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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75369 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PYRENEES
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+    PARIS
+    MARIE ANTOINETTE
+    EMMANUEL BURDEN, MERCHANT
+    A CHANGE IN THE CABINET
+    HILLS AND THE SEA
+    ON NOTHING AND KINDRED SUBJECTS
+    ON EVERYTHING
+    ON SOMETHING
+    FIRST AND LAST
+    THIS AND THAT AND THE OTHER
+    ON
+    A PICKED COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE GATE OF THE ROUSILLON
+
+_H. Belloc, del._]
+
+
+
+
+                               THE PYRENEES
+
+                                    BY
+                                H. BELLOC
+
+                          WITH NUMEROUS SKETCHES
+                              BY THE AUTHOR
+                           AND TWENTY-TWO MAPS
+
+                              FOURTH EDITION
+                            WITH A NEW PREFACE
+
+                              [Illustration]
+
+                            METHUEN & CO. LTD.
+                           36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+                                  LONDON
+
+            _First Published (Demy 8vo)_   _June 3rd 1909_
+            _Second Edition_               _June     1916_
+            _Third Edition (Crown 8vo)_    _April    1923_
+            _Fourth Edition (Crown 8vo)_            _1928_
+
+                         PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+GILBERT MOORHEAD
+
+IN PIOUS MEMORY OF PAMPLONA, ELIZONDO, THE CANON WHO SHOT QUAILS WITH A
+WALKING-STICK, THE IGNORANT HIERARCH, THE CHOCOLATE OF THE AGED WOMAN,
+THE ONE-EYED HORSE OF THE PEÑA BLANCA, THE MIRACULOUS BRIDGE, AND THE
+UNHOLY VISION OF ST. GIRONS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The only object of this book is to provide, for those who desire to do
+as I have done in the Pyrenees, a general knowledge of the mountains in
+which they propose to travel.
+
+I have paid particular attention to make clear those things which I
+myself only learned slowly during several journeys and after much
+reading, and which I would like to have been told before I first set
+out. I could not pretend within the limits of this book, or with such an
+object in view, to write anything in the nature of a Guide, and indeed
+there are plenty of books of that sort from which one can learn most
+that is necessary to ordinary travel upon the frontier of France and
+Spain; but I proposed when I began these few pages to set down what a man
+might not find in such books: as—what he should expect in certain inns,
+by what track he might best see certain districts, what difficulties he
+was to expect upon the crest of the mountains, how long a time crossings
+apparently short might take him, what the least kit was which he could
+carry into the hills, how he had best camp and find his way and the rest,
+what maps were at his disposal, the advantages of each map, its defects,
+and so forth. The little of general matter which I have admitted into my
+pages—a dissertation upon the physical nature of the chain, and a shorter
+division upon its political character—I have strictly limited to what
+I thought necessary to that general understanding of a mountain without
+which travel upon it would be a poor pleasure indeed.
+
+If I have admitted such petty details as the times of trains, and the
+cost of a journey from London, it is because I have found those petty
+details to be of the first importance to myself, as indeed they must be
+to all those who have but little leisure. I have in everything attempted
+to set down only that which would be really useful to a man on foot
+or driving in that country, and only that which he could not easily
+obtain in other books. Thus I have carefully set down directions as
+minute as possible for finding particular crossings and camping grounds,
+for the finding of which the ordinary Guide Book is of no service. My
+chief regret is that the book will necessarily be too bulky to carry in
+the pocket; for it is meant to be not so much a lively as an accurate
+companion to the general exploration of those high hills which have given
+me so much delight.
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
+
+This third edition of my book on the Pyrenees necessarily suffers
+somewhat from the fact that it is published after the interval of the
+Great War.
+
+The book in its original form was written in the course of 1908-09, and
+contained a number of particular details on prices, etc., which the war
+has completely changed. These I have had to revise _only approximately_,
+for the value of the franc still fluctuates violently. But the present
+conditions of currency in Europe are not permanent. In other matters the
+book is as applicable to the present condition of the Pyrenees as it was
+to that thirteen or fourteen years ago. The road system is the same,
+and though one or two of the inns may have changed hands, the account
+of these I give holds in the main. There have been no new maps issued,
+either, since the date on which the book was written. I have not added
+anything on the present system of passports, because that also presumably
+will be out of date in a short time; but I may mention that at the moment
+of writing these lines (September, 1922), it is advisable to have one’s
+passport _viséd_ to Spain before visiting the mountains. Even if the
+reader has no intention of crossing the frontier he may be compelled to
+do so under stress of weather, or he may easily do so by error in the
+confusion of the higher valleys, and in the first Spanish town he comes
+to his passport is sure to be demanded.
+
+The train service differs little now from what it was before the war.
+The night and day services and the average number of hours required for
+approaching the mountains from Paris or London, are again much what they
+were fourteen years ago.
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
+
+I write this Preface to the Fourth Edition after five years.
+
+My last note upon this book was written, as the reader will see, for the
+Third Edition, in September, 1922. These lines are written in November,
+1927.
+
+When I wrote my Preface to the Third Edition, Europe, its currencies, and
+the rest, were still under the heavy disturbances of the Great War. But
+things are now more settled, notably currencies. Also a few more years of
+peace have given both French and Spaniards the opportunity for building
+new roads, and for extending the railway system.
+
+In the notes I am about to add here I ought to make it clear that I
+am writing principally by information rather than by direct personal
+experience, and anyone who finds that some point ought to be corrected or
+something added, and who will communicate with the publishers, or with
+myself care of the publishers, will be doing the future readers of this
+book a great service. I am sure to be making some mistakes, and the less
+there are in any future edition the better.
+
+I humbly beg the reader to remember that the book was written in the old
+days of peace, “before ever the sons of Achaia came to the land.” It
+was also written when I was a young man and could go over any number of
+miles on foot in any weather and over pretty well anything—even the worst
+steeps of the Canal Roya, though I have no claim to climbing. To-day I
+can do none of these things, and have to go by hearsay. I propose to
+divide what I have to say into (1) general remarks, (2) additions to
+the road system, (3) the (comparatively slight) changes in the railroad
+system (including the change in the value of money and present prices of
+tickets), (4) changes in inns (here I shall have to be very tentative,
+for I have to go mainly by reports), and (5) maps.
+
+
+(1) GENERAL
+
+The political situation has so developed that it is no longer advisable,
+as I formerly said, but _necessary_ to have one’s passport _viséd_ for
+Spain before starting for the Pyrenees, even if one has no intention of
+crossing the frontier. For, as I said when the book was written, there
+are occasions when the traveller on foot in the mountains may cross
+the frontier unwittingly, and have to deal with the authorities on the
+farther side. To this must be added the consideration that a stricter
+central government in Spain, coupled with occasional plots against
+it, has made the frontier authorities particularly vigilant. They may
+take from a traveller anything which looks like an offensive weapon—an
+acquaintance of mine was deprived, for instance, of a very large stick,
+and he might have fared worse with a very large knife. It is well to
+remember that when you enter Spain by this frontier you are coming in
+by its most remote, least peopled, and most difficult area, and that
+one must have nothing to explain if one can help it. I mean, of course,
+when you enter over the main range; for the two main roads and railways
+at either end of the chain by the sea-coasts of the Atlantic and the
+Mediterranean are common international highways.
+
+Another point to remember, which is a small one but now and then, though
+very rarely, important to the traveller, is that the variation in the
+compass has changed since this book was written. It was written twenty
+years ago, and was published nearly nineteen years ago, and since then
+the variation of the compass has lessened (for this part of the world)
+by something like three degrees. The traveller must further remember
+that (though it is not very strictly enforced) there is a new law in
+France both for travellers proposing to reside a certain time in the
+country and (this is strictly enforced) a daily tax for travellers using
+foreign motor-cars in the country; while all the Spanish corresponding
+regulations have been tightened up. The wise thing to do, therefore, if
+you mean to spend more than a fortnight in these hills on either side
+of the border, is to inform yourself thoroughly upon arrival of what
+is required of you. You can do it in France easily enough; but as on
+the Spanish side the main towns are a long way from the range, you will
+do well, if you intend to spend any number of days to the south of the
+frontier, to find out at the Spanish Consulate in London or at your
+nearest large town what formalities may be needed.
+
+On the effect of the change in prices I deal elsewhere. But there are two
+things to be remembered here, with one of which most people are familiar,
+but the other of which most people have not as yet appreciated. The first
+is that on the French as on the Spanish side, but much more on the French
+side than on the Spanish, the old unit of currency does not mean, in
+gold, what it meant when this book was written.
+
+In France it means _in gold_ only _one-fifth_ at the present apparently
+stabilized rate of what it meant when I first put these pages together.
+We are on a gold basis in England. A franc used, before the war, to be
+nearly 10_d._ It is to-day almost exactly 2_d._ On the Spanish side the
+peseta fluctuates somewhat, but at the moment of writing it is well below
+thirty (twenty-eight odd), which means that the peseta, once nominally
+equal to the franc, is between 8_d._ and 9_d._, or rather more than four
+times the present value of the franc.
+
+But the second point, which is much less generally appreciated, is even
+more important to retain. _Prices in gold have changed._ There are all
+sorts of views as to the real amount of the change; but I think we are
+not very far wrong in basing any calculation of expense upon a basis of
+doubling. At any rate, if you do that you will not be disappointed. The
+gold franc or gold peseta buys in 1927 more than half as much, but not
+much more than half as much, as it did before the war. In other words,
+the franc to-day is not in practice half of a fifth, that is, one-tenth,
+of what it was before the war, nor is the peseta in practice as little as
+fourpence halfpenny compared with prices before the war. You get more for
+your money than such a rough rule of thumb would warrant. But remember
+that you are getting things cheaper than the strict gold basis would
+allow. For instance, I know of one particular inn on the French side of
+the frontier, high up in the valleys (it is a very good one and a typical
+one), where they charge for food, including wine, and lodging, fifty to
+sixty francs a day. You would not have got the same thing for five or six
+francs in 1914; but you would have got it for seven or eight. My object
+in emphasizing this is to prevent the traveller from thinking that under
+modern conditions he is being bled. It is rather the other way. He is
+getting things somewhat cheaper still in these mountains than world
+prices would warrant. He must expect to pay on the very different scale I
+have indicated.
+
+Lastly, let me add in connexion with prices that, for a variety of
+reasons which it would take too long to go into, he must expect a very
+distinct rise in general expenses as measured in English exchange when he
+passes from French into Spanish territory. He must allow for something
+like an increase of a third, and perhaps in the larger towns of a half of
+what he pays on the French side.
+
+Further, when he is looking for anything like luxury, even in the
+humblest sense of that term, he must be prepared to pay (e.g. for foreign
+wines, or for well-appointed travel by car) nearly double on the Spanish
+side what he would have to pay on the French.
+
+The traveller should remember that there has been a very great expansion
+of good roads on the Spanish side compared with what there was when this
+book was written, and with that has gone an almost universal system of
+motor-buses, which have quite changed travel on the southern side of the
+range. He will do well always to ask before trying to go by the slow and
+few trains what the motor-bus services are. Thus, in the old days when
+this book was written, a man had either to go on foot or by slow horse
+vehicles across Roncesvalles to Pamplona. To-day there is a first-rate
+service of rapid motor-buses, and he will find that to be the case pretty
+well everywhere between the Mediterranean end and the Atlantic.
+
+
+(2) ROADS
+
+In the matter of new roads a great deal has been done since this book
+was written. First and most important, one can go by a good road now
+over the Bonaigua. I regret it, but so it is. The road does not, indeed,
+follow the old track of adventure from the Noguera to the Upper Garonne.
+It goes somewhat to the north of it. But it constitutes, what did not
+before exist, a proper crossing supplementary to the two roads of Sallent
+and Jaca. It leads down through the hitherto impassable centre of the
+range to Lerida, and makes of the Val d’Aran, which used to be a most
+secluded pocket, a thoroughfare.
+
+Next, there is now a road which a motor car can follow from Seo de Urgel
+to Andorra the Old. In my time no wheeled vehicle had entered Andorra.
+They used to boast also that no man had ever been put to death there by
+process of law. I hope that progress has not changed that.
+
+Next note that there is a road for motors now through Bourg Madame,
+through Puigcerdá to Seo, and so down into Spain, and further a
+first-class road from Puigcerdá to Barcelona over the Pass by Ripoll,
+which I think did not exist when I was a younger man. The main road from
+Burguete to Pamplona, cutting off the great corner at Aoiz and passing
+through Erro and Larrasoaña, has long been completed; it is now served by
+a good service of motor-buses.
+
+Of secondary roads that up the valley of Salazar reaches as far north
+as Izalzu; that up the valley of Roncal as far as Uztarroz. So if you
+are crossing the Basque ridge anywhere between St. Jean Pied de Port and
+Tardets you will find the beginning of a road on the southern side at
+either of these points.
+
+On the French side there are few important changes. I am afraid that the
+very difficult road overhanging the precipices between Argelès and Larunz
+has not been made less difficult. It is well called Mount Ugly. If you
+care for the experience, it is exciting enough. Nothing, I fear, could
+make this road easy without a high parapet at its worst stretch; and that
+might be a danger of a new kind, by giving the driver too much confidence.
+
+There is some secondary extension of the road beyond Gavarnie up to the
+frontier. I see it marked: I have not myself tried it. You can get up
+from Tardets nowadays by a road both to Ste. Engrace and Larrau, and
+there is something of a road up the Arette from Aramitz. For the rest,
+I believe there is on the French side no change, but developments were
+proposed some little time ago, and if there have been any quite recent
+changes which any of my readers can acquaint me with they will oblige me
+by mentioning them for a further edition.
+
+
+(3) RAILROADS
+
+The railroad system is, for the practical purposes of travel, what it was
+when I wrote the book so many years ago. But we are on the eve of very
+important changes. One cannot yet travel by train under the Pass of the
+Somport and so directly to Saragossa from Toulouse or Bordeaux. But the
+tunnel has long been completed, the rails are being laid—indeed, perhaps
+at the moment of writing they may be already in position. I cannot find
+out from the authorities when they think the first train will go through.
+Perhaps they do not know themselves. It is amusing to hear that the
+tunnel is now continually used by foot-passengers, who are escorted in
+a gang and who (so I am assured) have their passports examined in the
+bowels of the earth, some thousands of feet below the summit of the main
+ridge.
+
+The railway from Ax over the Hospitalet is in a more backward
+state—hardly more than surveyed—and I know not when it is designed to
+open. On the other hand, the through railway by the Cerdagne is now
+virtually completed; there are only a few hundred yards to be finished;
+one still has to go in a vehicle or walk from Puigcerdá station to Bourg
+Madame, a matter of a mile or so; but whenever the authorities choose one
+can have through traffic through this very fine piece of scenery round
+from Perpignan to Ripoll and Barcelona.
+
+I append what may be of use, though of course it is a changeable thing,
+a note on the main trains for approaching the Pyrenees as the time-table
+now stands, with the prices under the new currency and their equivalents
+in English money; this time-table changes of course, and inquiry must
+always be made, but the main trains (e.g. the Sud Express) are much the
+same year after year.
+
+The three main lines of approach to the Pyrenees remain what they were
+when this book was written, the western one by Bordeaux, the central one
+by Toulouse, the eastern one by Lyons, Nîmes, and Perpignan. Of these the
+first is the most rapid; and of the two routes to Bordeaux—the State Line
+and the Orleans Line—the latter is the quicker. The day train leaves at
+8.8 in the morning from the Quai d’Orsay, and gets you to Pau, which is
+the jumping-off place for the Western Pyrenees, at 10.45 at night. The
+distance is a little over five hundred miles; the cost, with the franc
+apparently stabilized at 124 at the time of writing, is just over 250
+francs second class, just over 370 francs first class, and not quite 165
+third class, that is, about £1 7_s._ 6_d._ to £1 8_s._ English third
+class from Paris, about £2 2_s._ second class, and about £3 2_s._ first
+class. If you are making a very short stay in the Pyrenees it may pay
+you to take a return ticket, the duration of which varies on the French
+lines with the length of your journey. In this case it would give you
+about ten days, counting the day on which you leave Paris. There are all
+sorts of arrangements on the French lines for round trip tickets, family
+tickets, etc., at reduced prices, but on these one must get information
+specially from an agency or the French tourist office in London or the
+main stations in Paris.
+
+Going first class and paying a supplementary price of about £1 4_s._ to
+£1 5_s._ and changing at Dax, into an ordinary first class, one can go
+from Paris by the Sud Express leaving the Quai d’Orsay at 10 a.m. and get
+to Pau at 8.30 in the evening.
+
+If you are making for the extreme west of the range at St. Jean Pied de
+Port, the same trains get you, the one to Bayonne, where you must sleep,
+at 9.45 at night, and the other, the Sud Express, without changing, at
+7.45 p.m.
+
+Next morning there is a train on at 8, and another at 11.30, for St.
