seem as if they were crowded with mourners going to a funeral. Chairs are gradually being introduced into the churches, and I fear the picturesque mats will soon be numbered among the things that were. The principal altar is enriched with finely carved columns and gilt statues, and, to judge by the general architecture, the edifice dates from the fifteenth century.

Just before arriving at Behobia, and from the summit of a hill forming one of a series of broad declivities covered with a luxuriant vegetation of fern, the admiring eye embraces a wide panoramic landscape,

rich in its tints, its features, and its historical recollections. At the bottom of the steep descent of the road which you rapidly survey, as the diligence sweeps round an elbow of it, called the Croix de Bouquets, a glimpse is caught of the Bidassoa, and the white houses of Behobia. Trun on the other side of the river, displays the massive spire of its fine old church, and its red-tiled houses beyond: the mountain chains of Navarre and the Basque province rise one above the other in rugged sierras, and interminable confusion; the chapel of San Marcial is seen on the left, erected on a lofty tree-dotted mount, in commemorationof the defeat of the French there, 1813, and on the right, the shrine of Our Lady of Guadaloupe (Nuestra Señora de Guadaloupe) perched like a sea gull upon the heights of Jaizquibel, extending like a huge russet curtain along the coast from Fuenterrabia to Pasages, where they end in a precipice a thousand feet high, overlooking that part.

At Behobia, Don Pablo found a letter summoning him to Pampeluna on urgent business, so he went on in the diligence and left me to find my way alone to Fuenterrabia. Having plenty of time to dispose of, I determined upon walking across the country to Heydaya, where I arrived at noon, after a pleasant stroll of about a couple of miles. Its ruins, frowning upon the half-demolished battlements of Fuenterrabia on the opposite side of the Bidassoa, prove the fierceness of those border feuds that desolated the French and Spanish frontiers for centuries, and ultimately brought destruction upon both places, whose present aspect might be compared to two warriors mortally wounded in single combat, gazing sternly and despairingly upon each other.

The final catastrophe occurred in 1793. The death of the misguided, but noble-minded, Louis XVI., after he had proved himself the liberal benefactor of his subjects, and conceded all the demands of the revolutionists, filled Europe with horror, and brought matters to a crisis. The French ambassador was ordered to leave England immediately by the British cabinet, and a few days after the French convention declared war against Great Britain, Spain, and Holland. The Spanish government, alarmed at the extent of the approaching danger, shook off its apathy, and, by vigorous exertions, was able to concentrate two tolerably well equipped armies on the Catalonian frontier and the Bidassoa. Hostilities quickly commenced.

A little before daylight on the 14th of April, 1794, the inhabitants of Hendaya were suddenly aroused from slumber by loud explosions. ́Already their houses were shattered and on fire, under a violent bombardment. A body of Spaniards, protected by the batteries of Fuenterrabia, had crossed the Bidassoa and blown up the redoubt of Louis Quatorze. The work of destruction completed, the invaders leisurely retreated, without much molestation from a column of French troops encamped close to the town, at a spot now marked by some rows of poplars. This attack was followed on the 1st of May by a more decisive one, when the French were driven from their positions with the loss of fifteen cannon, and the few houses the shells of Fuenterrabia had spared on the 14th of April were burnt to the ground, including the celebrated manufactories where those strong and sweet compositions called liqueurs were concocted, which I verily believe are nothing but slow poisons, as efficacious in depriving people of life as any potion in the deadly pharmacopæia of Catherine de Medici, or Madame de Brinvilliers.

THE PRESENT NAVAL AND MILITARY POWER

OF ENGLAND*

WHEN We take up a book written by Sir F. B. Head, we are sure of being enlivened, and shall probably at the same time derive instruction from its perusal. He carries us through the vast complex arrangements of a great railway establishment, with its hundreds of thousands of passengers, and tons of goods, or of the General Post Office, with its millions of letters, all to be dispatched or disposed of in an incredibly short time by so easy a vehicle, providing occasional light refreshment on the way, that we insensibly imbibe a mass of sound information with the agreeable sensation of a pleasing draught.

"Cosi à l'egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi

Di soave ricor gli orli del vaso,

Succhi amari, ingannato, in tanto ci beve;

E ela l'inganno suo vita riceve."

