and her children, with a doctor and two other
friends, started off in the winter of 186-, in spite
of ominous warnings of revohitions, and grim
stories of brigands, for that comparatively unvi-
sited country called Spain. As far as St. Sebas-
tian the journey was absolutely without interest
or adventure of any kind. The express train
dashed them past houses and villages, and pic-
turesque old towns with fine church towers, from
Paris to Bordeaux, and from Bordeaux to Bayonne,
and so on past the awftil frontier, the scene of so
many passages-at-arms between ofl&cials and ladies'
maids, till they found themselves crossing the
picturesque bridge which leads to the little town
of St. Sebastian, with its beach of fine sand,
washed by the long billowy waves of the Atlantic
on the one hand, and its riant, well-cultivated
little Basque farms on the other. As to the town
itself, time and the prefect may eventually make
it a second Biarritz, as in every direction lodging-
houses are springing up, till it will become what
one of Dickens' heroes would call ^ the most sea-
bathingest place ' that ever was ! But at present
it is a mass of rough stone and lime and scaf-
folding ; and the one straight street leading from
the hotel to the Church of S. Maria, with the
castle above, are almost all that remains of the
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ST. SEBASTIAN.