+Jean, the first getting in at 9.45, the other at 1.15. The distance from
+Bayonne to Paris is about 485 miles, and the cost therefore, rather less
+to Pau, being 350 francs (about) first class, 235 or 236 second class,
+and 154 third class.
+
+The night trains by this line are the 7.10 (which has no third class),
+which gets you to Pau at 7.20 the next morning; there is a luxury train
+with supplementary payments for sleeping berth which gets you there no
+earlier, but has the advantage of giving you time to dine in Paris. It
+does not start till 8.40; however, it costs nearly £2 more than the first
+class fare to Pau. Another night train with third classes in it starts at
+9.50, gets you to Bordeaux at 7 in the morning (where you have nearly
+half an hour for coffee) and to Pau for lunch just after noon.
+
+The Central Line leading to Toulouse is a very slow one because it has to
+go over the central mountains of France. You start from the Quai d’Orsay
+also at 10.20 in the morning, and you do not get to Toulouse till just on
+10.30 at night. The fares are 142 francs third class, 218 second class,
+and 324 first class.
+
+The two night trains are, one at 7.50, the other at 9.15—the latter with
+sleepers if required; the first gets into Toulouse at 8.30 the next
+morning, the other at 9.15.
+
+From Toulouse you have a choice of three ways: to the Central Pyrenees,
+to the Valley of the Ariège and Ax, which is to the west, and to Narbonne
+and so to Perpignan on the Mediterranean at the extreme east of the range.
+
+The first is a distance of about 100 miles to Tarbes, or another 12 miles
+on to Lourdes.
+
+The second, about 75 miles, but with only one fast train a day, a morning
+one, at 9, getting you to Ax at 11.40, in time for lunch; while the third
+one is the main through line with plenty of trains, but a distance of 125
+miles. On the other hand, it has the fastest trains. For instance, you
+can leave Toulouse at 9.30 and be in Perpignan by 1.30.
+
+As for the line by Lyons, it is a long way round and not to be taken
+unless you want to see anything on the way. On the other hand, it has
+the best service of fast trains. The best morning train is the 9 o’clock
+from P.L.M. station in Paris, which gets you to Avignon at 7.45 in the
+evening, and there you must sleep, going on next morning to Perpignan.
+You usually have to change at Tarascon. It is the better part of two
+days, for save in the case of one train, there is another change at
+Narbonne. There is no need to dwell on this line, as no one would take
+it for the Pyrenees unless they were visiting other places on the way,
+such as Nîmes or Narbonne. The cost also is about thirty per cent greater
+than by the more direct line.
+
+
+(4) INNS
+
+The little I have to say on the changes in the inns since the first
+edition of this book was published must be very tentative, as I have to
+depend upon reports of others, save for a certain amount of recent travel
+at the two ends of the range. Most of the old recommendations still
+stand. Gabas is what it always was, and the Golden Lion of Perpignan as
+admirable as it has been for these thirty years and more. The inn at
+Burguete and that of Val Carlos have been somewhat modernized since the
+new motor-bus service began, but they are still excellent. An inn I did
+not mention in the first edition on the Spanish side of the range, in
+Catalonia, is that of Ribas Prattes, standing over the torrent, and one
+where I, at least, have always been very comfortable. Since the opening
+of the new road and railway over the Sierra del Cadi it has become
+unfortunately rather famous, and it is not cheap; but the people treat
+you charmingly, and that is a great thing.
+
+At Bourg Madame I have quite recently found myself very comfortable
+at Salvat. I am told that the principal inn at Andorra is rather more
+sophisticated since the motor road has been built to the town, but is
+still as good as it was in the old days. Of course the cooking and
+everything else is Catalan; and I am talking from hearsay, as I have not
+been to Andorra for many years.
+
+As you stop at Bayonne on your way you will find good meals at the Grand
+Brasserie facing the end of the bridge, while the hotel for sleeping is
+the Capagorry; at least that is my favourite, though there is also the
+rather more expensive Grand Hotel.
+
+Nearly all the places on which I have made inquiries seem to have
+maintained the old service intact. You still have the Mur in Jaca, and
+the more primitive but hospitable inn of Canfranc; and the little inn
+at Urdos, where I stopped some years ago, is passable enough, though I
+still recommend as a base the Hotel de la Poste lower down the valley at
+Bédous. By the way, if you do stop at Urdos, beware of the drinking water
+which for some reason is not very safe—or was not.
+
+Before leaving these very brief notes I should like to emphasize again
+for travellers the change in prices. On the whole, they are lower,
+reckoning the real purchasing value of money, than they were in the old
+days.
+
+Thus, the place I know best, and where I have stopped most often, is
+charging now as a regular _pension_ per day in francs including wine,
+and counting in francs, six times what it charged before the war. Now
+the nominal value of the franc in gold is only a fifth of what it was
+before the war, and the purchasing power of gold is very nearly half,
+so a multiple of six means that you are getting your board and lodging
+really cheaper than you did in 1913; but I know it is difficult to
+persuade people of this, just as it is difficult to persuade people in
+England that railway fares and postage at home are really less than they
+were before the war. At any rate, those who may have had experience
+of the Pyrenees before the war may roughly multiply by six for the
+present price, at least in modest places; and in some cases by less.
+Of course in the very large hotels in places like Bagnères you may be
+charged anything. But they are places which I never go to and on which I
+therefore can give no advice.
+
+It remains, by the way, as true as ever that on the French side of the
+range you must always ask the price of your room before taking it, and on
+the Spanish side be quite clear as to whether the price quoted is for the
+room and all the day’s meals including wine (as is the national custom)
+or for only a part. On both sides of the frontier service is usually
+included in the bill nowadays at 10 per cent on the total, and it is
+foolish to pay anything more.
+
+
+(5) MAPS
+
+The war interfered with map-making in France so much that recovery is
+only beginning, and the revision of the main surveys is still in arrears.
+What I have said, however, in this book still stands for the most part.
+
+I append a list of the maps recommended, with their prices, to be
+obtained from Messrs Sifton, Praed & Co., The Map House, 67, St. James’s
+Street, S.W. 1.
+
+With regard to this list I would make the following comment:
+
+(1) This is the standard French ordnance map, the one most necessary for
+the pedestrian, especially if he is dealing only with a limited area.
+
+(2) This is the map for motoring and road work.
+
+(3) This is the map for climbers, but unfortunately the first three
+sheets have been allowed to go out of print. I hear that there is some
+hope of a reprint being made, and on my next visit to the publishers I
+will urge them to advance it. The map was made years ago for Messrs.
+Barrere, and is very useful on account of its numerous contours.
+
+(4) is to be reckoned with (3).
+
+(5) This is the general map for a conspectus of the whole range.
+
+(6) I have not seen this map, but it can be obtained from the firm
+mentioned above. It is I believe detailed and exceedingly useful, but as
+yet only applies to this small section of the mountain.
+
+(7) The Michelin map is a motoring map, but contains a great deal of
+useful information, and is very accurate as to motoring roads.
+
+(8) The Taride is a much rougher map, with general indications; not so
+accurate as the Michelin, but useful for long tours.
+
+With this said I append the list.
+
+  (1) 1/100,000 France, covering the Pyrenees in 27 sheets. Price
+      1_s._ per sheet unmounted; mounted on cloth to fold for the
+      pocket, 2_s._ 6_d._ per sheet.
+
+  (2) 1/200,000 France. 7 sheets. Price, 2_s._ each unmounted;
+      mounted on cloth to fold, 4_s._ 6_d._ each. Sheet 69 mounted
+      on cloth to fold, 4_s._
+
+  (3) Schrader’s map of the Pyrenees Centrales par F. Schrader.
+      Sheets 4, 5, 6 only available. The three northern sheets 1,
+      2, 3 are out of print.
+
+  (4) Schrader’s map “Massif de Gavarnie et du Mont Perdu,” Scale
+      1/2000. Paper, folded in cover. Price, 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+  (5) Touring Club de France. Scale 1/400,000. Two sheets cover
+      the whole of the Pyrenees. Mounted on cloth to fold for the
+      pocket, 5_s._ each.
+
+  (6) Mapa Militar de Espana. Sheet 86 and part of 62. Seo de Urgel.
+      This is the only sheet published so far of the Pyrenees.
+      Price, 2_s._ 6_d._ unmounted; mounted on cloth to fold, 4_s._
+      6_d._
+
+  (7) Carte Routière Michelin. Scale 1/200,000. Two sheets cover
+      the whole of the Pyrenees on the French side. Mounted to fold,
+      4_s._ each.
+
+  (8) Taride Road Maps. Scale 4 miles to 1 inch. Two sheets cover
+      the whole of the Pyrenees. Paper, folded in cover, 2_s._ each.
+      Mounted on cloth to fold, 5_s._ each.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAP.                                                      PAGE
+
+       I. THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE PYRENEES                     1
+
+      II. THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE PYRENEES                36
+
+     III. MAPS                                                   59
+
+      IV. THE ROAD SYSTEM OF THE PYRENEES                        79
+
+       V. TRAVEL ON FOOT IN THE PYRENEES                        106
+
+      VI. THE SEPARATE DISTRICTS OF THE PYRENEES                144
+
+              i. The Basque Valleys                             145
+
+              ii. The Four Valleys (Béarn and Aragon)           155
+
+             iii. Sobrarbe                                      167
+
+              iv. The Tarbes Valleys and Luchon                 179
+
+               v. Andorra and the Catalan Valleys               187
+
+              vi. Cerdagne                                      199
+
+             vii. The Tet and Ariège                            204
+
+            viii. The Canigou                                   210
+
+     VII. INNS OF THE PYRENEES                                  217
+
+    VIII. THE APPROACHES TO THE PYRENEES                        234
+
+          INDEX                                                 239
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF MAPS
+
+
+                                                        FACING PAGE
+
+    GENERAL SKETCH MAP OF THE PYRENEES                            1
+
+    THE BASQUE VALLEYS                                          154
+
+    THE FOUR VALLEYS                                            166
+
+    THE PASSAGE OVER THE COL DE LA CRUZ AND THE COL DE GISTAIN  174
+
+    THE SOBRARBE                                                178
+
+    THE TARBES VALLEYS AND LUCHON                               186
+
+    THE CATALAN VALLEYS AND ANDORRA                             198
+
+    THE CERDAGNE                                                202
+
+    THE ARIÈGE AND TET VALLEYS                                  208
+
+    THE CANIGOU                                                 216
+
+    THE GATE OF THE ROUSSILLON                        _Frontispiece_
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL SKETCH MAP OF THE PYRENEES]
+
+
+
+
+THE PYRENEES
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE PYRENEES
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+To use for travel or for pleasure a great mountain system, the first
+thing necessary is to understand its structure and its plan; to this
+understanding must next be added an understanding of its appearance,
+climate, soil, and, as it were, habits, all of which lend it a character
+peculiar to itself.
+
+These two approaches to the comprehension of a mountain system may be
+called the approaches to its physical nature; and when one has the
+elements of that nature clearly seized, one is the better able to
+comprehend the human incidents attached to it.
+
+From an appreciation of this physical basis one must next proceed to a
+general view of the history of the district—if it has a history—and of
+the modern political character resulting from it. At the root of this
+will be found the original groups or communities which have remained
+unchanged in Western Europe throughout all recorded time. These groups
+are sometimes distinguishable by language, more often by character.
+Changes of philosophy profoundly affect them; changes of economic
+circumstance, though affecting them far less, do something to render the
+problem of their continuity complex: but upon an acquaintance with the
+living men concerned, it is always possible to distinguish where the
+boundaries of a country-side are set; and the permanence of such limits
+in European life is the chief lesson a deep knowledge of any district
+conveys.
+
+The recorded history of the inhabitants lends to these hills their only
+full meaning for the human being that visits them to-day; nor does anyone
+know, nor half know, any country-side of Europe unless he possesses not
+only its physical appearance and its present habitation, but the elements
+of its past.
+
+These things established, one can turn to the details of travel and
+explain the communications, the difficulties, and the opportunities
+attaching to various lines of travel. In the case of a mountain range,
+the greater part of this last will, of course, for modern Englishmen,
+consist in some account of wilder travel upon foot, and the sense of
+exploration and of discovery which the district affords.
+
+Such are the lines to be followed in this book, and, first, I will begin
+by laying down the plan and contours of the Pyrenees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first impression reached by modern and educated men when they
+consider a mountain system is one over-simple. This over-simplicity
+is the necessary result of our present forms of elementary education,
+and has been well put by some financial vulgarian or other (with the
+intention of praise) when he called it “Thinking in Maps,” or, “Thinking
+Imperially”; for the maps in a man’s head when he first approaches a new
+range are the maps of the schoolroom.
+
+Thus one sees the Sierra Nevada in California as one line, the Cascade
+Range as another parallel to it. The Alps and the Himalayas alike arrange
+themselves into simple curves, arcs of a circle with a great river
+for the cord. The Atlas is a straight line cutting off the northern
+projection of Africa, the Apennines are a straight line running down the
+centre of Italy. Such are the first geographic elements present in the
+mind.
+
+The next impression, however, the impression gathered in actual travel,
+or in a detailed study, is one of mere confusion, a confusion the more
+hopeless on account of the false simplicity of the original premise.
+Deductions from that premise are perpetually at variance with the
+observed facts of travel or of study, the exceptions become so numerous
+as to swamp the rule, and an original misconception upon the main
+character of the chain prevents a new and more accurate synthesis of
+its general aspect. Thus, the conception of the Cascade Range upon the
+Pacific Coast of the United States as parallel and separate from the
+Sierras, confuses one’s view of all the district round Shasta, and of
+all the watersheds south of the Mohave where the two systems merge; or
+again, one who has only thought of the Alps as a mere arc of a circle
+misconceives, and is bewildered by the nature, the appearance, and the
+whole history of the great re-entrant angles of the Val d’Aosta with
+its Gallic influences; the anomaly of the Adige Valley will not permit
+him to explain its political fortunes, and the outlying arms which have
+preserved the independence of Swiss institutions upon the southern slope
+will not fall into his view of the mountains.
+
+This confusion, I say, is not due so much to the multitude of detail as
+to the permanent effect of an original strong and over-simple conception
+remaining in the mind as it continues to accumulate increasing but
+sporadic knowledge of a particular district; and it is a confusion in
+which those who have formed such an erroneous conception commonly remain.
+
+In order to avoid such confusion and to allow one’s increasing knowledge
+a frame wherein to fit, it is essential to grasp in one scheme the few
+elementary lines which underlie a mountain system, and such a scheme will
+be a trifle more complex than the too simple scheme usually presented,
+but once one has it one can appreciate the place of every irregularity in
+the structure of the whole chain of hills.
+
+In the case of the Pyrenees the common error of too great simplicity
+may be easily stated. These mountains are regarded as a wall separating
+France from Spain, and running direct from sea to sea. Such an aspect
+of the range will more and more confuse the traveller and reader the
+more he studies the actual shape of the valleys. Another picture should
+occupy the mind, and it will presently be seen that with this picture
+permanently fixed as a framework for the whole system, an increased
+knowledge of its details does but expand the sense of unity originally
+conveyed. The Pyrenees must not be regarded as a sharp heaped ridge
+forming a single watershed between the plains of Gaul and those of
+Northern Spain, and running east and west from the Atlantic to the
+Mediterranean. They form a system, the watershed of which does not
+exactly stretch from one sea to the other. The axis of it does not
+consist of one line; the general direction is not due east. The axis of
+the Pyrenean chain is built up of two main lines, of approximately equal
+length: the one running south of east from a point at some distance from
+the Atlantic, the other north of west from a point right on the shores of
+the Mediterranean. These two lines do not meet. They miss by over eight
+miles, and the gap between them is joined by a low saddle.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN A.]
+
+The first of these lines starts from a point (Mount Urtioga) 25 miles
+south of the corner made by the Bay of Biscay at Irun, and some 15 miles
+west of its meridian; it runs about 9° 15′ south of east to the peak
+called Sabouredo, the last of the Maladetta group, the direct distance
+from which to Mount Urtioga is precisely 200 kilometres, or 124 miles.
+The second runs from Cape Cerberus on the Mediterranean to a peak called
+the Pic-de-l’homme, which stands a trifle over 12 kilometres, or 7¾
+miles, north of the Sabouredo; its direction is 9° 25′ north of west, and
+the total length of this second line is just over 190 kilometres, or 117
+miles.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN B.]
+
+The simplest scheme, then, in which we can regard the Pyrenees, is as a
+system of not quite parallel lines of equal length, running one towards
+the other, but missing by not quite 8 miles; the gap or “fault” joined by
+a zigzag saddle on the watershed. The westernmost of these lines splits
+into several branches before it reaches the Atlantic, so that the true
+western end of the chain lies well to the south and east of that ocean
+(at Mount Urtioga); the other starts from, and forms a projection in, the
+Mediterranean. The full distance as the crow flies from Mount Urtioga
+to Cape Cerberus upon the Mediterranean is 390 kilometres, that is 241
+miles. And there is but 10 kilometres, or 6½ miles, difference in length
+between the two halves of the chain.
