And beyond, to the
south-east, in early spring, the Pyrenean snows gleam bright, white
clouds above the clouds. As one turns southward, the mountains break
down into brown heather-hills, like Scottish grouse moors. The two
nearest, and seemingly highest, are the famous Rhune and Bayonette,
where lie, to this day, amid the heath and crags, hundreds of
unburied bones. For those great hills, skilfully fortified by Soult
before the passage of the Bidassoa, were stormed, yard by yard, by
Wellington's army in October 1813. That mighty deed must be read in
the pages of one who saw it with his own eyes, and fought there with
his own noble body, and even nobler spirit. It is not for me to tell
of victories, of which Sir William Napier has already told.
Towards that hill, and the Nivelle at its foot, the land slopes down,
still wooded and broken, bounded by a long sweep of clayey crumbling
cliff. The eye catches the fort of Secoa, at the mouth of the
Nivelle--once Wellington's sea-base for his great French campaign.
Then Fontarabia, at the Bidassoa mouth; and far off, the cove within
which lies the fatal citadel of St.
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