203 time, then at once the old music I had heard at Bayonne came back to me. The Toreador song is Bizet's own, I believe, but all the rest, or nearly all, is taken from the folk-music of the people. On market days the fish-wives come running into the town bare-footed, with the fish on their heads in baskets. On one occasion when we were driving into Bayonne from the direction of St. Jean-de-Luz, my father very good-humouredly took up three or four, as many as the carriage could accommodate. But this was accounted as affording them an unfair start over the others, and produced a tempest of screams and objurgations from such as could not obtain a lift. The Basque churches have a character of their own. Externally these churches are, as a rule, noticeable by having two or three ranges of small windows on the north and south sides of the nave, and as having outside structural staircases of wood or stone. These staircases lead to internal galleries that line the nave, and are in two or even three tiers. The east end alone is free where is the arch, to the small apse that contains the altar. The galleries are provided with benches and with stout well-turned and polished oak balustrades. The topmost gallery is very near the ceiling. It is to these galleries that the little windows afford light. The naves of the churches are huge quadrangular halls, without pillars and arcades. The ceilings are flat or slightly domed, painted in gaudy colours. There are neither benches nor chairs in the nave, which is occupied by the women, who bring carpets, lay them down on the floor and kneel on, or sit upon them ; to the men the galleries are devoted. In the Basque country many of the churches are devoid of towers. In their place rises one lofty wall at the west end, pierced by holes in which hang two bells, rarely more. As to the other three walls—desunt. The custom of the Couvade which did prevail among the Basques is now no more, killed by ridicule. When a child was born, the father went to bed with the baby, and was allowed only milk and sops for a week, and was treated and nursed precisely as if it were he and not the wife who had prodi\ced the babe, whereas the mother went about her usual avocations, and was entirely disregarded by the gossips, who devoted their questions to the
