"Is this truly Spain, and am
I actually there?" the thing kept asking itself; and it asks itself
still, in terms that fit the accomplished fact.
II
SAN SEBASTIAN AND BEAUTIFUL BISCAY
Even at Irun, where we arrived in Spain from Bayonne, there began at
once to be temperamental differences which ought to have wrought against
my weird misgivings of my whereabouts. Only in Spain could a customs
inspector have felt of one tray in our trunks and then passed them all
with an air of such jaded aversion from an employ uncongenial to a
gentleman. Perhaps he was also loath to attempt any inquiry in that
Desperanto of French, English, and Spanish which raged around us; but
the porter to whom we had fallen, while I hesitated at our carriage door
whether I should summon him as _Mozo_ or _Usted,_ was master of that
_lingua franca_ and recovered us from the customs without question on
our part, and understood everything we could not, say. I like to think
he was a Basque, because I like the Basques so much for no reason that I
can think of. Their being always Carlists would certainly be no reason
with me, for I was never a Carlist; and perhaps my liking is only a
prejudice in their favor from the air of thrift and work which pervades
their beautiful province, or is an effect of their language as I first
saw it inscribed on the front of the Credit Lyonnais at Bayonne.
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