In the heavy task he has now undertaken, we find the same quality of food provided for the public appetite; and we question whether the attention to the defective condition of our defensive resources, which the efforts of many naval and military officers of eminence, the Duke of Wellington inclusive, have failed to excite, will not be awakened by this popular writer.

We must, however, peruse with some caution his present essay. The question under consideration is no other than whether this kingdom, with all its properties and dependencies, does, or does not, stand on the brink of a precipice, from whence it may any day fall into an abyss of utter destruction. We must not be led by any torrent of the most powerful or sarcastic oratory to treat with indifference such a position, strongly enforced by competent authorities. If only to relieve our minds from the terror it is calculated to excite, let us satisfy ourselves by searching inquiries of its truth or error.

The conclusion arrived at by Sir F. B. Head, and those of whose arguments he is the exponent, is simply this ;

That in the event of a war with France, the people of that country have the will, the intention, the devised project, and the power to invade this country, and to possess themselves of London by a coup-demain, while under our present system it is utterly impossible for us to offer any effectual resistance.

To render this conclusion convincing we must satisfy ourselves that it is correct in all its parts, for the failure of one link of the chain would be fatal to the whole. And here, we think, we may narrow the ground for discussion, by striking off an argument, which has no foundation whatever, which is prominently put forward by the faithful guardians of our purse, who would willingly cushion the whole question,

it is, that there is no desire to quarrel with us on the part of the French, and that after thirty-five years of peace, it is unreasonable and ungenerous to anticipate war. Against this presumption of kindly feeling as regards the nation (for in individual intercourse none will dispute the courtesy of the French) we have the tone of their newspapers, of Thiers, and other leading politicians, of Scribe, Alexander Dumas, Béran

* The Defenceless State of Great Britain, by Sir F. B. Head.

ger, and many equally popular writers, all full of animosity and abuse where England and the English are concerned: while the anxious attention we see directed to the naval and military establishments, exclusively applicable to a war with this country, even under the greatest pressure, manifestly proves that France herself does not calculate on eternal peace.

But, to make the argument good, it must be shown that a war is not only improbable, but impossible, for, if possible, we should surely be prepared for it, as we would be provided (under the apt illustration in the work before us) with a fire-engine and water-plugs, to preserve our property from the possibility, though extreme improbability, of a fire. As regards the question of probability or possibility, we have experienced, four or five times, during the boasted period of peace, a crisis when an insulting expression, or an unreasonable demand on either side, could have produced an instant war; and if, on those occasions, we have been mercifully spared, by the moderation of the then government, we can scarcely anticipate that some wrong-headed individuals, or violent popular agitation, may not one day lead to a different result.

Assuming, then, that despite the heroic moderation of France, and the self-interested moderation of England, a war, by some unaccountable contingency, might possibly occur, and that the French should, for the first time, be then led to consider how they could most speedily bring it to a favourable issue; we have then to examine whether their proceedings during the preceding period of peace have, as asserted, placed them in a position to produce that effect. We have also to ascertain what is the nature of our available means successfully to contend for the cause of the conflict, whatever it may be, offensively and defensively; and, more particularly, with what means of resistance we may be provided against the danger of invasion, to which our author so confidently asserts we are exposed.

The inquiry is not of a difficult nature, for though the necessary information must be chiefly obtained from professional men, and from professional sources, it may be made sufficiently intelligible to civilians of sense and judgment to prevent their being misled by the bias or selfaggrandising spirit of the informants.

We have hitherto enjoyed the pleasing delusion that "Britannia ruled the Waves ;" and that the old wooden walls of England were sufficient to preserve her from the danger of invasion, but when brought seriously to consider the subject, we shall find that, like other RULES, that of Britannia may have its exception; and that the sovereignty of the sea is not to be maintained even by such a power as England, with all its advantages of ships, seamen, and money, without adequate arrangements. Of the nature of those arrangements we have a melancholy detail, not only on the authority of our able and lively author, but on that of staid experienced naval officers, some of whom witnessed our triumphs in the late wars; they all tell the same tale, one that has never yet been denied. While we are thus accused of apathetic indifference, or of carelessness, in casting away the advantages we possess, the French occupy themselves unceasingly and energetically in making every effort to avail themselves of the advantage afforded them by our neglect, and to come forward with startling effect when occasion shall offer. Notwithstanding the prestige that every British sailor notoriously entertains for the vigour and power of his own profession, every officer of the navy is forced to the humiliating conclusion, disguise it as he