prefers the same thing--at a supplementary price--for the pleasure of
seeing the cork drawn before his eyes. The "_grands hotels_" of the
resorts recognize this and cater for the tourist accordingly.

We were bound for Fontarabia that night, just over the Spanish
border. The Spanish know it as Feuntarabia, and the Basques as
Ondarriba. For this reason one's pronunciation is likely to be
understood, because no two persons pronounce it exactly alike, and
the natives' comprehensions have been trained in a good school.

Fontarabia is gay, is ancient, and is very _foreign_ to anything in
France, even bordering upon the Spanish frontier. We left the
automobile at Hendaye, not wishing to put up with the customs duties
of eighteen francs a hundred kilos for the motor, and a thousand
francs for the _carrosserie_, for the privilege of riding twenty
kilometres out and back over a sandy, dreary road.

We dined and slept that night at a little Spanish hotel half built
out over the sea, Concha by name, and left the Grand Hotel de Palais
Miramar to those who like grand hotels. We lingered a fortnight at
Fontarabia, and did much that many tourists did not. One should see
Fontarabia and find out its delights for oneself. There is a
quaintness and unworldliness about its old streets and wharves, which
is indescribable in print; there is a wonderfully impressive expanse
of sea and sky on the Bay of Bidassoa, a couple of kilometres away,
and all sorts and conditions of men may find an occupation here for
any passing mood they may have.

We just missed the great fete of the eighth of September, when
processions, and bull-fights, and all the movement of the sacred and
profane rejoicings of the Latins yearly astonish the more phlegmatic
northerner.

Another great fete is that of Vendredi-Saint (Good Friday). Either
one or the other should be seen by all who may be in these parts at
these times.

Near by, in the middle of the swift-flowing current of the Bidassoa,
is the historically celebrated Ile des Faisans, on which the
conferences were held between the French minister Mazarin and the
Spanish Don Louis de Haro, which led to the famous Treaty of the
Pyrenees, 1659, and the marriage of Louis XIV. with the daughter of
Philip IV. The representative of each sovereign advanced from his own
territory, by a temporary bridge, to this bit of neutral ground,
which then reached nearly up to the present bridge. The piles which
supported the ca