+
+If U be the point called Mount Urtioga, S the Sabouredo, L the
+Pic-de-l’homme, and C Cape Cerberus, these two lines and the gap between
+them will lie precisely as in this plan.
+
+With this main guide by which to judge the structure of the chain, all
+details will be found to fit in, and the two first variations which we
+must superimpose upon so general a view, are to be found in the “step” or
+“corner” formed by the watershed round the Pic d’Anie. The southward turn
+of the range is here not gradual but sharp, and the Somport, the pass at
+the head of the Val d’Aspe, lies almost a day’s going below the Port St.
+Engrace, which is the Pass near the Pic d’Anie. Next, one should note the
+two re-entrant angles, one to the north of the chain, one to the south,
+which distinguish the Spanish valley of the Gallego and the French valley
+of the Gave de Pau respectively. These features modify the simplicity of
+the first or western branch of the chain; one exceptional feature only
+modifies the second or Eastern branch, and this is the deep re-entrant
+wedge of the Ariège valley upon the French side. We may therefore regard
+the elements of the watershed somewhat according to the sketch plan B on
+the preceding page.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN C.]
+
+The details of the watershed when they are given in full are of course
+indefinitely more numerous and complicated, and it may be of advantage
+for those who would understand the structure of the Pyrenees to glance
+also at the plan opposite where the dotted line represents the exact
+trace of the watershed, the dark lines the simple structure described
+above.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN D.]
+
+The watershed then should be regarded as the chief feature in the range,
+and as the backbone of the whole system. Geologically, it is not the
+foundation of the range. Geologically, the range was piled up by the
+junction of a number of short separate ranges, each of which ran with a
+sharper south-eastern dip (about 30°) than does the present long line
+of saddles which has joined them and forms the existing watershed, and
+probably the process of the formation of the Pyrenees was upon the model
+sketched in the following diagram.
+
+But for the purpose of understanding the Pyrenees as they now are, it is
+the existing watershed which we must consider, and that runs as I have
+said.
+
+Next, the rule should be laid down that the Pyrenees must be separately
+considered on their northern and upon their southern slopes. It will be
+seen later that the physical and historical contrast between the two
+sides of the mountains is sometimes acute and sometimes slight, but the
+contrast between the general contour upon either side is such as to make
+it impossible to unite both in one similar system.
+
+The Northern slope of the Pyrenees is narrow and precipitous. The plains
+are for the greater part of its length clearly separated from the
+mountains; the easy country in some places (at St. Girons, for instance,
+and in the Flats between Lourdes and Tarbes) is not 20 miles as the crow
+flies from the highest peaks.
+
+On the Spanish side, on the contrary, the mountainous district will run
+from two to three times that distance. Its extreme width between the open
+country at the foot of the Sierra Monsech and the Salau Pass is over 60
+miles, and it is nowhere less than two days’ good journey on foot from
+the summits to the plains.
+
+This differentiation between the northern and the southern slopes is not
+merely one of width, it is due to profound differences in the contours
+which make the Spanish side of the system a different type of mountain
+group from the French. For, on the French side the Pyrenees consist
+in a series of great ribs or buttresses running up from the plains
+perpendicularly to the main heights of the range, and it is between these
+ribs or buttresses that the separate and highly distinct valleys which
+are the characteristic habitations of the French Basques and Béarnais
+lie. On the Spanish side the main structure is in folds _parallel_ to
+the watershed; the lateral valleys descending from the watershed run
+southward for but a very short distance, they come, within a few miles,
+upon high east-and-west ridges which sometimes rival the main range
+itself in height and which succeed each other like waves down to the
+plains of the Ebro. The contrast in structure north and south of the
+watershed may be expressed in the formula of this plan. A man looking at
+the Pyrenees from the French towns at their base sees in one complete
+view a belt of steep rising slopes, and a long fairly even line of
+summits against the sky. A man looking at the range from the Spanish
+plains can only in a few rare places so much as catch sight of the main
+range. In far the greater number of such views he will have before him
+a high ridge which masques the country beyond. If, then, the reader or
+the traveller regards the French slope as being essentially a series of
+profound valleys parallel to each other and running north and south, he
+will have grasped the main aspect of this side of the range. If he will
+regard the Spanish slope as a series of parallel outliers which begin
+quite close to the watershed, and which, though falling at last into the
+plains of the Ebro, are, even the most southern of them, of considerable
+height, he will have grasped the structure of the Pyrenees upon the side
+which looks towards the sun.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN E.]
+
+To these two main aspects the reader must again admit considerable
+modifications, the first of which concerns the French side.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN F.]
+
+This Northern slope and its valleys, of which the sketch map over page
+indicates the general arrangement, may be divided into two sections:
+the first a western section, the second an eastern one, and these two
+are separated at A-B by a division roughly corresponding to the “fault”
+between the two axes, which, as we have seen, determine the lie of the
+range.
+
+From the first, or western axis, descend with a regular parallelism,
+eight valleys. Each valley bifurcates in its higher part into two main
+ravines, and a whole system of minor streams, spread over an indefinite
+number of tortuous dales and gullies, attach to each valley.
+
+There is a mark or limit for each of these western French valleys,
+which is the spot where it debouches upon the open country. Thus the
+Gave d’Ossau falls into the Gave d’Aspe at Oloron; nevertheless the two
+valleys must be regarded as separate, because the meeting of the two
+streams takes place in the open plain. On the other hand the valley of
+Baigorry, and the neighbouring valley of St. Jean, though containing two
+large separate streams, must be treated as one system, because these
+streams meet at Eyharee near Ossés, and the open plain is not reached
+before a point some miles further down beyond Canbo.
+
+The test, though it may sound arbitrary upon paper, is quite easily
+appreciated in the landscape, and the separate valleys are more clearly
+marked, perhaps, than those of any other European mountain chain.
+
+These eight valleys (see plan G over page), going from west to east,
+are first that of the Nive (the bifurcations of which give St. Jean
+and the Baigorry), next that of the Gave-de-Mauléon (Larrau and Ste.
+Engrace), and both of these are Basque; next comes the valley of the
+Gave d’Aspe (with the bifurcation of Lourdios and Urdos), up which went
+the main Roman road into Spain and which is the first of the Béarnese
+valleys; next is the Val d’Ossau (with the bifurcation of Gabas and the
+lac d’Arrius), next the valley of the Gave de Pau (with the bifurcations
+of Cauterets and Gavarnie), next the valley of Bigorre, a short valley
+bifurcating in two minor streams at its head. Next, or seventh, comes the
+Val d’Aure, with Vielle upon its western bifurcation and Bordères upon
+its eastern; and lastly the bifurcated valley of the Garonne, whose level
+and deep floor comes nearest of all to the main chain, and holds on the
+west Luchon, on a branch called the Pique, on the east Viella in the Val
+d’Aran.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN G.]
+
+[Illustration: PLAN H.]
+
+Once past this point, the structure of the hills along the eastern run
+of the broken Pyrenean axis changes. The mountains here are penetrated
+by only two valleys, but each is much longer and more important than
+any of the eight just mentioned, and these two great valleys run, not
+parallel to each other, nor north and south as do the eight western ones,
+but at a steep slant: the one (that of the Ariège) goes westward, and
+the other (that of the Tet) eastward. Save for these two main valleys no
+regular features can be discovered in the eastern portion; all is here a
+labyrinth of dividing and subdividing lateral ridges, and the only thing
+giving unity to the group is this system of two great trenches which run
+up towards each other, the one from the Plain of Toulouse, the other
+from that of Perpignan, to meet on the high land of the Carlitte group.
+Strictly speaking, the western valley is not wholly that of the Ariège,
+but those of the Ariège and Oriège combined, and it is further remarkable
+that no regular passage exists from the one depression to the other, but
+by a curious topographical accident, which will be described later in the
+book, the crossing from the Ariège to the Tet has to be made by going
+over on to the south side of the range, and then back again on to the
+north side.
+
+The importance of these two main valleys upon the eastern half of
+the northern slope of the Pyrenees is sufficiently evident from the
+historical fact that each determines a great historical district: the
+one, that of the Ariège, was the country of _Foix_, the other, that of
+the Tet, was the _Rousillon_. And while the eight small western valleys
+running parallel to each other separate local customs and dialect alone,
+the ridge of the Ariège and the Tet may almost be said to have separated
+two nationalities, and owed ultimate allegiance for a thousand years, the
+one to a Gallic, the other to an Iberian lord.
+
+Beyond the valley of the Tet and eastward of the Canigou runs the little
+fag end of the range, which falls into the sea at Cape Cerberus, and is
+called the “Alberes.” Here there is but little distinction between the
+northern and the southern side, the general shape of a sharp ridge is
+maintained throughout, but the height lowers more and more as the sea is
+approached. These hills are everywhere passable; the ancient road into
+Spain which crosses them, should count, geographically and historically,
+rather as a road crossing round the Pyrenees at their sea end, than as a
+road crossing the chain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Pyrenean valley upon the French side always presents the same main
+characteristic, and this is true not only of the main valleys, but of the
+innumerable lateral valleys which ramify from the main valleys in all
+directions.
+
+The characteristic of these French Pyrenean valleys is that they are
+sharply divided by very narrow gorges into two or more level basins.
+These level basins in the smaller valleys and on the high levels where
+there is pasturage and no habitation are called “Jasses”; the large and
+low ones are called “Plains” or “Plans”; but they are the same in their
+essential feature, which is a level floor more or less wide, bounded
+by the steep hills upon either side, and ending and beginning with a
+rocky gate through which the valley stream cascades. The whole formation
+suggests the former existence of great and small lakes, which burst their
+way through the gorges at some remote time (as in plan I below).
+
+[Illustration: PLAN I.]
+
+These gorges are very rarely of any length, a point in which the Pyrenees
+differ from the Alps. Here and there, especially in the limestone
+formations, you do get long and difficult passages. One, the Cacouette
+in the Western Pyrenees, in the upper waters of the Gave-de-Mauléon, is
+not only very profound but absolutely impassable, like the Black Cañon
+of Colorado, but it does not lead from one part of a valley to another.
+It occupies the whole of the upper valley; and in general, you will not
+find a Pyrenean stream running, as do the Alpine streams, for some miles
+between precipices.
+
+Each main valley has a clearly marked mouth where it debouches upon the
+plain; by this I do not mean that perfectly flat land comes up to and
+meets the hills in every case; on the contrary, at the mouth of most of
+these valleys are moraines left by old glaciers, but I mean that the
+character and aspect of the hills visibly and immediately changes, and
+that each of the valleys has a distinct final “gate” where it meets the
+lowlands, just as a river will meet the sea at a definite mouth. Now each
+of these openings has its characteristic town. Mauléon, for instance, is
+at the mouth of the last Basque valley, Oloron at the mouth of the Val
+d’Aspe, Lourdes at the mouth of the valley of Argelès, etc.
+
+Further, these towns at the mouths of the valleys have invariably chosen
+for their site, whether they be prehistoric or mediæval, some rock on
+which to build a citadel; and in every case a castle is still to be found
+holding that rock. Lourdes, Foix, Mauléon are excellent examples of this.
+
+Higher up the valley, the first plain above the mouth will, as a rule,
+contain the first mountain town. Thus Argelès lies above Lourdes, Bédous
+and Accous above Oloron, Laruns in the first flat of the Val d’Ossau, etc.
+
+According to the length of the valley and the number and size of the
+Jasses, there may be one or more such towns enclosed by the mountain
+sides; thus in the valley of Lourdes we have Argelès, and above it Luz;
+in the valley of Soule we have Tardets above Mauléon, and higher still
+we have Licq. But all the valleys, whether they contain one or more of
+these upland towns, have, just under the last watershed, a hamlet or
+village usually giving its name to the Port or Col—that is _the Pass into
+Spain_—above it, and the reason of this is evident enough; habitations
+were necessary as a place of departure and arrival for the crossing of
+the mountains. Of such are Gavarnie, Urdos, Morens, and the rest. These
+high villages have least history, least wealth, and until recently had
+the worst communications. For much the greater part of the year they are
+lost in snow, and there was an interval between the making of the great
+roads and the beginning of modern tourist travel when they were in peril
+of destruction. The new great roads drew away wealth and visitors from
+all but a very few, and but for the beginning of modern mountaineering
+they had hopelessly decayed. Even so famous a place as Gavarnie, the
+best known of all the valley heads, was dying in the middle of the
+century. There are days now when it is at the other extreme: fine days
+in August when, for the crowd of rich people, you might be at Tring or
+at some reception of the late Whittaker Wright’s. Even to-day, one or
+two of them, however clean or kindly, are odd in the way of poverty. I
+have known one where they had no butter and never had had any butter, and
+another where I was charged 8_d._ instead of 5_d._ for a bed because it
+was the season.
+
+The typical Spanish valley differs, in the centre of the Chain at least,
+from the typical French valley. With the exception of Andorra (which
+reminds one in all features of the French side; for it has the same
+enclosed plain, the same steps and rocky gorges between, the same Jasses,
+and the same arrangement of towns and villages) the greater part of the
+valleys, whether Catalan or Aragonese, are not only broader and their
+streams larger than on the French side, but their arrangement also is
+different, most of them lack wide pasturages, nearly all of them lack
+enclosed plains, and there has been no motive to penetrate them since the
+building of the new roads, for travel upon this road is rare. The Spanish
+valley, therefore, often many days’ walking in length, never direct,
+and forming a sort of little province to itself, will have towns and
+villages scattered in it, haphazard and thinly. Very often a considerable
+town will be found at the very end of the valley, as Esterri in that of
+the Noguera Pallaresa, or Venasque in that of the Esera. The lateral
+communications from one Spanish valley to the next are usually more
+difficult than those between the French valleys; for many months they
+are impossible, and there is no such general arrangement of towns on the
+plain holding the approaches to the valleys as in France, for the reason
+that the whole plan of the mountains on the Spanish side is far more
+troubled and irregular.
+
+Thus the first town of the Aragon is Jaca; but Jaca is right in the
+mountains, and nothing at the outlet of the hills 50 or 60 miles down the
+valley makes a head town for Jaca. Jaca is a bishopric on its own. On the
+Gallego there is nothing but a succession of villages of which Sallent
+right up at the head of the valley is among the largest: it is almost a
+little town and so is Biescas close by. The Cinca and the Esera have
+indeed a town upon the plains at Barbastro, but the Noguera Ribagorzana
+has none, nor has its sister the Noguera Pallaresa, while the Segre has
+its bishopric and chief town right up in the highest hills at Urgel, and
+there is nothing to compare with that town until you get to Balaguer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The southern side of the watershed differs greatly in general structure
+from the northern, and must be separately recorded.
+
+There are indeed certain accidental similarities. The enclosed valley of
+Andorra to the south recalls the enclosed valley of Bédous or Accous to
+the north, and the very high first miles of the torrents, just under the
+main range, do not differ much whether they are found on the north or on
+the south side of the mountain. But the general plan and contour of the
+range presents a great contrast on either side. The main feature of the
+southern slope is, as I have said, a series of parallel ranges pushing
+out like ramparts in front of the main heights. If you follow a French
+valley (on the western part of the Pyrenees at least) you will find it
+running fairly north and south to the point where it debouches upon the
+plain some 20, or 25 miles at most, from the watershed.
+
+A Spanish valley will at first appear to have the same character, but
+just when you think you are in sight of the plains (for instance, just
+after leaving Canfranc upon the banks of the Upper Aragon) you see—beyond
+the first lines of flat country, and barring the view like a great
+wall—another high range: in this case the Sierra de la Peña, the ridge of
+rock which takes its name from the “Peña-de-Oroel,” a mountain with its
+eastern end just above Jaca. Beyond this again you have the San Domingo
+ridge, and to the east of it, another running also east and west, the
+Sierra de Guara.
+
+Pamplona again is situated at the mouth of a true Pyrenean valley (that
+of the Arga), not very different from the valleys to the north. It stands
+also on a plain, but immediately in front of it runs another range of
+hills, and if you climb these, you find yet another, strictly parallel
+and straight, standing before you and masking the approach to the Ebro.
+This formation in parallel outliers continues as far east as the Segre
+valley, that is for full three-quarters of the length of the Spanish
+Pyrenees, and in a sense it continues even further east than the river
+Segre; for the Sierra del Cadi, though it joins on to the main ridge
+at one point, is essentially an outlier in slope and formation. This
+parallel formation sometimes comes quite close to the central range,
+as, for instance, in the Colorado peaks close to Sallent and Panticosa,
+and the long ridge to the south of Vielsa and El Plan. Indeed the
+characteristics of Sobrarbe, as this country-side is called, consist in
+these long parallel ridges.
