young priests and finally by the tall, austere-looking old man who is Monsieur le curé. We follow them out into the blazing sunshine and find that the street has been strewn with green rushes and branches of euonima. Here quite a crowd is waiting, which forms itself at once into processional order, led by the old bent women in their black head-dresses and brought up at the rear by the children. Nobody wears a hat, but the parasols of the younger women and the little girls strike a bright note of colour against the black of their dresses and of the men's coats. The Basque women, with their frugal minds and absence of any instinctive love of colour and brightness, are fond of black for their wearing apparel. No self-respecting bride of the lower classes would be seen in anything else; and indeed with the floating white veil, especially if she be a tall and handsome woman, she presents an appearance of austere dignity which is not at all unattractive. The Pays Basque appears to be the one country in Europe where the men are at least equal numerically to the women. In their innumerable processions at weddings, at funerals, and on every other possible occasion there seems to be no difficulty in matching the sexes quite evenly. To-day the men are considerably in the majority, and fresh recruits fall in continuously as we pass in total silence, save for the trampling of many feet, the heavy tread of the men, the shuffling steps of the children, through the narrow streets strewn with greenery to the chapel of the naval and military hospital, where Mass is to be celebrated. We cross the scorching Pelote ground and through the school yard, where are drawn up, awaiting us, rows of very neat little school children in blue and pink pinafores. The hospital chapel is a small, unpretentious yellow-washed building, with a heavy carved wooden gallery outside and a wooden porch. Inside it much resembles a barn, and from the centre of the roof is suspended a model of an ancient man-o'-war with a green hull, a votive offering, no doubt, for some bygone victory of the French fleet over the Spanish. Beyond these and a few pictures upon the walls there is no attempt at internal decoration. The chapel certainly will not hold the congregation, which by now has attained considerable dimensions, and a portion of it has to be content to sit out in the courtyard under the shade of the plane trees, where the red roses are peeping over the wall and only the distant droning of the Mass and the tinkle of the bell are audible. Perhaps for many of the worshippers it does quite as well on this hot morning, and it is less than an hour before the congregation begins to pour out again. This time the procession reforms in a more imposing fashion. A chosen few of the little girls go in front of the curé, scattering rose petals and yellow iris upon the rushes. They are probably those who are especially vouées à la sainte Vierge, for Marthe is amongst them, and though she is decidedly the smallest she has succeeded in walking in front. She holds herself very upright. Her brown head is unprotected, for obviously nobody can scatter flowers

and hold up a parasol; her cheeks are unusually pink with the effort, and she turns every now and then to fill her small hands with petals from the large basket carried by an elder girl behind. The insults of her Spanish rivals are temporarily forgotten in the obvious superiority of her position. The blue and pink pinafored children follow immediately behind the curé, and in front of the boys, the young priests walking with the latter to keep order and to control the singing. Then come the women, and finally a great number of men. But to-day is pre-eminently the children's procession, for they cannot manage the distances out into the country. The Basque singing, whether it be religious or secular, at a funeral or a merrymaking after a wedding, has a curious quality of monotony, which gives it a rather dirge-like sound, but it is not unmusical and there is always a vast preponderance of male voices.

Halfway down the main street stands an old iron cross, beneath which a temporary altar has been erected, heaped with fresh roses and surrounded by pots of hydrangea. Here the procession halts, and the children gather round in a circle. We are not only in the main street, but also on the high-road from France into Spain, yet the traffic of motors and market carts is stopped without the aid of any policeman, and quite as effectually as in Whitehall on Coronation Day. We kneel meekly on the greenery, a light carpet over the thick white dust of the road. Monsieur le curé, with a branch of palm in his hand, blesses the flowers upon the altar, and taking a large gilt cross is about to turn and bless the kneeling congregation, when a diversion occurs. Nobody has apparently noticed or is concerned by the fact that the congregation has been joined by a small black lamb, whose front hair is tied up with yellow ribbons like a poodle, and by a fat and fluffy puppy, who is the former's self-appointed guardian and protector. The lamb belongs to Marthe Etcheverry, and is usually sleeping or browsing upon the grass by the roadside, with Bijou curled up very close to his charge for warmth and comfort-one baby, in fact, guarding another. More than once Bijou has attacked me viciously with his shrill yaps and pin-points of teeth, for some fancied desire on my part to make friends with the lamb, and no doubt he is training to be a sheep dog, like his friend belonging to the goatherd.

