Along with other accusations which the travellers have to lodge, such as that of a grossness of indecency without parallel in their experience, is hardly to be found one note of pleasure, except with regard to the charm of the Russian spring. It may be doubted if foreigners' opinions underwent much change until such writers as Turgenev compelled attention to the point of creating sympathy. But yet, if their tales be few and their enjoyment scanty, their records possess all the greater comparative value from the very fact of their fewness. That the pre-Christian Slav religion still remained in memory, if not in use, at Pskov as late as 1590 would probably never even have been guessed but for the remark of one Johann David Wunderer, who was there at that date, that he saw two stone statues there, one holding a cross, the other standing on a snake with a sword in one hand and fire in the other, idols, he was told, who were still known as "Ussladt" and "Corsa."[61] PART III THE MISUNDERSTOOD WEST Et si pur effecti quasi miraculosi vi trovasse, come ja vi sono, V. S. non l'imputi al scriptore, ma a la variatione et deità de la natura. Antonio da Beatis, 1518. It will have been noticed that the tourist was nothing if not unsympathetic. Yet nowhere does this stand out so sharply as in regard to the two countries farthest west. So far as the Spanish peninsula was concerned, a reason may be sought in the route usually chosen, a route which treated the peninsula as part of "European Europe" and implied seeing a little of it, seeing that little in a one-sided way, and mistaking it for an epitome of the whole. Starting from the southwest corner of France, the most direct way was taken for the Escorial and Madrid, whence the return journey led past Barcelona to Montserrat and so over the Pyrenees again to the southeast corner of France. The objective, of course, was the capital and the court. And it was taken for granted, here as elsewhere, that the other chief objects of interest were the towns, which claimed an even greater proportion of attention than in other countries, inasmuch as the hardships of travel in Spain were more trying to a foreigner than those experienced elsewhere, and his mental energies were often, in consequence, the less free for observation in Spain as long as he kept on the move. Now it unfortunately happened that the seamy side of Spanish life thrust itself to the front in undue proportion in the towns. Moreover, the French districts which lay nearest to Spain were those whose characteristics contrasted most favourably as against those of the Spanish districts that lay nearest to France. The liveliness and gaiety of the Bayonnais, playing bowls all day on the carefully levelled, sanded court between his house and the street, was thrown into relief by the sternness of the Pyrenees and the poverty and gloom of the Vizcaino.