+
+One result of this formation is, as I have said above, that the river
+valleys do not run straight, as they do to the north of the range,
+but are thrust round at right angles when they come up against these
+ridges. Sometimes they will eat their way through a ridge, as do the two
+Nogueras, and the Arga itself south of Pamplona; but the greater part of
+the rivers on the Spanish side suffer the diversion of which I speak,
+and none more than the river Aragon, which gives its name to the whole
+central kingdom; for the Aragon, after having run south and straight for
+a few miles, like any northern river, suddenly turns westward, and runs
+under the foot to Sierra de la Peña for two days’ march. According to its
+first direction, it should fall into the Ebro somewhere near Saragossa;
+as a fact it does not come in until far above Tudela.
+
+Another result of the formation is that the mountain tangle stretches
+much further on the Spanish side than it does upon the French. If you
+stand upon the Pass of Salau where the French have made, and the Spanish
+are making, a high road, you have before you to the north, at a distance
+of less than 10 miles, the railway and a fairly open valley. Fifteen
+miles at the most, as the crow flies, you have the main line and the true
+lowlands at St. Girons. But if you turn and look out in the opposite
+direction over the valley of Esterri and the higher Noguera Pallaresa,
+you are looking over 60 miles of mountain land. From the high ridge,
+which is your standpoint, to the summit of El-Monsech, which is the final
+rampart of the hills beyond the plains of Lerida, is more than 50 miles,
+and the slopes of that rampart take you nearly another 10.
+
+A further consequence of this formation is that communications are very
+difficult to the south of the Pyrenees. The traveller naturally ascribes
+the lack of communications to the character of Spanish government.
+It is not wholly due to a moral, but partly to a material cause. The
+main Spanish railway from Saragossa to Barcelona may be compared to
+the main French railway from Toulouse to Bayonne, but the Spanish side
+everywhere suffers from its great wide stretch of wild mountain land.
+Toulouse itself is little more than 50 miles from the crest of the
+mountains. Saragossa is half as much again. The Spanish Pyrenees push
+out civilization, as it were, far from them. Lerida, a large town of the
+plains, is quite 60 miles from the watershed in a straight line. Pau
+or Tarbes are less than 30. The difficulty and expense with which the
+civilization of the plains, and the things belonging to it, must reach
+the remote upper Spanish valleys largely account for the curiously high
+degree of their isolation from the world. Many thousands of men are born
+and die in those high valleys, without ever seeing a wheeled vehicle, and
+without knowing the gravest news of the outer world for two or three days
+after the towns have known it.
+
+It is not easy in such a system to establish general divisions. We saw
+that this was simple enough upon the French side: eight main valleys
+to the west of the “fault,” and two large sloping ones on the eastern
+limb. In the Spanish Pyrenees, the nearest thing one can get to a
+classification is _first_ to group together the Basque valleys of
+Navarre, the streams of which all flow down to meet at last near Lumbier
+and fall into the Aragon a few miles further south. _Next_ to take the
+group of valleys along the mouths of which stands the great Sierra de la
+Peña, of which the chief is the ravine of the Upper Aragon. These dales,
+which have at their extremities the huge masses of the Garganta and the
+Pic d’Anie, form the original stuff of Aragon. These few square miles
+were the seat from whence that race proceeded which fought its way down
+to the Ebro, and to the sources of the Tagus, and which can claim the
+Cid Campeador for its historic type. _Next_ comes the group of valleys
+beginning with the Gallego and ending with that of Venasque, which forms
+the eastern limb of Aragon, and has borne for many centuries the title
+of “Sobrarbe.” _Next_ to consider the two Nogueras as the Western, the
+Cerdagne and Andorra as the Eastern Catalonian land.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN J.]
+
+It should be noted that the fine tenacity of Spain in general, and of
+these hills in particular, has preserved with exactitude the ancient and
+natural divisions of the land. The long unbroken ridge which encloses
+the Basque valleys is also the frontier of Navarre. The unity of Aragon
+survives in the present administrative division of Jaca. The eastern
+valleys are still called the “Sobrarbe,” and the “fault,” or break
+between the two main lines of the Pyrenees, still forms an historical
+and racial break to the South as to the North of the chain. Beyond it
+eastward begins the Catalan language, and the next group to consider are
+the great Catalan valleys of the two Nogueras and of the Segre. The two
+Nogueras ultimately fall into the Segre, but in the mountain regions
+the three form three large parallel valleys, each with a character and
+nourishment of its own and all Catalan. Of these three, the Segre is the
+most striking; its upper waters are the centre of the flat valley of the
+Cerdagne, the only natural passage from the North into Spain, and one of
+its earliest tributaries nourishes the Republic of Andorra.
+
+East of the Segre valley, and of the Sierra del Cadi which bounds it, no
+classification is possible. It is a labyrinth of little valleys. A flat
+welter of hills running down everywhere to the sea, and narrowing at the
+extreme end into Cape Cerberus: these last crests, as I have said, take
+the name of “Alberes.”
+
+This contrast in structure between the northern and the southern side of
+the range runs through many other aspects of the hills beyond structure
+alone. We have seen that it affects the type of civilization, leaving the
+deep but short French valleys far more open to the culture and influences
+of the plains than were the Spanish just over the watershed. There is
+much more.
+
+The fall of the light is in itself a contrast. The slopes of the Spanish
+mountains, and especially of the high mountains, look right at the
+blazing sun. They are more bare of wood, much, than are the French
+slopes. They are more burnt. Water is less plentiful. Insects are more
+numerous, and there is less cultivation; but one cannot say that there
+is, as a rule, a scantier population. Small villages and hamlets are
+rarer in the remote gorges, but small towns a little lower down are
+common, and apart from the population economically dependent upon summer
+tourists in France, it might be doubted whether the Spanish side were
+not as well garnished as the French; one might venture to imagine that
+in the Dark, and early Middle, Ages, when the full effect of the natural
+condition of the mountains could be felt, the population of either side
+was sensibly the same.
+
+The highest peaks are upon the Spanish side, but it does not show
+splendid isolated masses of rock like the two Pics-du-Midi, or lonely
+masses like the Canigou. On the other hand, the general character of the
+rocks is more savage and more fantastic, and it is upon the south side
+of the range that one most feels creeping over one that sentiment of
+unreality or of a spell, which so many travellers in the Pyrenees have
+been curious to note. The local names express it upon every side. There
+are “The Mouth of Hell,” “The Accursed Mountain,” “The Lost Mountain,”
+“The Peak of Hell,” “The Enchanted Hills” or “Encantados,” and hundreds
+of other legendary titles that express, as well as do the mountain tunes,
+the sense of an unquiet mystery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Spanish side is again remarkable for true rivers running in
+considerable valleys everywhere east of Navarre. Though the rainfall
+is less upon the southern side than upon the northern, yet, because
+the catchment areas are broader, the streams running at the bottom of
+the Spanish valleys are larger and more important. A glance at the map
+will show upon the French side a whole series of parallel river valleys
+running down from the summit into the plains to join the Adour or the
+Gironde. Armagnac and Béarn are crowded with them. A man going eastward
+from Bayonne to Pau, from Pau to Tarbes, from Tarbes to Toulouse, will
+cross more than forty streams all spreading out like a fan from the
+central axis of the Lannemezan Plain; a man going eastward below the
+Spanish foot hills from Melida, let us say through Huesca to Lerida, will
+find but half a dozen of such water crossings. Again, you have between
+the Soule and the Labourd, between the Val d’Aspe and the Val d’Ossau,
+between the Val d’Aure and the Garonne, distances of 8, 10, or at the
+most 12 miles, but the distance between neighbouring Spanish valleys (if
+we except the near approach of the Gallego and the Aragon), is always
+much greater. Between the Noguera and the Segre, for instance, there is
+at the nearest point, 20 miles; between the two Nogueras, another 20;
+between the last of these two rivers and the Esera, quite 20 more. The
+whole Spanish side with the exception of Navarre is thus built up of
+considerable valleys, comparable to those of the Tet and the Ariège alone
+upon the northern slope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The details of Pyrenean structure will concern a man travelling on foot
+more than do these general lines, though the whole aspect of the range
+must be grasped before one can understand its details. The separate peaks
+and valleys, the intimate structure of the range is remarkable everywhere
+for its abruptness. It is this physical feature in the Pyrenees, coupled
+with the absence of snow, which gives them the highly individual
+character they bear.
+
+Fantastic outlines are not to be discovered in these hills so frequently
+as in the Dolomites, nor are wholly isolated hills common, though such
+few as exist are very striking, but for day after day a man wandering
+in the Pyrenees sees cliffs more regularly high, a greater succession
+of rocks more precipitous, and a more permanent succession of connected
+summits above him than in any other European range.
+
+The absence of snow is a further sharp characteristic in the range. The
+essential feature of an Alpine landscape is the snow; and it is not only
+the essential feature of that landscape to the eye, it is the condition
+which controls the lives of those who inhabit, and of those who visit,
+the valleys. You can still wander a trifle in Switzerland. Even to-day
+I have come to villages where foreigners were still thought comic, and
+an ignorance of the German tongue was still thought amazing. But though
+you can wander, your wandering is strictly limited. Above a certain line
+you can go forward only with technical knowledge and in a special way.
+You are upon ice or snow. All climbing in the Alps depends upon this,
+and most of travel as well. A man may pass many days for instance in the
+upper valley of the Rhone, and then pass many days more in the upper
+valley of the Aar, but to go from one to the other he must take one of
+two strictly defined paths, unless he is willing to undertake special
+work requiring technical knowledge and particular aids. The hills between
+the two valleys are not a field for his exploration; they are a great
+mass of impassable and unapproachable land, all frozen, and diversified
+only by very narrow valleys inhabitable nowhere but at their base. No
+one could lose himself for many days upon the Wetterhorn, the Jungfrau,
+or the Finsteraarhorn; you can approach these mountains for the glory
+of the thing, but they are not a country-side. Now in the Pyrenees
+almost all the surface of the mountains, say 250 miles by 60, is at your
+disposal. It is this and a local custom of live and let live which make
+the pleasure of them inexhaustible; and which, combined with certain
+protective methods of their own, make it certain that the Pyrenees will
+never be overcome or changed by men. They are too large.
+
+This surface of some 15,000 square miles is diversified in a manner
+fairly continuous throughout the chain. The valley floors are given up
+to cultivation in their lower part, their upper parts consist of damp
+close pastures, and between the two types of level are to be found, as we
+shall presently see, sharp gates of rock through which the river saws its
+way in a gorge. Above the valley floor, and at the end of it, where the
+stream springs out below the watershed (such springs bubbling up suddenly
+through the porous rock are called Jeous), steep banks of two, three
+and four thousand feet, broken almost invariably here and there into
+precipices, forbid the way; and these, in perhaps half their extent, are
+covered with enormous woods of beech below (mixed often with oak) and of
+pine above.
+
+When you have climbed up these slopes through the forest or over the
+naked rock, you come, in the last heights, either to large grassy spaces,
+which often sweep right over the summit of a lateral ridge, and sometimes
+extend over both sides, even, of the main watershed (as between the Val
+d’Aran and Esterri) or else—more commonly—upon a jumble of jagged rocks
+and smooth, perpendicular or overhanging slabs, which defend the final
+secrets of the range.
+
+The succession of these features is nearly universal. The only places
+where they are modified are the two lower ends of the range. There the
+rocks sink, the hills are rounded, the precipices disappear in the last
+Basque valleys, while the Alberes at the other extremity of the chain
+against the Mediterranean are at last mere toothed rocks. All between
+(with the exception of the Cerdagne, which is a country to itself) is
+built up in successive bands of valley floor, steep forest, or steep
+rock, broken with limestone precipices, and finally on the highest ridge
+sweeps of grass or jagged edges of stone.
+
+It is this character in the last ridge of the Pyrenees that determines
+the nature of a passage over them, and since a passage from valley to
+valley is the chief business of the day when one is exploring the range,
+I will next describe these crossings, for the method of them is very
+different from that of other mountains, and has largely determined the
+history and customs of their inhabitants.
+
+In other high mountains you will either find snow above a certain level
+and covering for most of the year most of the passes, some of the passes
+for all the year, or, as you go further south, you will commonly find
+many gaps which long years of weathering have reduced to easy slopes, or
+you will find great differences in slope between the one and the other
+side of the range; as, for instance, the difference between the long
+valleys that lead up eastward into the Californian Sierras, and the sharp
+escarpment which falls eastward upon the desert side of those heights.
+In all other ranges that I have seen or read of, save the Pyrenees,
+there is at least great diversity in the opportunities of crossing,
+whether natural or artificial. There is great diversity, as a rule,
+in the natural crossings; some are quite easy ascents and descents on
+either side (as the Brenner Pass over the Alps); some, though difficult,
+are notably lower than the average height of the range (as the Mont
+Genèvre from the Durance into Piedmont); some, these more rare, are deep
+gorges cleft right through the range (as the Danube gorge through the
+Carpathians).
+
+Now it is characteristic of the Pyrenees that in the main part of their
+length no such diversities appear, save that there are two kinds of
+summit surfaces on the high cols, rock and grass: the grass the rarer.
+
+If anyone looks closely at the Somport, especially noting the line which
+the old track took before the modern road was made, he will agree that
+it is a pass which, though steep, had no “edge” to it, so to speak. The
+grass would take any kind of traffic. The same is true of course of the
+Cerdagne, the only broad valley across the Pyrenees. But the Somport is
+well to the west end of the range; the Cerdagne is well to the east end.
+All the main part between could take no vehicle, and has crossings of a
+kind which I shall presently describe: sharp, the escalade difficult, the
+first descent upon the far side, or the last ascent upon the near side,
+steep.
+
+There is perhaps an exception to be found in the case of the Bonaigo, but
+this pass also presents difficulties to wheels upon its western side, and
+in the lower valley at the gorge.
+
+In general the crossings of the Pyrenees everywhere display certain
+characters rare or absent in other ranges, which are _first_ that they
+are very numerous (a feature due to the absence of snow), _secondly_,
+that they are very high, _thirdly_, that they hardly ever involve any
+true climbing, and _fourthly_, that they nearly always involve some
+considerable care on the part of the wayfarer and are somewhere dangerous
+either upon the northern or the southern side.
+
+This can be well illustrated by a particular example in the few miles
+between the Pic D’Anéu and the Canal Roya. Here there is a range no part
+of which descends much below 2100 metres nor rises much above 2300. There
+are two distinct saddles where a man can cross on foot, and neither is
+appreciably lower than the peaks of the range, which are but lumps of
+rock a little higher than the grassy ridges from which they spring. Any
+man knowing the country and with a fairly good head could trust himself
+to half a dozen places westward of the two which I have mentioned (which
+are called the Col D’Anéu and the Port of Peyreget). Nevertheless the
+easiest of them, the Port de Puymaret, easy as it is upon the French
+side, gives some pause upon the Spanish. The traveller finds himself,
+once over the crest, within a few yards of a rocky edge, beyond which
+there is apparently nothing but air, and, thousands of feet beyond,
+the precipices of the Negras. If he will approach that rocky edge he
+will see that everything below it is easily negotiable, and when he has
+once reached the floor of the Spanish valley beneath he will perhaps
+wonder why it seemed so difficult from above. In truth it is not really
+difficult at all, but the scramble looks dangerous, and it is one which
+most men, other than regular climbers, would think twice about when they
+first saw it from above. If all this is true of the Peyreget, it is still
+more true of the other crossings in its neighbourhood to the right and to
+the left.
+
+Were the Pyrenees surmountable at comparatively few passages, these would
+have been so thought out and perhaps improved as to make them regular and
+well-known passes, which the traveller could easily deal with. It is the
+very number of the crossings which add to their difficulties. The people
+who live upon either side are indifferent in their choice among so many
+difficult passages, and with the exception of one or two quite modern
+made roads with which I shall presently deal, there are some hundreds
+of Cols and Ports all having in common a character of difficulty, and
+few naturally so much more easy than their neighbours as to concentrate
+travel upon them.
+
+This feature may be summed up in the expression that the crest of the
+Pyrenees is rather one long ridge slightly serrated than (as in the case
+of most other ranges) a succession of high mountain groups separated by
+low saddles.
+
+Of all the accidents that strike one in connexion with the crossing of
+these hills nothing strikes one more than the accident of time. A Port is
+always a day and a long day. Here and there quite exceptionally there may
+be food and shelter upon either side within six or seven hours one from
+the other; but as a rule if you propose to sleep under cover upon either
+side, your effort will demand a long summer’s day, and it is best to look
+forward to a night camp upon the further side of the range.
+
+Before continuing the description of these passages, or any rules by
+which one should be guided in attempting them, it may be well to speak
+for a moment of the few practised and conventional tracks.
