Page:Impressions of Spain in 1866.djvu/19

Rh understand as Welsh or Gaelic. The saying among the Andalusians is, that the devil, who is no fool, spent seven years in Bilboa studying the Basque dialect, and learnt three words only ; and of their pronunciation they add, that the Basque write ^ Solomon,' and pronounce it ^ Nebuchad- nezzar ! ' Be this as it may, they are a contented, happy, prosperous, sober race, rarely leaving their own country, to which they are passionately attached, and deserving, by their independence and self-reliance, their name of ' Bayascogara ' — ' Somos bastantes.'

Passing through the baths of Certosa, the mineral springs of which are much frequented by the Spaniards in summer, our travellers came, after a four hours' drive, to Azpeitia, a walled town, with a fine church containing the 'pila,' or font, in which St. Ignatius was baptized. Here the good-natured cure. Padre G——, met them, and insisted on escorting them to the great college of Loyola, which is about a mile from the town. It has a fine Italian fagade, and is built in a fertile valley round the house of St. Ignatius, the college for missionary priests being on one side, and a florid, domed, circular marble church on the other. The whole is thoroughly Koman in its aspect, but not so beautiful as the Gothic buildings of the