To-day, however, he trots rather doubtfully behind the lamb, who, of an enquiring disposition, ambles deliberately towards the hydrangeas. Bijou's superior intelligence tells him that he has no possible business within this kneeling circle of children and grown-up people, but his duty bids him follow his charge, until halfway across he is suddenly seized and held tightly round the body by Fernando. At the same moment Gloria, who is an agile child, has thrown herself upon the lamb. There is a brief scuffle, a roll in the dust, and the Spanish children, having forgotten their devotions and their dignity alike, are off up the road in full chase, Bijou yapping and snapping

at their bare legs. Marthe has not instantly observed the intrusion, but now she is making frantic efforts to escape and to wreak instantaneous vengeance upon the perpetrators of this awful outrage upon her property. Her bonne, however, holds her firmly in a kneeling posture by her small shoulders, while the curé, who has observed the scene with a grim smile, lifts the brass cross and blesses the congregation, who are then free to depart with the least possible delay. 'Méchants, méchants,' sobs Marthe, beside herself with rage and indignation, and wriggling herself free from the detaining hand, and hurling French and Basque invectives upon the little Spaniards, she races up the road in their pursuit. She is, however, neither so slim nor so long in the leg as her adversaries, and by the time she arrives, breathless and panting, under the acacias, they have disappeared within the shelter of their own door, leaving the lamb and Bijou in an exhausted heap upon the grass.

Early the next morning I am aroused by the same wailing hymn under my windows, and am only just in time to see the last Rogation procession making its way back into the town. Monsieur le curé in his purple cope and black biretta looks less tired this morning, and yet he must have been some distance, for he started at sunrise. Perhaps he is pleased with the really beautiful floral offerings over which he is invited to walk. His road home is leading him past houses with well-stocked gardens. The fresh greenery at his feet has a light powdering of acacia blossoms, which the breeze is bringing down in a shower from the trees overhead, those trees which in May are a perfect harbour for nightingales. The six Spanish girls are all there. Gloria's five elder sisters are slim and tall and graceful in their fresh white dresses, each with a different-coloured ribbon twisted in her hair, and their arms are full of roses, red and pink and white, with which they recklessly strew the path before the curé. Being more demonstrative in their religion than the Basques, they kneel to receive his blessing as he passes. Lower down the road Marthe's little eager face peers through the gate, which for all her rattling her small arms cannnot move on its hinges. Marthe is in disgrace, and so, perhaps a little unjustly, is Bijou. She hugs him tightly in her arms, and with a series of shrill barks he evinces a distrustful interest in this procession. Marthe would like to make faces at Gloria-Gloria, who, her wickedness unpunished and in a clean white frock, is scattering choice roses with her sisters-but unfortunately Gloria is not looking, and the hardest part of her own punishment to the little Basque girl is that she is impotent to wipe out old scores. The black lamb, the cause of the trouble for which his playfellows are suffering, sleeps peacefully upon the grass, his toilet yet unmade, for his head is guiltless of the yellow ribbon.

The procession, with its tired dusty followers, goes on its way down to the church, the dirge-like singing growing fainter in the

distance, and the words of George Herbert's Easter hymn recur instinctively to my memory:

I got me flowers to strew Thy way;

I got me boughs off many a tree:
But Thou wast up by break of day,

And broughtst Thy sweets along with Thee.