+
+First of these come, of course, the high roads. At present, over the
+frontier, these are but four in number (for the low passes to the east of
+the Canigou may be neglected), Roncesvalles, the Somport, the Pourtalet,
+and the Cerdagne. Of these the Pourtalet has been but recently opened,
+and was just before the war still in process of being widened upon the
+French side. Moreover, it is so nearly neighbouring to the Somport (there
+is but 8 miles between them), that it hardly affords a true alternative
+crossing. A fifth high road across the watershed is that which crosses
+it at Porté from the valley of the Ariège into the Cerdagne, but this
+road is essentially a lateral one. It lies wholly in French territory, it
+joins the French road through the Cerdagne, and you cannot go by it down
+the valley of the Segre. It only crosses the watershed on account of an
+accidental divergence of this to the south, in the upper valley of the
+Ariège.
+
+These four carriage roads are all that lead, at present, over the
+political boundary of the Pyrenees. Another is in construction over the
+Port of Salau, but it is not finished upon the Spanish side. The French
+desire several others to go over by the Macadou, Gavarnie, etc., but
+their own preparations are not completed and the Spanish are not even
+begun.
+
+Apart, however, from these high roads, which are carefully graded,
+possess an excellent surface, and are traversable by any vehicle, there
+are a certain number of crossings which travel has rendered familiar,
+and whose facility is well known. Thus, the Embalire from the Hospitalet
+on the upper Ariège into the upper Segre in Andorra is a perfectly easy
+slope of grass, though high. Again, the Bonaigo, though there have been
+natural difficulties in the lower valley to be surmounted, and though
+there is not even a track across it, is a perfectly easy roll of grassy
+land barely 6000 feet high. A high road leads as far as Esterri on the
+Spanish side; another goes from France on the northern side, right up the
+valley of the Garonne, beyond Biella, to the paths at the very foot of
+the pass, so that the gap between the two highways is but a few miles in
+length.
+
+The Port de Venasque again, though but a mule track, is constantly
+used, and, though steep and high (close upon 8000 feet), presents no
+difficulties at all, and is almost a highway between the two countries.
+The Port de Gavarnie is similarly constantly used and may be taken like
+any other mountain path. Certain other passes form an intermediate
+category. They present no difficulties to one who is acquainted with
+the neighbourhood, but either the whole path is difficult to trace or
+its last and highest portion is dangerous, or there are precipices upon
+its lower slope, or in one way and another they cannot be regarded as
+constant and regular communications of international travel, though the
+inhabitants use them continually. Of such a kind is the Port d’Ourdayte;
+of such a kind are the passages from the Aston into Andorra, and of
+such a kind are most of the passages just west of the Port de Venasque.
+If one applied the test of asking where the Pyrenees could be crossed
+in doubtful weather, not half a dozen places could be found beyond the
+four high roads; and even if one were to ask in what spots they could
+certainly be crossed by a stranger without chance of failure, the number
+of passages would prove less than a score. All the rest of the ridge from
+the Sierra del Cadi to the Basque mountains is the rocky wall I have
+described, with innumerable notches more or less practicable, but all
+difficult, and nearly all requiring a detailed knowledge of either slope.
+
+There are one or two other features needing explanation before I close
+this introduction to a physical knowledge of the range; thus the reader
+should be acquainted with the many groups of lakes and tarns which stand
+just under the highest peaks and ridges in groups: they are highly
+characteristic of the Pyrenees. There is a cluster of half a dozen at
+the western base of the Pic du Midi d’Ossau, another cluster surrounding
+the neighbourhood of Panticosa, another in the summit of the Encantados
+between the Maladetta group and the valley of the Noguera, another very
+famous one well known to fishermen high up in the knot of mountains
+whose summit is the Carlitte, and there are many isolated small lakes
+which the map discovers. But whether in groups or isolated, one feature
+is common to all these lakes of the Pyrenees—first, that none is of any
+size; secondly, that all, or very nearly all, are quite in the highest
+parts of the hills immediately under the last escarpment; and thirdly, as
+a consequence, that it is rare to find a lake which the presence of wood
+and the neighbourhood of habitation render suitable for camping.
+
+It is worth remembering that, unlike most mountain systems, the Pyrenees
+do not, even in sudden storms, endanger one as a rule by a rapid increase
+in size of the torrents; one has not to fear spates so much as one might
+imagine from the multiplicity of the streams on the northern side or
+the large area of the valleys on the southern. This truth, of course,
+must not be exaggerated nor too much advantage taken of it. That part
+of a stream which will be just traversable after several fine days may
+become just too violent to cross after a few hours of rain, but I have
+never seen those sudden changes of level from a rivulet to a considerable
+torrent which one may so often see in British mountains, which are common
+enough in Scandinavia and even in the Alps, and which are a regular
+condition of travel in the Rockies.
+
+Why this should be so it would be difficult to say. The great area of
+forest upon the north might account for regularity upon that slope, but
+it would not account for it upon the Spanish side. And one would imagine
+that snow in large masses, which is lacking in the Pyrenees and present
+in the Alps, would rather tend to regulate the flow of rivers; but
+whatever be the cause, the evenness of level is what one used to other
+ranges will first remark when he has to cross and recross under different
+conditions the higher streams of this chain in summer.
+
+There should lastly be noted the absence of any important glaciers, a
+feature due to the absence of snow-fields. On the summit of the Cirque de
+Gavarnie, on the summits of the Pic d’Enfer and the neighbourhood, on the
+summits of the Maladetta group, and in one or two other parts, there are
+small glaciers, but they form no general feature in the landscape of the
+Pyrenees, and have no effect upon travel.
+
+Lastly, the climate of these mountains should be noted: it is a very
+important part of the conditions which determine travel upon them.
+
+The rain-bearing winds blow from the Atlantic eastward, and if the
+Pyrenees stood upon either slope equally accessible to the sea, it is
+possible that the Spanish side would be the more deeply wooded and the
+best watered. The sudden trend westward of the Spanish coast, however,
+at the corner of the Bay of Biscay, causes the wet winds from the Ocean
+to lose most of their moisture to Galicia and the Asturias, before
+they can strike the Pyrenees themselves from the south, while the same
+winds, coming around the range from the north, come upon the Pyrenees
+immediately after leaving the sea. The result of this is that the French
+side is throughout its length more heavily watered than the Spanish
+side; but on either side there are three zones which, though not sharply
+distinguishable one from the other, are sufficiently remarkable.
+
+The first is that of heavy rains, and, what is more important for
+purposes of travel, of continuous rain and frequent mist. It stretches
+all along the western end of the range, and only begins perceptibly to
+change with the heights of the Pic d’Anie and the precipitous barrier
+of the upper valley of the Aspe. West of this line—that is, in all the
+Basque-speaking country—you have deep pastures upon either side of the
+range, and all the marks of the damp in the timber and the mode of
+building, the vegetable growth and the animals of the place. Snow falls
+later here than in the other parts of the Pyrenees, for the double reason
+that the neighbourhood of the sea makes the climate milder and that the
+hills are less high. In most places, for instance, communication is not
+cut off between the north and south valleys of the Basques, and men can
+usually cross from Ste. Engrace to Isaba at all seasons.
+
+The next zone (the eastern frontier of which is very vague) may be said
+to stretch, according to the year and the accident of weather, certainly
+as far as the Catalans and the valley of the Noguera on the east, and
+sometimes as far as the valley of the Segre itself. In all this central
+part of the range (which may normally be said to include more than half
+its length) the French or northern side is densely wooded and heavily
+watered, the Spanish side more dry and bare; but even the French side
+slowly shows a change of climate as one goes eastward, the forests remain
+as dense, the rivers as full, but the days are certainly finer and mist
+less frequent. On the Spanish side the change as one goes eastward is
+less striking, because the whole climate is drier. It is to be remarked
+that if mist gathers upon the northern side of the hills when one is
+attempting a pass, one may fairly count upon its disappearance upon the
+Spanish side in this section; and, in general, the whole of the southern
+slope, from the valley of the Aragon to that of the Noguera, is of a dry
+and equal nature, somewhat barren and burnt, not only from the lack of
+moisture, but also from exposure to the sun.
+
+The lack of moisture on the central Spanish slope, by the way, is not a
+little aided by the curious formation of the frontier of Navarre, and
+the separation between the Basques and the Aragonese; this consists in a
+long ridge of high land, the upper part of which is known as the Sierra
+Longa, which runs south and a little west from the Pic d’Anie. The effect
+of this lack of moisture and excess of heat upon the central Spanish
+side is not only felt on the heights of the mountain, but also and more
+particularly when one approaches the Plains. These in France are northern
+in type, full of greenery, and amply watered. In Spain, on the contrary,
+they are quite arid, and if one comes in to Huesca by train upon a
+September evening, and looks out the next morning over the flats that
+run up to the Sierra de Guara, one has all the impressions of a desert,
+though these lands are heavy corn-bearing lands in the summer.
+
+Finally, the third, or eastern, section of the hills is Mediterranean
+in character throughout. The Canigou is much more heavily watered than
+the Sierra del Cadi, its corresponding Spanish height. But the olives
+on the lower slopes, the carpet of vineyards on the flats, the presence
+everywhere of bright insects, the quality of the light and the aridity
+of everything which does not happen to be planted with trees, give to
+this eastern corner of the Pyrenees the same aspect that you may notice
+on the Mediterranean hills of Southern France, Liguria, or Algeria or
+the Balearic Islands, for all these landscapes are of one kind, and
+binding them all together is not only their burnt red look, but also that
+tideless intense blue of the Mediterranean, the hot white towns, and
+everywhere the lateen sail upon the coasts.
+
+These differences of climate also determine the seasons in which the
+mountains may best be visited, for the Basque district is at your service
+(especially in its western part) from the spring to the late autumn of
+the year; the central valleys can be everywhere travelled in only from
+late June to mid-September; the eastern end, again, from the Segre and
+beyond it, is open to you from spring to autumn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE PYRENEES
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Political character of the Pyrenees corresponds to the Physical
+character which has been described. The high crest is the bond and
+division, from the beginning, between two societies which are connected
+by such common social habits as mountains impose—which therefore fall
+under similar local customs, which have a common jealousy of the
+civilized power on the plains below them, and which support each other
+in a tacit way against the stranger, yet which, from the beginning, have
+different governments and (especially in the high central part) deal with
+different corporate traditions—to the north the Béarnese, to the south
+Aragon. The easier passes to the west and the east of the chain permit a
+more or less homogeneous community to straddle across either end of the
+mountains, and to hold upon both slopes the sea roads that pass along the
+Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The people thus astraddle of the eastern
+end have come to be called the _Catalans_. That astraddle of the western,
+a highly distinct group of men with language, traditions, and physical
+characteristics wholly their own, has always been known by some title
+closely resembling their modern name of _Basques_.
+
+The foundation, therefore, upon which Pyrenean History is built, or
+(to use another metaphor), the germ from which it has developed and
+which explains its course, is a tripartite division of the inhabitants,
+corresponding, as I shall presently show, to the physical features of the
+chain: an eastern or Catalan, a western or Basque, and a central group
+whose characteristic it is to subdivide according to the deep valleys
+into which it is separated, but which falls into two main societies, the
+one north of the chain which becomes the group of French counties whose
+typical government is Béarn, the other south of the chain, which assumes
+at last for its title “The Kingdom of Aragon.”
+
+The first matter to be noticed with regard to this tripartite division is
+the exactitude of its boundaries. One might imagine that the language,
+the habits, and the clear characteristics of any group would merge easily
+into those of its neighbours upon either side. This is not the case. The
+Basque type—much the most particular—ceases abruptly upon the watershed
+between the Gave d’Oloron and the Gave d’Aspe to the north of the range,
+upon the watershed between the Veral and the Esca to the south of it. The
+Catalans, with a dialect, mind, and dress wholly their own, are found
+to the _north_ from the sea up to the Col de Puymorens, and everywhere
+east of the Carlitte mountains; in the Ariège valley and just over these
+heights, and on the further side of that Col, they are changed. To the
+_south_ of the range they extend everywhere from the sea to the valley
+of the Ribagorza. Cross westward from that Catalan valley to the Esera.
+There, after hours of scrambling, down by the rocks and deserted tarns,
+you may towards evening find a man; that man will show the slow gestures,
+the silence, and the elaborate courtesy of Aragon.
+
+The mountain ridges which divide these various peoples are sufficient
+to mark their boundaries; but they do not suffice to explain why the
+Catalan, the Basque, the Aragonese, the Béarnais should cease suddenly
+here or there. True, the high lateral ridges which are so striking a
+peculiarity of the Pyrenees form barriers with difficulty passed, but
+these barriers are found just as high and just as precipitous and savage
+between two valleys of the same speech and nation as between two of
+different allegiance. Thus the wild jumble of mountains, “the Enchanted
+Range,” cuts off the Catalans of Esterri from the Catalans of the
+Ribagorzana. To pass them is something of a feat for anyone not of these
+hills—for much of the year they are closed to the native inhabitants.
+Their passage is hardly more of a task or more precipitous than the
+passage from Aragonese Venasque to Aragonese Bielsa, or from Béarnais
+Gabas, in the Val d’Ossau, to Béarnais Urdos, in the Val d’Aspe.
+
+An explanation of the unity which rules over each group, Basque, Central
+and Catalan, can only be given by referring each to the plains at the
+mouths of the valleys. It is the towns at the entry of these plains
+that form the markets and rallying places of the mountaineers and that
+determine their groupings. Oloron is the link between the two Béarnais
+valleys I have mentioned. Urgel binds Catalan Andorra to Catalan
+Esterri. Why, however, the groups should lie exactly where they do it
+is impossible to determine, for no records reach beyond the Romans. All
+we can say is that the Pic d’Anie, the first high peak eastward from
+the Mediterranean, forms the boundary stone of the Basques, as it does
+the chief physical mark dividing the high central ridge from the easier
+western passes; that the tangle of difficult and impossible peaks just
+eastward of the Maladetta are the boundary of Catalan south of the range,
+the similar but less abrupt tangle of the Carlitte, their boundary upon
+the north. How these nations arose, whence they wandered, whether their
+differentiation has arisen upon the spot out of an earlier homogeneity or
+is due to the conflict of invaders—of all this we know nothing.
+
+The place names of the Pyrenees, like those of all Spain, and half
+Gascony, do indeed afford a curious speculation which arises from the
+high proportion of names that are certainly _Basque_, though out of
+Basque territory. Of this language I shall write later: for my present
+purpose the point I would desire the reader to note is the sharp contrast
+which exists between that idiom and the idioms around it. There is no
+mistaking a Basque word, and yet these are found in all the Pyrenean
+range and to the north and south of them in a hundred place names,
+attached to hills, rivers and towns where Basque has been unknown
+throughout all recorded history. It is even plausibly suggested that the
+Latin “Vascones,” the French “Gascon” is equivalent to “Basque,” and
+the late Mr. York Powell, the Regius Professor of History at Oxford,
+would say in speaking upon this matter that “Gascon was Latin spoken
+by Basques.” He possessed that type of education, rare or unknown
+in our universities, which made him capable of individual judgment
+in departments of living knowledge where his colleagues could but
+repeat words taught them from a book. This quality reposed upon a wide
+acquaintance with all matters of European interest. His diverse reading
+and considerable travel enabled him to balance human evidence in a way
+hopeless to his less fortunate neighbours in the University, and his
+conclusion on this important detail of history has always recurred to
+me when I have examined some new point in the early history of these
+mountains. There must, however, be set against the general conclusion
+that the Basques are the remnant of a people once universal from the
+Garonne to the Pyrenees, and throughout the Iberian Peninsula, the fact
+that they present a marked physical type utterly distinct from others
+upon every side. That a race of such a character, vigorous, attached to
+the soil, in no way nomadic, should have abandoned a large territory is
+difficult to believe; moreover, there is no case in all the recorded
+history of Western Europe of one people ousting another, and the process
+is manifestly physically impossible, save among nomads. Jews or Arabs
+could propagate and even believe such a theory. To Europeans it is
+laughable: the peasants and cities of Europe never have been, nor ever
+can be, largely displaced.
+
+All we know is that these place names exist throughout Spain and all
+over the Pyrenees, and that the million or so who speak the language
+whence such names are derived now occupy a tiny corner only of the vast
+territory over which those names are spread. The rest is guesswork.
+
+Ignorant as we are of the origin of the differentiation between Basque,
+Béarnais, Catalan and Aragonese, an historical fact quite certain—though
+no document proves it—is the extreme antiquity of these classes of men.
+That all Pyrenean history reposes upon their separate existence must be
+evident to anyone who has watched the commercial manner, the mercantile
+vivacity, the whole mentality of the Catalan, and has contrasted it with
+the quiet chivalry of Aragon. Different military fortunes, different
+economic outlets, and different accidents of central government may
+possibly account within the historic period for the contrast between
+the Aragonese and the people of Béarn, Bigorre, or Comminges. No such
+forces can account for the gulf that cuts off the Catalan and the Basque
+at either end of the chain from the inhabitants of its high central
+portion. Infinite time is the maker of states, and two thousand years
+could never have determined societies so sharply separate. We must regard
+their constant and immemorial presence in the Pyrenees as the first and
+enduring principle to guide us in the history of those mountains.
