Eskualdunak

BASQUE PEOPLE -- Dorothy Canfield -- Harcourt, Brace ($2.50). Scholars have vexed themselves in vain to demoot the question of the Basques. Nobody knows for sure where they come from or what their queer language is. (Scholars classify it as non-Aryan; can not explain its origin.) Till the Basque tennis player Jean Borotra bounded on to U. S. sport pages many people had never even heard of them. There is an ageless Basque tradition, says Authoress Canfield, that Basque fishermen sailed every sum mer to the Grand Banks of Newfound land, long before Columbus "went too far and discovered America." Authoress Dorothy Canfield (Fisher) has spent much time among the Eskualdunak (Basque for Basque); the stories in her Basque People show them up at a very sympathetic rate. Basques sometimes err humanly, for give divinely. Noemi and Ganich both had a guilty secret when they married each other, were much relieved in mutual confession. Basques are fun-loving. When the old Punch-&-Judy man's theatre was wrecked by a storm the town council gave him relief before attending to more prosaic necessities. Basques are suspicious. When a beautiful wanton turned from her ways to the service of the poor, was finally murdered, not everybody believes in her sanctity. Basques are patriotic. A New England spinster came to the Basque country to discover her relations; to her surprise found she really belonged there herself.

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