After having assisted at these Rogation processions it seems only right and natural to go out into the fields which have been blessed. The month of May is the morte saison at Biarritz and St. Jean de Luz. Not many of the Spanish bathers have arrived, and the English visitors have gone home to welcome their own dilatory spring. The few who remain, however, know that the 'Mois de Marie' is the most beautiful month of the year in the Basque country. The sun has not begun to scorch, and the wind has ceased to chill, and in the fresh green of the woods and fields there is no hint of the hot and dried-up country with which we associate the thought of Southern Europe in the summer. Mid-May in the Basses-Pyrénées is equivalent to mid-June in England, and it is pre-eminently the month of roses. Surely nowhere in the world can there be a greater abundance of beautiful roses, and it is no wonder that they play so prominent a part in the religious ceremonies of the country. They run riot over every building, peer over every wall, and, trained over every trellis, they form a very effective protection from the sun. The air is sweet with them, and in the country the hedges are covered with briar roses and honeysuckle. As the month draws on, the hay-makers are busy in the meadows, and the roads are full of ox waggons and donkey carts laden with the sweet flowery grass. The haymaker, if he be wise, keeps his weather eye rather anxiously upon the sharp, razor-like outline of La Rhune, in dread of an approaching thunder-storm, and is thankful when the Trois Couronnes, that majestic triple mountain which guards the pass through the Pyrenees into Spain, melts softly into a blue and hazy sky.

May is a busy month at the convent of Notre-Dame de Refuge, which lies out in the country between Bayonne and Biarritz. It is the community of the Servantes de Marie, and consequently the month of the Virgin is for them especially full of religious observances. Nevertheless, on the eve of the fête of the Ascension they are by no means averse to receiving a visitor. The sister who on this occasion acts as guide is an elderly, weather-beaten, but extremely cheerful person, with, I have reason to believe, a purely surface appearance of childlike innocence, and a mild sense of humour. She is delighted to do the honours, but she cannot persuade me to linger in the chapel, which, though a large and handsome building, is entirely cold and ugly in the interior. Great pots of plants stand before the altar of

Mary, but there is not the same profusion of flowers as in the churches, and the altar itself is decorated in a gaudy and artificial manner. Outside, the garden and the farm are very much more interesting. It is a large community, numbering six hundred with the Pénitentes, the care of whom forms the special occupation of the sisters. The Basque idea of rescue work differs in its details from that of this country. There are neither bolts nor bars, nor even high walls, such as usually enclose convent buildings, to prevent the Pénitentes from returning to that mode of life from which they have been snatched as brands from the burning. No doubt there is in reality a close moral supervision, which is less apparent to the visitor than the low privet hedges; but when such a calamity as the desertion of an inmate occurs, the mother superior, being a Basque, will probably only raise her shoulders and murmur with a sigh of resignation, ' Qu'estce que ça fait ?' the usual observation in this country when misfortunes happen. There are others to think of, and the "bon Dieu " knows His own work.' Meantime the Pénitentes are kept well employed and certainly have as a whole a contented appearance. Those who can sew are set to do fine linen work and embroidery, which is sold for the benefit of the convent. Others-and there are not a few who are mentally deficient are set to work in the fields and upon the farm. Here one of their duties is to wash the cows and the pigs daily, and each animal is housed in sumptuous isolation with a small statue of St. Joseph over its lodging to act as protector. It is indeed a model farm, but, as the sister explains to me, the lives of the Pénitentes are not too strenuous, since men are called in to do the rougher work. A doctor is also in the service of the convent, and indeed the community appears to have no objection to employing the other sex in what it may consider is its proper sphere. Another elderly Pénitente-she must certainly be over sixty and has a most evil countenance-acts as shoemaker, and her time is well occupied in resoling the stout shoes of the sisters, for there is much walking to be done in this country convent.

The sister who is my guide is quite pleased when I explain that my chief object in coming out to Notre-Dame de Refuge is to visit the Silent Sisters, otherwise known as the Sœurs Bernardines, who, though belonging to a Trappist Order, are in some sense an offshoot of and are largely supported by the Servantes de Marie.

She laughs with feminine amusement, rather as if I were a child clamouring for the pantomine, but she conducts me chattering all the way through a long, tunnel-like avenue of plane trees, whose branches are trained to meet above our heads. On either side are the fields with the produce of which the sisters supply the market of Bayonne, for they are really market gardeners upon a large scale. At the end of the avenue we pass through a little pine wood, and, opening a wicket gate between high box hedges, the sister pauses to explain to me that we must now talk only in whispers. Her own