+
+From this fundamental truth, which leads the prehistoric into the
+historic, one must proceed to another political fact of high importance,
+which is that while the watershed of the range has but partially
+separated customs and local thought, and that only in the centre of the
+range, it has necessarily served as a political boundary whenever a high
+civilization found it necessary to establish such a strict line. The
+boundary and the watershed may not exactly coincide—they do not exactly
+coincide even in the highly organized condition of modern society; but in
+the two historical periods of strict policy, the Roman and our own, the
+crest of the range has marked, and marks, an obvious boundary for most
+of its length. The political distinction between Hispania and Gaul cut
+the Basque nation into two, following the mountains from Roncesvalles
+to the Pic d’Anie: it cut the Catalan people into two, following the
+water parting from the two Nogueras to the Mediterranean. It followed
+the central chain, indifferent to the similarity or difference between
+the northern and the southern valleys. To-day the political distinction
+between Spain and France follows nearly the same line.
+
+The reason of this was, and is, twofold. First, that a clear physical
+boundary easily definable and of its nature permanent—the crest of a
+chain, a broad river, or what not—necessarily recommends itself to a
+bureaucracy in search of simplicity and economy in the work of a great
+political machine. We see it in the new countries to-day, where the
+instinct of organized government for easily definable and exact limits
+takes refuge in establishing parallels of latitude as state boundaries
+in the absence of marked physical lines. Secondly, in the case of
+mountains, and especially of mountains as sharp and as boldly set as are
+the Pyrenees, the fatigue of climbing, the absence of carriageways, made
+each valley dependent for its connexion with the central government upon
+some town of the plains, and the authority of a provincial magistrate
+could not but run, as ran the physical instruments of his rule, up from
+Huesca northward to Sallent—for instance, or up from Jaca to Canfranc,
+and so to the summit of the ridge; or up from Oloron southward to Accous,
+and so to Urdos. As the messengers, writs, powers of each proceeded, the
+way would become harder, the progress more doubtful. It was obvious and
+necessary that the boundary of either jurisdiction should lie upon the
+pass. And though the inhabitants of the northern and the southern valleys
+might be accustomed to a regular intercourse across the crest, the Roman
+agents of a distant central government could not but have depended upon
+cities far removed to the south and to the north of the watershed, as
+to-day the police of Tardets, let us say, and of Isaba, two towns of one
+speech, refer respectively through Pau and through Pamplona to Paris and
+to Madrid.
+
+It is in the interplay of these two jarring political forces, the
+permanent national seats of Basque, Catalan, etc., and the use of the
+range as a political or official boundary, that the political character
+of the Pyrenees resides; and as their history begins with the Romans,
+to whom we owe the first knowledge of the Pyrenean people and the first
+use of the Pyrenean boundary, it will be well to consider it under
+territories divided as the Romans divided them, by the main range, and to
+follow first the development of the northern slope.
+
+The historical origins of the French Pyrenees are sharply divided in
+history by that wall which cuts off all that Rome _made_ from all that
+Rome _inherited_. Rome made of the barbarians a new world, but before
+she began that task Rome had inherited everywhere within a march of
+the Mediterranean a belt of land whose civilization was similar to,
+always as old as, and sometimes older than, her own. It was a municipal
+civilization dependent upon the arts and religion proper to a city
+state. It built, whether temples or ships, as Rome would build them: it
+was one thing; it is almost one thing to-day; and its bond at Antioch
+as at Saguntum, at Marseilles as at Athens or Alexandria, was, and is,
+the universal water of the Mediterranean. To such cities and their
+territories Rome fell heir. Little proceeded from her to them save
+first the sense of unity, and later the Faith, and of the whole system,
+the belt which stretches from Valencia to Genoa, now broadening to the
+plains of Nemosus (Nîmes), now narrowing to the rocky ledge of the Portus
+Veneris (Port Vendres), concerns the first evidence of Pyrenean history;
+for it was from a corner of this belt—between Tarragona and Narbonne—that
+the advance of civilization inland and along the Chain proceeded.
+
+A century before the four imperial centuries which made our Christian
+world, a century before Augustus Cæsar, Rome had fully occupied and
+impressed that soil—to the south Gerona and the Catalan fields, to the
+north the rich floor which lies under the Canigou and has come to be
+called the _Rousillon_. Thence the Roman advance north of the hills
+proceeded. The chief town of the sea-plain—whose name “Illiberis” is so
+strongly Basque in form—Rome took for the central municipality of that
+plain, and made it the capital of the coastal district. This hill and
+citadel, at which Hannibal had halted a hundred years before, preserved
+as a bishopric for thirteen hundred years a memory of the Roman order.
+Constantine formed its diocese, rebuilt it, gave it his mother’s name of
+Helena. The sea by which it lived has withdrawn from it. It has sunk to
+be a little country town, “Elne.” Roscino which lay also upon the coast
+march of Hannibal, has sunk to something smaller still, yet, by some
+accident, gave the province, in the dark ages, its name of Roussillon
+which it still retains. These two towns, the fruitful plain about them,
+the Port of Venus (which is now Port Vendres), formed the municipal
+structure of this district, the last corner of the great province whose
+headship lay at Narbonne. Its nominal boundaries included all the vale
+of the Tet; it extended as far as now extends the Catalan language, and
+was bounded, as that is bounded, by the great form of the Carlitte and
+its high lakes and snows. All between that mountain and the sea, all the
+eastern decline of the range and the slope north of it, was ancient land,
+and had been ploughed and held and walled by men of the Mediterranean
+civilization long before Rome inherited it.
+
+With the much longer stretch that runs from the upper Ariège to the
+Atlantic it was very different. This was of what Rome made, not of what
+Rome inherited. Before the coming of Roman government it was barbarous,
+and the many tribes or petty states, whose number various guesses of
+antiquity record (they were perhaps as numerous in their subdivision as
+the valleys), stand in three main groups when first the civilization to
+the east of them began to record their existence: these three were first
+the Convenæ, south of Toulouse, and all about the upper waters of the
+Garonne. Next to these came the Auscians, and finally, over the Basque
+end of the hills towards the ocean, was the seat of the Tarbelli.
+
+The whole point of view of antiquity differed from ours in speaking of
+such tribes, nor is it easy to pick out from the scraps of observation
+that have come down to us the kind of information that we want. Sometimes
+a name survives, sometimes it does not; sometimes we get a hint of a
+variety of race, most often we lack it. It is the very meagreness and
+eccentricity of the information upon a barbarous race and custom which
+affords such opportunities to our dons for those forms of speculation
+which they love to put forward as dogma, the most absurd example of
+which, perhaps, is the interpretation and enlargement of Tacitus’
+“Germania.” It is therefore exceedingly difficult to know of what
+kind were these people beyond the old Roman pale. We do not know what
+language they spoke. We only know that, like other Gallic communities,
+they centred round fortified places, that their pacification was easy,
+and that, like everything else in Western Europe, they were of an
+unchangeable kind.
+
+The whole district between the Garonne and the Pyrenees came to be
+called, during the first four centuries of our era, “The Nine Peoples.”
+The Convenæ are early noted to have attached to them upon their right and
+upon their left, to east and to west, the Consevanni and the Bigerriones.
+The first of these were (to follow the high authority of Duchesne)
+organized as early as the first century; what is now St. Lizier was their
+old capital and later their bishopric, which takes its present name from
+Glycerius, a saint of the sixth century. They held all those hills of
+which St. Girons close by is now the centre. The Bigerriones are not
+heard of until the mention of them in the Notitia of the fourth century.
+They must have held Bigorre, and the three valleys which I have called
+the valleys of Tarbes. Tarbes—then Turba—was their capital, and was and
+is their bishopric.
+
+The Auscians do not concern us. They and the three groups into which
+they are later distinguished held the western plains and foot hills.
+The Tarbelli held both the foot hills and the mountains of the
+west; their capital was at Dax. They also split into, or are later
+recognized as three separate groups, making up with the two other
+sets of three “The Nine Peoples,” under which title all this country
+below the Pyrenees became permanently known. But of the three only
+the _Civitas Benarnensium_, whence we get the name Béarn, and the
+_Civitas Elloronensium_, with its capital at Iloro, which has become
+Oloron, concern us. The capital and soon the bishopric of the _Civitas
+Benarnensium_ was at Lescar, as far as we can make out, and Lescar
+bore the chief sanctity in Béarn until that country was swept by the
+Reformation. The sovereigns of Béarn were buried there, even the
+Protestant sovereigns, and it remained a bishopric, whose bishop was the
+President of the Parliament of Béarn, until the Revolution; but it was
+the Reformation which destroyed its original character of a capital.
+
+We have, therefore with the earliest ages of our civilization, five
+peoples holding the northern Pyrenees, the Consevanni, the Convenæ, the
+people of Bigorre, the Béarnese, and the Elloronians.
+
+It is remarkable that in such a list, our Roman originators and their
+geographers overlooked the Basques. The category ends precisely at the
+present limit of the Basque tongue. For the Val d’Aspe, of which Oloron
+is the town, is the first French-speaking valley. Why it is that we hear
+nothing of the Basques it is difficult to say, especially as the second
+of the great Roman military roads went right through their country.
+Bayonne, which is the Basque’s town of the plains on the north, is heard
+of in the fifth century. It has a garrison; but no bishopric until the
+tenth. Pamplona, which is their town on the south, was known before the
+beginnings of our Christian history. But the Basques themselves are not
+known to us from the Romans. The name of the Consevanni survives locally.
+The country round St. Girons is still all one country-side and called
+the “Conserans.” Of the Convenæ we have a pleasant legend in St. Jerome
+telling how Pompey got together all the brigands of the mountains, drove
+them northward hither, and forced them into a garrison (a stronghold
+which, like Lyons and the rest, was one of the many “Lugdunums”). It was
+destroyed early in the dark ages, and later revived by St. Bertrand,
+a little way off in his Episcopal town. Their name survives in the
+district of Comminges. The Béarnese name of course survives and so does
+the Bigorrean, while the Elloronean, though no longer the title of a
+district, is preserved in the town name of Oloron.
+
+All this country, not only that of the five tribes along the mountains,
+but the whole territory occupied by the nine peoples (who afterwards
+became twelve), lay in a profound peace under Roman rule, and we may
+be certain of its increasing wealth throughout the first four great
+formative centuries of our era.
+
+The advance of Rome upon the Spanish side was of a very different kind.
+Rome, after the Carthaginian wars, inherited broad belts of civilized
+and half civilized land. All the Mediterranean slope below the mouth of
+the Ebro, and a belt quite three days’ marches wide inland to the north
+of that river, was full of ancient populated towns, alive with the full
+civilization common to every shore of the inland sea. So, we may be
+certain, were the broad plains of the south where the most complete and
+earliest absorption of the Celt-Iberian in Roman speech and ideas took
+place. The advance into the north-west and therefore along the Pyrenees
+covered more than a century of strict and perpetual warfare, which was
+intermixed by the civil wars of the Roman commanders. The extremities of
+the Asturias were reached in the century before the birth of our Lord,
+but the advance was not, as upon the north, a rapid expansion beyond the
+old boundaries. It took the form of siege after siege and battle after
+battle, in which those numerous and crushing defeats, which Rome (like
+every truly military power) reckoned to be a necessary part of history,
+interrupted the slow progress of her law. The Celt-Iberian towns were
+walled and strong; their resistance was painful and tenacious; there was
+no sudden illumination of a willing people by a new culture, such as had
+taken place in Gaul, rather was northern Spain kneaded by generations of
+warfare into the stuff of the Empire.
+
+When the work was accomplished, it was complete throughout the
+Peninsula; and though the silent strength of the Basques prevented the
+Roman language from invading their valleys, the administration of the
+whole territory south of the Pyrenees must have been as exact and as
+bureaucratic as that to the north of it. There was, however, this great
+difference due to local topography between the Spanish and the French
+hills, that the municipalities upon which Rome stretched her power, as
+upon pegs, were less common, were farther apart, and approached less
+nearly to the central ridge upon the southern than upon the northern
+side. What you see to-day south of the Pyrenees is what you might have
+seen at any time in the last 2000 years—a very few scattered towns,
+still the centres of government, and all the rest rare isolated villages
+living their own life, free from the criminal, and, by a regular
+payment of small taxes, half independent of the civil law. Alone of the
+true mountain sites, Jaca in the middle, Pamplona and Urgel at either
+extremity, were bishoprics. Huesca, St. Laurence’s town, a fourth centre,
+is in the plains. For the rest the confused storm of hills ending in
+those parallel ranges, pushed right out on to the burnt flats of the
+Ebro, forbade the establishment of a municipal civilization.
+
+Upon all this land to the north and to the south of the mountains came,
+after five hundred years of a high civilization, the slow decline of
+culture, and the infiltration of the barbarians. In a sense the nominal
+divisions between the barbaric kingdoms has its importance, for they
+help us to understand changes of dynasty and of custom. But they were of
+no political effect. The mass of the people knew little of the chance
+soldiers who, with their mixed retinues of Roman, Breton, German, Slav,
+and the rest—some able, some not able to read the letters of Rome—sat in
+the old seats of office, issued their writs through the still surviving
+Roman Bureaucracy and from palaces which were but those of decayed Roman
+governors.
+
+For the greater part of Western Europe, and especially of Gaul, this
+process of decay was one into which Europe slowly dipped as into a bath
+of sleep, and out of which it rose more rapidly through the energy of the
+Crusades and of the renewed Pontificate into the splendour of the Middle
+Ages. But the Pyrenees suffered in this matter a peculiar fate. When
+Spain was overrun by the Mohammedan, and when in the first generation
+of the eighth century the Asiatic with his alien creed and morals had
+even swept for a moment into Gaul, the Pyrenees became a march: at
+first the rampart, later, when they were fully held, the bastion of our
+civilization against its chief peril. It is this episode by which the
+Pyrenees became the military base of the advance against Islam—an episode
+covering the whole life of Charlemagne and after him the ninth, tenth,
+and eleventh centuries—which gives them their legendary atmosphere and
+fills all their names with romance.
+
+The northern slope, during the long business by which Gaul became itself
+again, was but a remote border province. The new life of Gaul, after
+the shock which had so nearly destroyed Europe was over, sprang from
+Paris. The influence of Paris radiating upon every side built up again
+accuracy of knowledge, unity of government, and general law. To this
+influence the Pyrenees seemed the most remote of boundaries. The valleys
+were little affected by the growth of the French Monarchy; they remained
+for centuries broken into a maze of half-republican customs, of tiny
+independent lordships, guarded and menaced by separate and jealous walled
+municipalities upon the plains—all of this vaguely and slowly coalesced
+into larger districts, doubtful of their sovereignty and perpetually
+struggling upon their boundaries and their sub-boundaries.
+
+In this development nothing was more striking than the way in which this
+remote border at first looked rather to the south, where the interest of
+religious war was ever present, than to the north, whence government was
+slowly coming towards it. The French Pyrenees fought and felt with the
+whole range, not with the plains. Jaca in the worst time, when it was
+the only mountain bishopric free from the Mohammedan, counselled with
+and was perhaps suffragan to Eauze. Urgel sat in the provincial Synod of
+Narbonne. As the success of the Reconquista pushed the noise of crusade
+further and further from the range, the northern valleys looked more
+and more towards their northern towns. Their nominal allegiances grew
+stricter—as of Foix to Toulouse—and every French bishopric was bound
+more and more to its northern metropolitan, the Spanish sees to the new
+metropolitans of the Ebro.
+
+At last an issue was joined between Northern and Southern France of the
+first moment to the unity of Gaul itself and of all Christendom. The
+Crusades, the knowledge of the East, the awakening of the intelligence
+and of its appetites, had bred throughout the wealthy towns of what had
+been from the beginning Roman land, a desire to be rid of the restraints
+of fixed religion. The South of France began to move towards its pagan
+past. It was a movement which had already had its strange echo in the
+north, a movement which in England had only been pulled up at the last
+moment by the martyrdom of St. Thomas. Here in Gaul, in the sunlight,
+and backed by so much gold, the rational and sensual revolt became a
+larger thing, and when various sources of disruption, speculation,
+and achievement had met in one stream, it was commonly called the
+_Albigensian_ movement. The issue was decided, after heavy fighting, in
+the early thirteenth century, and the victory was with the cause of the
+unity of Europe. Toulouse (the true centre of the storm) and its lord
+were conquered. Northern barons swept down, held no small part of the
+southern land, and from that time onward the French Pyrenees are normally
+dependent on Paris.
+
+Two exceptions survived, the straddle of the Basque across the chain and
+the straddle of the Catalan. The Basque had his country of Navarre upon
+either side of the chain; with it went Béarn, and these were independent
+of the French crown. The Catalan, able to traverse the chain by the flat
+floor of the Cerdagne, preserved the unity of his mountain province, and
+the Roussillon counted with Spain. Apart from this easy passage into the
+Roussillon from the south, by way of the Cerdagne, the isolation of the
+Roussillon was the more easily accomplished from the long spur of the
+Corbieres, which runs north and east towards the sea and cuts off from
+France the wealthy plain of which Elne had once been, Perpignan had later
+become, the capital.
