That soon had drunk thy royal blood had I not ventured mine, etc. Then, a little later, a family friend who had been an ensign in the Light Division in July 1813, used to make our boyish pulses dance with his tales of the week’s fighting in and round Roncesvalles, when Soult was driven over the Pyrenees and Spain was freed. And again, later, came the tale of Taillefer, the Conqueror’s minstrel, riding before the line at the battle of Hastings, tossing his sword in the air, and chanting the “Song of Roland,” and of the “Peers who fell at Roncesvalles.” So you will believe, sir, that my first thought when I got to Biarritz, with the Pyrenees in full view less than twenty miles off, was, “Now I shall see the pass where Charlemagne’s peers, and five hundred British soldiers as brave as any paladin of them all, had fought and died.” The holidays galloped, and one day only was left, when at our morning conference I found that my companions were bent on Fontarabia and San Sebastian, and assured me we could combine the three, as Roncesvalles, they heard, was close to Fontarabia. Then my faith in Sir Walter--combined, I fear, with my defective training in geography--led me astray, for had he not written in the battle-canto of Marmion:-- Oh, for one blast of that dread horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne, That to King Charles did come, When Roland brave, and Oliver, And every Paladin and Peer, At Roncesvalles died, etc. Now, of course, if Charlemagne could hear the horn of Roland on the top of the pass where he turned back, “borne on Fontarabian echoes,” then Fontarabia must be at the foot of the pass, where Roland and the rear-guard were surrounded and fighting for their lives. In a weak moment I agreed to Fontarabia and San Sebastian, and so shall most likely never see Roncesvalles. It is fourteen miles distant as the crow flies, or thereabouts; and I warn your readers that the three can’t be done in one long day from Biarritz.