PAGE ITALICA AND TRIANA THE THE MUSICIANS AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 66 AFRICA BEGINS AT THE PYRENEES "-UNLIKE THE REST OF EUROPE LITTLE 66 AFRICA The FRICA begins at the Pyrenees." proverb is a French one, and must therefore be taken with some modifications. For our sprightly neighbours are apt to claim a monopoly of culture and refinement for themselves, and, like the Chinese, to regard other nations as "outer barbarians." Fixing the southern limits of civilisation at the Pyrenees, they would proceed to define it as bounded by the English Channel on the north, the Rhine on the east, and the Bay of Biscay on the west. But, after making all due allowance for national prejudice and self-conceit, the epigram contains a large measure of truth. expresses with tolerable accuracy the first impressions of the traveller in Spain. It For on crossing the Pyrenees everything is so new and strange that the tourist seems to have passed into a new Elsewhere the characteristic differences one another by almost imperceptible The frontier between France and Belgium, Germany or Switzerland may be crossed with little or nothing to remind the traveller that he continent rather than a new country. of neighbouring nations melt into degrees. |