+
+This arrangement endured, in name at least, until the seventeenth
+century. The last heir of Navarre was also the heir nearest to the French
+throne at the close of the religious wars, and as Henry IV of France he
+united the two crowns. A man who, as a boy, might have rejoiced at that
+union, could have lived to see, under Mazarin, the signing of the Treaty
+of the Pyrenees, which gave the Roussillon also to the French Crown. The
+date of this final arrangement coincided with what is ironically called
+“The Restoration” in England: this date, which definitely closed the
+power of the English Monarchy, and substituted for it the power of a
+wealthy oligarchic class, coincides throughout Europe with the struggle
+between absolute central government for the equal service of all, and
+local aristocratic custom. In England the latter conquered; in Spain and
+France the debate was decided in favour of the former.
+
+Such centralized governments could but further define and insist upon
+a new boundary, and from that time onward, for 250 years that is, the
+Pyrenees have been once more as they were under the clear administration
+of Rome, a fixed political boundary; and, save certain exceptions
+that will be mentioned later, everything north of the chain has been
+administered from Paris, and has slowly accepted, side by side with
+the local tongue, the tongue of Northern France and the habit of a
+centralized French government.
+
+South of the chain the process by which Christendom recrystallized out of
+the flux of the dark ages, followed a different course; it was a process
+to which Spain owes all her national characteristics, for out of the
+mountains a Spanish nation was formed, and from its various communities,
+as from roots, the Catholic kingships grew southward until they once more
+reached Gibraltar.
+
+To understand this process, it is necessary to consider factors absent in
+the topography of the Gaulish plains, and especially the factor of that
+unconquerable tangle of mountains which occupies all the north-western
+triangle of the Peninsula.
+
+The ocean boundaries of the Iberian quadrilateral are nearly square to
+the points of the compass. It is not so with the internal divisions that
+mark off its central part. Here the edges of the high and arid plateaux,
+the deep trenches of the rivers, the mountain ranges, the boundaries
+of the plains at their feet, run slantways from north-east to the
+south-west. This slant determined the boundaries of Mohammedan expansion,
+while the Asiatics and Africans still retained the energy to advance;
+it determined the successive frontiers of the Reconquest, as our race
+slowly ousted the invader and reached at last the sea-coast of Granada.
+The Arab and the Moor were masters of Narbonne and all the Roussillon on
+the east, when, on the west, they could not cross the mouth of the Mulio
+a hundred miles to the south. They were at Jaca within a day’s march of
+the watershed along the Roman Road, when, to the immediate west of it,
+they could not hold Fuente; they could not even reach Pamplona, though
+that western town is two marches at least from the main crest. Toledo was
+reconquered a generation before Saragossa, though Saragossa is by nearly
+two degrees more northerly, because Toledo was west of Saragossa. The
+last Mohammedan kingdom was crowded, after the thirteenth century, into
+the extreme south-east, as the surviving remnant of the free Europeans of
+the Peninsula had been crowded into the extreme north-west in the eighth.
+
+If the boundaries of undisputed Mohammedan rule be traced for various
+dates, the receding wave will be found in general to follow curves that
+lead, like the main features of the land, from the north-east downwards
+towards the Atlantic.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This main character in the geography and history of Spain, the
+south-westerly trend of the mountain ridges, largely determined the
+fortunes of those fighting bands of mountaineers who ceaselessly pressed
+southward until they had wholly driven out the invader and reconstituted
+the unity of Europe. It determined the first advance to be, not from the
+Pyrenees, but from the Asturias, and the first captain connected with the
+Christian resistance after the overwhelming of all that civilization,
+_Pelayo_ (from whose blood Leon, Castille, Aragon, and Navarre descend)
+had his stronghold, not in the Pyrenees, but a week’s march to the west,
+along the Biscayan coast at Cangas. Within the decade of the invasion he
+had checked the invader in his own hills at Covadonga.
+
+All the eighth century is full of that successful spirit in the
+north-west—but nowhere else. Alfonso, the husband of Pelayo’s daughter,
+struck the note with his boast, “No pact with the infidel,” and the
+tradition or prophecy that Christendom would regain the south, springs
+from him. He conquered down to the Douro, over what is to-day the
+mountain frontier of Portugal; he began those long cavalry raids into the
+heart of Moorish land. He rode into Astorga, into Zamora, into Segovia
+itself—within sight of the central range of the Guadarama: riding back
+with booty, harassed and harassing, nowhere permanently fixing himself
+save in the towns of the west, upon the Lower Douro, but building on the
+ridges of his defence, those block-houses, the “Castille” from which,
+long after, the frontier province began to take its name.
+
+All the ninth century that spirit grew. The body of St. James was found
+under the Star at Compostella—its shrine became the national sacrament
+as it were, a perpetual refreshment for arms, and a symbol, in its
+wild isolation among the rocks of Galicia, of the impregnable places
+from which the Reconquista drew its ardour. The advance continued. The
+frontier counties consolidated and were named.
+
+Leon was permanently held, Burgos was founded. If one takes for a date
+the opening years of the tenth century, just after Alfred had saved
+England also from the pagan, and just after the Counts of Paris had saved
+northern Gaul, there is a full Spanish kingdom standing up against the
+Mohammedan power, a king has been crowned in Leon and has died in peace
+at Zamora. The cavalry raids have pushed—once at least—to Toledo. All
+the north-west lay permanently Christian beyond a line that ran from
+the corner of Gaul to the Douro and down the Douro to the sea; and this
+united triangle of Roman land formed a base from which the pushing back
+of the alien could proceed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How did this disposition of forces affect the Pyrenees? Let it first
+be noted that the newly organized Christian country lay wholly to the
+west of the range. In the Pyrenees themselves the Mohammedan flood had
+washed every valley. The crest had been traversed and retraversed; both
+slopes were for a moment held by the invaders. Abd-ur-Rahman had sent or
+led his thousands by the Roman roads of Roncesvalles and Urdos and over
+the Ostondo and the lower passes of the west. The mule tracks of these
+rocks had been twice crowded with the white cloaks of the Arabs. In the
+east, Narbonne was held for fifty years, and with it all the Catalans.
+Even in the high centre of the chain, where there is no passing between
+the Somport and the Cerdagne, wherever there was something to rob or
+to destroy, the invaders had penetrated. There was not here, as in the
+Asturias, untouched land.
+
+When the crest of the wave retreated, when the Mohammedan came back
+defeated from Gaul, the high valleys attained—it may be guessed—a savage
+independence.
+
+Jaca has legends of its battle at the very beginning of the Independence,
+before Charlemagne had come to the rescue, and from all the valleys
+of the Sobrarbe, bands of men must have been perpetually volunteering
+for skirmishes down into the plains. Navarre was the natural leader of
+the movement, the largest and the most fertile belt of Christian land,
+but the little lordship upon the Aragon, fighting down south and east
+towards the Ebro, the western count of the Asturias fighting down south
+and west, cut off the advance of the Basques; and though Navarre in the
+period of birth and turmoil which is that of Gregory VII’s reform of the
+Papacy, of the establishment in England and in Sicily of Norman power,
+and of preparation for the Crusade, was the head of all the southern
+Pyrenees and called itself an “Empire,” it was blocked by the double
+line of advance, and the Basques, upon the foundation of whose tenacity
+and courage, as upon a pivot, the Reconquest had proceeded, took little
+more part in the wars; but the Basque strip of Navarre gave its first
+king to Aragon, and the son of that first king, Sancho, raided so far as
+Huesca and was killed beneath its walls; his son again, Peter, took the
+town two years later just as the hosts of Europe were gathering for that
+first great march upon Jerusalem which threw open the curtain of the
+Middle Ages; and _his_ son, Alfonso (who had united in one crown Leon and
+Aragon), went forward under his great name of the Batallador, and twenty
+years later (1119) swept into Saragossa, the last of the Mohammedan
+strongholds in the north.
+
+Thus were the west and the centre of the Spanish slope recovered for our
+race and civilization.
+
+Meanwhile Catalonia upon the east had been since Charlemagne, since
+the early ninth century, a march of Christendom; but it was not until
+the same creative period which had brought forth the leadership of
+Navarre and the advance from Aragon, the Normans, Hildebrand, and the
+resurrection of Europe, that Catalonia began to go forward. Its first
+true monarch was Berenguer the Old, who lived round and about the date
+of Hastings, and was first master of the whole province. He also founded
+and maintained the Cortes of Barcelona. His son, for a moment, raided
+the Balearics, and when he died Catalonia and Aragon, united under one
+crown, saw the alien finally driven from these mountains. All the plain
+from far beyond the base of the hills was now permanently held by strong
+and united kingships which pressed forward to the Ebro valley, and
+finally saved all the Spanish province of Europe. A lifetime later, the
+last of the foreign armies had been broken at Navas de Tolosa. Far off
+in the south Islam lingered, tolerated and on sufferance, but Spain was
+reconquered. For just 500 years Spain, a quarter of all that makes up our
+civilization, had lain in peril between our religion and the other.
+
+I have said that with the thirteenth century, the Albigensian crusade
+upon the north, the destruction of Islam upon the south (the two
+successes were contemporaneous), the Pyrenees ceased for ever to be a
+march between two civilizations, and became a mere political boundary
+between two provinces of Europe; and I have said that the nature of that
+boundary was finally fixed in the seventeenth century, or rather during a
+period which stretches from the close of the sixteenth to just after the
+middle of the seventeenth.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN K.]
+
+If that political boundary be examined to-day it will be found to
+coincide with the watershed, save at certain particular points, the
+character of which merits examination.
+
+I take for my boundaries, as throughout this book, Mount Urtioga on
+the west, and the beginning of the Alberes on the east, which may
+conveniently be placed at the Couloum.
+
+In this distance, there is a slight discrepancy between the political
+boundary and the watershed here and there in the Basque valleys. Mount
+Urtioga itself, though upon the watershed, is entirely in Spain, and the
+sources of the torrents which feed the valley of Baigorry all rise a
+mile or so beyond the political frontier, which is here composed of two
+straight conventional lines.
+
+The head waters of the Nive are wholly in Spain also, as is all the
+left bank of that river to a point four miles below Val Carlos. The
+right bank, however, is French, so far as the torrent Garratono. Thence
+forward from the sources of that torrent (that is, upon the Atheta) the
+frontier now follows the watershed, now leaves the very head-springs
+of the torrents in Spain until, a few miles further east, it makes a
+considerable invasion of Spanish territory, not because the frontier
+itself bends, but because the watershed here goes northward in a half
+circle. All the upper valley of the Iraty is politically in France;
+but from the Pic d’Orhy, where a definite ridge begins, it follows the
+frontier strictly for mile after mile (with the exception of a curious
+little enclave which gives Spain two or three hundred yards of the
+head-waters of the Aspe), and there is no further exception throughout
+all the high Pyrenees until one strikes the curious anomaly of the _Val
+d’Aran_.
+
+I have said in describing the physical structure of the Pyrenees that
+the two main axes of those mountains were joined by a sort of fault, a
+serpentine bridge of high land which united them from the Sabouredo to
+a point ten miles northward, the Pic de l’Homme overhanging the Pass
+of Bonaigo. The valley caught on the French side of this twist is the
+Val d’Aran, containing the upper waters of the French river Garonne.
+Geographically of course it is French, but politically it is Spanish so
+far as a certain gorge where is a bridge called the King’s Bridge, and
+where the Garonne pours through a narrow gate of rock into its lower
+valley. The story goes that when the Treaty of the Pyrenees was in act
+of negotiation someone said diplomatically and casually to the French
+negotiators, “The Val d’Aran of course you regard as Spanish,” and
+they, knowing no more of these mountains than of the mountains of the
+moon, said, “Of course.” The true reason is rather that the gate in the
+mountains cuts off this upper valley from the lower gorges of the river
+much more than the low, easy, and grassy saddle of the Bonaigo cuts it
+off from the Spanish valley of Eneou just to the east of it: and though
+the Val d’Aran may be geographically or rather hydrographically French,
+it is topographically Spanish, which is as though one were to say that
+Almighty God made it so.
+
+Another exception and a big one to the rule that the frontier follows the
+watershed, is, of course, to be found in the French Cerdagne. The true
+watershed here is coincident with the frontier as far as the Pic de la
+Cabanette in latitude 42° 35′ 30″. The watershed then goes on over the
+Port de Saldeu, along the crest of the Port d’Embalire to the Pic Nègre,
+and there it turns to the east along the ridge across the saddle of which
+goes the high road over the Col called Puymorens. It follows that ridge,
+_not_ to the summit of the Carlitte, but to a lower peak called the
+Madides, three miles to the north-east, runs along two miles of a high
+rocky ledge to the Pic de la Madge and then there follows a difficult
+sort of hydrographical No Man’s Land, the centre of which is the great
+marsh of Pouillouse, nor can you tell exactly where the watershed is for
+some miles in the forest below that marsh, for the same damp flat ground
+sends water into the valley of the Tet and into the valley of the Segre.
+Three miles to the south-west, however, it is clearly defined again in a
+low rounded lump of wooded land, it passes over the flat Col de la Perche
+and then follows the crest still going south-west up to the Pic d’Eyne,
+where again it becomes the frontier, and the frontier it remains until it
+reaches the Mediterranean.
+
+From the Pic de la Cabanette, all the way to the Pic d’Eyne, France and
+Mazarin politically took in by the Treaty of the Pyrenees a belt to the
+south of the watershed and extending down to a conventional line which
+left Bourg-Madame French and Puigcerdá Spanish; an exception in this is
+a small strip beyond the Pic de la Cabanette, on the left bank of the
+Ariège, which, though geographically French, was given to Andorra, so
+that Andorra might smuggle more comfortably over the passes.
+
+The causes of this annexation of the French Cerdagne by Mazarin are clear
+enough when one remembers that the Roussillon (which is geographically
+French) passed to France by the same treaty. There is no way from the
+valley of the Ariège into the Roussillon except by going round this
+corner of the Cerdagne, at least no practicable carriage way; the
+only other way is the difficult and high short cut described later in
+this book. If the frontier be carefully noted, it will be seen that
+it is designed merely to preserve a right of passage over this road.
+Jurisdiction was only claimed by France over the villages, and Llivia,
+being a town, stands in an island of Spanish territory in the midst of
+the French Cerdagne, as will be seen later when I speak of this district
+in detail.
+
+Such is the present political aspect of the Pyrenees, with Toulouse
+for their great French town in the plains, 60 miles away to the north,
+Saragossa for their great Spanish town in the plains, 100 miles away to
+the south, a string of towns just at their feet (Bayonne, Pau, Tarbes,
+St. Girons, etc.) on the northern side; on the south a rarer and less
+connected group (Pamplona, Huesca, Barbastro, Lerida, etc.); and against
+the Mediterranean the district of Gerona, shut in by the Sierra del Cadi
+(with its outposts) and the Alberes upon the Spanish side, the town of
+Gerona its capital; the Roussillon, with Perpignan for its capital, shut
+in between the Alberes and the Corbieres on the French side.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+MAPS
+
+
+One of the first ideas that come to a man when he thinks of wandering
+about an unknown bit of country is that it will be more fun if he does
+not take a map. There are places of which this is true: you discover for
+yourself, and it is more exciting. But it is not true of the Pyrenees.
+So little is it true of the Pyrenees that those who have no maps, that
+is, the local peasantry, never traverse a country until they know it
+well, and when they get into new country learn all they can from its
+inhabitants, get themselves accompanied if possible, and keep to a path.
+You will find that the hunters who know the mountains are always local
+men. The Pyrenees are built in such a fashion and on such a scale that
+you not only can, but must, lose yourself in the course of any long
+wandering unless you have some sort of guide to your hand. There is only
+one kind of travel off the road which you can possibly undertake without
+a map, and that will be pottering about one small district with a porter,
+a friend, or a mule to carry a tent and plenty of provisions; but if you
+are attempting several crossings of the ridges, and especially if you are
+attempting such a task on foot, a map is absolutely necessary to you.
+
+Whatever kind of map you take with you into the hills, you must also
+take with you a small compass, and that is why I mention that toy later
+in talking of equipment. You are perpetually asking yourself, as you
+compare the map with the landscape, which peak is which, and it is often
+essential to get the right one on the right bearings. Nothing is easier
+than to mistake one part of a ridge for another.
+
+If you are in bad weather or in the dark or enclosed, the compass gives
+you a general direction, as for instance upon the track I describe later
+in the great wood going to Formiguères, and the compass further tells
+you at what point your valley begins to turn in a certain direction. Now
+a bend of this sort is very often the only indication you have for the
+exact place in which to branch off for a port, or to look for a cabane.
+Remember the variation, which is on the average for this range about
+14 degrees, that is, the true north is 14 degrees to the right of the
+direction the needle points to.
