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Rh and flanked by turrets at the foot of the rock, and a few loopholes and embrasures for cannon, pierced in the face of the cliff, are all that show that this is a French Gibraltar, capable of containing a garrison of 3000 men. Mauleon, the ancient capital of the little viscounty of Soule, that passed to Béarn, is prettily situated on the banks of the Saison, at the foot of a hill that is crowned by a castle reached by a bridge over the moat or chasm artificially cut in the rock. The huge roofs of the Hôtel d'Andurrain form the hat to a Renaissance building. Mauleon, after remaining stagnant for centuries, has begun to stir, and has become the centre of manufacture of the espadrillos, or shoe with canvas top and twisted rope sole, so much in use in the Pyrenees and in Spain. A dozen years ago the whole population of Mauleon was a thousand, and now two thousand men and five hundred women are engaged in the factories; for in Senegal the natives have all at once taken a fancy to the espadrillos, and the fashion is spreading from Senegal; there is no saying where it may end in wide Africa.

The workmen and women employed are not, however, Basques or Béarnais, but are Spaniards. Here is trade, and that a growing trade, in their midst, and the native population shrug their shoulders, leave it to foreigners to carry on, and depart for South America in shoals.