+
+A map or maps, then, you must determine to take, and it next remains to
+examine what sort of maps are available for the whole range.
+
+There are but three of the greater countries in the whole world (to my
+knowledge, at least) which have sufficient and numerous maps, these are
+England, France, and Germany. I can imagine what reproach and criticism
+such a statement may bring from those who know the admirable work done in
+India, and the special but laborious surveys of Italy and of the United
+States. But I do say (as far as my travels extend) that maps valuable for
+the purposes of a man on foot and covering a whole country are confined
+to these three among the greater states. To tell the truth, there is
+but one large country that possesses perfect ones, and that is our own.
+Nowhere else in the world (to my knowledge, at least) has a complete
+survey of every detail of the soil been made, as it has been made under
+the Crown of the United Kingdom. And if foreigners judge, as they are apt
+to judge, of our cartography by the excellent one-inch scale map alone,
+they should remember that we also possess the six-inch, and in some cases
+the twenty-five inch to supplement it. Neither France nor Germany can
+boast of such a survey.
+
+Now let me abandon this digression and discuss what maps are valuable in
+the Pyrenees.
+
+First, upon the Spanish side, there is nothing. Every one who tries to
+get a good cartographical indication of the approaches to the Pyrenees
+upon the Spanish side is baffled. Outside of my own experience, I have
+heard of many attempts and they have all failed. There is indeed a legend
+of a wonderful military map in Madrid or elsewhere, but I have never
+seen it, nor have I ever seen anyone who has seen it. There is a good
+contour map extending outwards from Madrid in various sections, but it
+does not get anywhere near the Pyrenees. There is a geological map of
+Spain upon which some people fall back in despair, but it tells you very
+little about Spain except the geology. It is on an extremely large scale,
+1/400,000 if I remember right, and it is horrible to have to use it even
+for the most general purposes of travel.
+
+There is a large general map of Spain, drawn in Germany, which is equally
+useless for the pedestrian; it comprises the whole country within a space
+that could easily be hung over the chimney-piece of a small room.
+
+In a word, there is no map of Spain for the foot traveller upon the
+Spanish side. Everything of that kind which exists so far is (I again
+qualify the statement by adding “to my knowledge”) of French workmanship.
+
+It is therefore the French maps which the traveller must consider, and I
+will detail these in their order with their respective advantages.
+
+It must first be remarked that these maps are to be regarded as official
+and unofficial; the official ones should be divided into those proceeding
+from the French War Office and those proceeding from the French Home
+Office. The importance of this will appear in a moment.
+
+Of the unofficial maps (which are very numerous) the most important by
+far is that published and printed by Schrader, and this is important only
+because it gives contours (at rather large intervals, it is true) on the
+Spanish side as well as upon the French.
+
+The map can be ordered of Messrs. Sifton & Praed, The Map House, St.
+James’s Street, and costs (pre-war) twelve shillings for the six sheets.
+Its value consists in giving the traveller details of all the difficult
+central bit between Sallent and the Encantados. The French contours, as
+will immediately appear, are easily obtainable elsewhere; but to know
+the Spanish side, the difficulties of the way between Panticosa (for
+instance) and Bielsa, Schrader’s map is a great advantage; it is final
+on the heights, the steepness, and the changes in direction of the way.
+
+The official maps consist _first_ of the War Office maps, the scale of
+which is 1/80,000 and 1/320,000.
+
+The first thing to appreciate with regard to the French maps, is that
+all of them, whether from the Home Office or from the War Office (and
+in a country such as France the work of these two departments is very
+different), are based upon the 1/80,000 survey. It was this survey,
+undertaken by the General Staff in the course of the nineteenth century,
+which formed the basis of every other map that Frenchmen use. Certain of
+its early details were slightly inaccurate, as the heights of the Pelvoux
+group in Savoy, which Mr. Whymper, when he climbed those mountains,
+corrected. It is, however, the best monument of cartography left by
+the nineteenth century. Nothing has since appeared to rival it in any
+country upon the same scale. We must except of course the highly detailed
+large-scale survey of special districts, which may happen to be, by a
+political accident, autonomous and wealthy. Belgium has a far better map,
+upon which indeed all modern work upon the Belgian battlefields is based.
+Switzerland also has a better map. But no such large area as that of the
+French Republic has upon so small a scale (much less than one inch to the
+mile), so complete a record of every track, wood, habitation, height, and
+watercourse.
+
+The 1/320,000 is merely a reduction of this map; it is of service to
+people who motor or bicycle, to anyone who uses the high road, and who
+wishes to be able occasionally to wander into by-paths; but for little
+local details and difficulties it should not be consulted. It is useful
+advice to anyone who desires to know the Pyrenees that he should consult
+before leaving home a map of the whole range upon the 1/320,000 scale,
+but travel in the hills with the 1/80,000 scale.
+
+The disadvantage, however, of the military map, accurate though it is,
+and full of detail though it is, lies in two points inseparable from
+the early conditions under which it was produced; the first of these is
+the use of one colour, that of printers’ ink, so that the line marking
+a stream, a wall, or a path are similar; the second derives from this,
+and is the confusion of so many small details, all in _one_ colour and
+in black. There are no contour lines. The hatching, though bold, does
+not give exact heights, save where such heights are marked in figures,
+and what with the lines marking the paths in mountainous districts, the
+water-courses, the roads, the marks indicating the rocks, habitations,
+etc., the 1/80,000 map tends (though it still remains the best map for a
+very careful student, e.g., for a soldier on manœuvres) to be somewhat
+crowded and confused.
+
+An appreciation of the demerits of these maps, and perhaps a certain
+rivalry between the two departments, led the French Home Office to
+undertake an Ordnance Map of its own. This map is in various scales, of
+which the sheets showing the Pyrenees—the only ones that concern us—are
+in 1/100,000 and 1/200,000. Let me explain the general qualities of both
+and the advantages and disadvantages attaching to either of these.
+
+Both are in colours, giving water-courses and lakes in blue, woods
+in green, roads in red, etc., and that is an enormous and immediate
+simplification upon the old-fashioned black map.
+
+Both are brought up to date with more care than the military map; both
+are less crowded with detail, and both indicate such civilian necessities
+as the telephone, telegraph, post-office, etc. On the other hand, neither
+contains hatching—the only true way of representing a country-side to the
+eye—and neither give that minute and exact multiplicity of markings which
+it is the boast of the military map to afford. The civil map is more
+practical, the military map more full of duty and more accurate.
+
+It must finally be remembered that the scale of the civil maps, even of
+1/100,000 is so small as to impede the setting down of details such as
+we have on a one-inch Ordnance Map. It is three to four times smaller
+superficially than our official map in England. Nevertheless, for reasons
+that I shall presently show, it is on the whole the best map to carry in
+the Pyrenees.
+
+The 1/200,000 map is but a reproduction on a smaller scale of the
+1/100,000 map. It has the great advantage of contour lines, but the
+scale is so small and the contours so pressed together, that, though it
+is invaluable for giving a general and plastic impression of the chain
+(to look down on a general map of the Pyrenees on this scale is like
+looking down on a model of the French side of the range), it is of little
+use for telling one, as a contour map should tell one, exactly how much
+higher this spot is than that other spot. When you are climbing and you
+wish to identify your position, you have usually to estimate comparative
+heights on a delicate scale and at a short distance, for which the
+1/200,000 map is of very little use to you.
+
+One way of using the contours of the 1/200,000 which is laborious,
+but not without value, is to trace the _deeper_ contour lines in some
+particular district, which you are specially studying. These deeper
+contour lines stand out much more clearly than the intermediate faint
+ones, which, as I have said, are too numerous for a mountain district.
+They can be followed clearly even in the dark shading of a steep ridge,
+and are set every hundred metres apart. When such a tracing has been
+made, neglecting the finer intermediate lines, you have a good working
+relief plan of the mountain you propose to deal with.
+
+Of all the area open to the climber and the man on foot in the Pyrenees,
+that upon the Spanish side of the frontier is the larger and wilder,
+and this for two reasons. First, because property and its attendant
+limitations is more developed upon the northern slope, so that the vast
+areas common to all, are, if anything, vaster upon the southern side,
+and secondly, that the formation of the range between the ramparts above
+the Ebro and the main chain, covers a larger space than that between the
+main chain and the French plains. Yet, as I have just said, it is on the
+Spanish side that proper maps are lacking, and one must do the best one
+can to supplement them by the French extensions.
+
+A common plan guides all the French maps in their delineation of
+territory south of the frontier. Colours, contour lines, hatching, and
+every detail are omitted. Heights are given in certain cases (but those
+are rarer of course than on the French side). The names of towns and, in
+some cases, their telegraphic and postal communications are marked, but
+upon the whole the Spanish side upon the French maps has far less detail
+than is accorded for the territory to which the maps directly relate.
+
+However, let me explain the various advantages and disadvantages, for use
+upon the Spanish side, of the four types of French maps I have mentioned.
+
+The 1/320,000 of the Ministry of War may be neglected; whatever use it
+has upon the French side, it is negligible upon the Spanish.
+
+The 1/80,000 map of the Ministry of War marks the main water-courses upon
+the Spanish side, the main peaks, and the main important ports and cols,
+with their heights, but it does not afford any indication of the shape
+of the country. It is a bare white space of paper with but few lines
+traversing it, one or two names, and one or two numbers on each sheet.
+
+On the whole it is better not to use the French military maps for the
+Spanish side; here it is the maps of the Ministry of the Interior which
+must chiefly be relied upon. Of these the 1/100,000 map is the best. It
+is true that the colours, which are so valuable in the differentiation
+of the French side, are absent upon the Spanish, save in the case of
+water-courses, which are marked in blue upon either slope of the range.
+There is no indication of woods upon the Spanish side, as there is upon
+the French, and as this indication is useful for purposes of camping,
+the loss of it on the south side is often felt. Moreover, the absence of
+colour upon the Spanish side often makes one misinterpret the nature of
+the mountains upon these maps, giving to the whole a bare look, since the
+rocky and bare spaces on the French side are similarly left uncovered.
+On the other hand, the 1/100,000 French map does afford upon the Spanish
+side a very large number of detailed points of information. I will
+enumerate them in their order.
+
+1. The general shape of the country is indicated by shading, the light
+being supposed to come (as is the case throughout this series of maps)
+from the north-west.
+
+2. Steep rocks and cliffs, the presence of which should always be
+indicated to the traveller, are carefully marked upon either side of the
+frontier.
+
+3. Paths, the importance of which the reader will presently appreciate,
+are clearly marked, with all details, as exactly as on the French side.
+
+4. Every habitation is marked, and in the case of villages and towns, the
+number of inhabitants, the postal and other facilities.
+
+5. Most of the heights are marked, though not so many as on the northern
+slope, but at any rate the height of every important port, col, and peak
+appears. In general, it may be said that there is no map of the Pyrenees,
+immediately to the south of the frontier, equivalent to those of the
+districts which happen to fall within the French 1/100,000 survey.
+
+This leads me to the principal drawback connected with the use of the
+French 1/100,000 map upon the Spanish side, which is, that it only
+includes such Spanish territory as accidentally happens to fall within
+each square blocked out in the French survey.
+
+The English reader is acquainted, it may be presumed, with the one-inch
+Ordnance Map, and he will have remarked, how, if it so happens that a
+little corner of land escapes the regular series of rectangles into which
+the one-inch Ordnance Map is divided, that little corner of land will
+have a map all to itself, though the greater part of the rectangular
+space so marked may be taken up by the sea. In the same way any little
+bit of French territory which projects beyond the scheme of rectangles
+into which the whole survey is divided, has, added to it, an outer part
+completing the map and extending into Spain; where (as for instance
+on the sheet called “Gavarnie”) the little piece of French territory
+so projecting is small in comparison with the whole rectangle, a
+considerable piece of Spanish territory will be included; but where (as
+for instance on the sheet called “Bayonne”) the frontier very nearly
+corresponds with the survey, very little of the Spanish side will be
+included.
+
+From this it is easy to perceive that the maximum amount of Spanish
+territory in any one map must be inferior either in width or in length
+to the full dimensions of each sheet, and that the total distance into
+Spain, which any one sheet can mark, south of the frontier, is less than
+the width of any one sheet. Now each sheet of the French 1/100,000 map
+includes 15 minutes of a degree from north to south, that is, about 17
+miles. One may say, therefore, that the amount of Spanish territory shown
+to the south of the frontier in this excellent survey is always less than
+one full day’s journey. In many parts it narrows to far less than this.
+There are not a few parts of the range where even for those who make but
+short excursions on to the Spanish side, this drawback is of considerable
+effect. For instance, in the easy and pleasant excursion which takes one
+from Andorra to Urgel, the 1/100,000 map cuts one short at 42° 30′ below
+Andorra, and 42° 15′ beyond the main road to Urgel, and no small part of
+the road lies south or west of this limitation.
+
+The 1/200,000 map somewhat makes up for the deficiency of the 1/100,000
+map, but not in a complete manner. The frontier sections of this survey
+(five in number) show Spanish territory to the extent of some 30 miles in
+the Basque country, they give but a tiny corner of the extreme east of
+the territory of Aragon, they give over 30 miles for the greater part of
+the north of that province, but in Catalonia the belt is restricted to
+far less. Moreover, the Spanish details afforded are much slighter than
+in the 1/100,000. There is no indication of the relief of the country,
+no shading, only the principal water-courses and the principal highways
+and mule roads are marked. But it is here that the 1/200,000 is useful,
+if one has the intention of walking for some days upon the Spanish side.
+Thus the direction from Castellbo in Catalonia to Esterri can be roughly
+drawn upon the 1/200,000 and will not be discovered so clearly in any
+other survey.
+
+It now remains to sum up the respective advantages of these four maps for
+the general purposes of travel, and to give a few comments upon the uses
+of each.
+
+The 1/320,000 military map will not be of great use to the traveller.
+It can only show him the main roads if he is motoring or cycling, and
+present him with a general view of the country for which the clearer
+1/200,000 map will serve his purpose better.
+
+The 1/80,000 military map is the best for minute details, and if a man
+desires to ramble off and explore some special districts of this great
+range, it is the 1/80,000 map which will be of most use to him, though
+its value will be supplemented and greatly extended by using it in
+conjunction with the colour 1/100,000 map of the Ministry of the Interior
+or Home Office.
+
+This last, as the reader will have seen, is the staple map, upon which
+every form of travel depends. If no other be purchased, this at least is
+always indispensable.
+
+It is well here to summarize briefly certain points in the reading of
+this map, which do not immediately appear on one’s first acquaintance
+with it.
+
+First, the map is on too small a scale to show a certain number of
+features, which, though unimportant in the general landscape, are
+essential to the traveller on foot. This is true of rocks, for instance;
+open rock, extending over a considerable surface, will always be marked,
+but hidden ledges, especially small ones, are more often not marked,
+and this may lead to disaster if one trusts the map too exactly. For
+instance, in the sheet numbered xi. 37, a range will be seen rising to
+the left of the main road, which bisects the map from north to south: I
+mean the range running from the Spanish frontier to the Pic-du-Ger. This
+ridge is intersected by two profound valleys, and the whole of it is a
+mass of greater or smaller limestone ledges, more or less masked in the
+density of the forests. Yet it is impossible to indicate these on such a
+scale, save here and there by sharp hatching. These limestone ledges are
+in this particular case such, that unless one knows the paths extremely
+well, it is impossible to cross the ridge at all, but one would have no
+idea of that from merely consulting the map. On the other hand, every
+rivulet, however small, is distinctly marked, and that is something of a
+guide when one has tried to ascertain one’s position in a valley. This
+map has a further advantage of marking in the clearest way the paths by
+which the various ports are approached, and after a considerable use
+of it in many places, I can say that when you have lost the path, the
+indication afforded you by the 1/100,000 map is invariably right—upon the
+French side. However unreasonably the line seems to acting upon the map,
+if it lies to the left of a stream, or beneath a particularly clearly
+marked rock, then it is to the left of that stream, or beneath that rock
+that you must cast about if you want to find it, and if you find another
+path in another direction, you may be certain it is but a random track,
+which will mislead you, however clearly it may appear for the moment.
+When, in first using these maps, my companions and I neglected such
+information, it invariably led to trouble. For instance, in the lower
+crossings of the Sousquéou, the map gives the path everywhere on the
+north, or right bank of the stream. There is a spot just before the first
+rocky “gate” of this ravine where all indication of further travel upon
+the right bank disappears, and on the contrary a fine-made path crosses
+over by a strong bridge to the further or left bank. We thought the map
+must be in error, and crossed by the bridge, with the result that we
+spent a whole day cut off by a bad spate from the further side, and were
+for some hours in peril; for the bridge once crossed, this false path
+disappeared within half a mile. If we had pinned ourselves to the map,
+kept to the north bank, and cast about in circles, we should have found
+the path again but a hundred yards or so further on, running precisely as
+it was indicated on the survey. The importance of the 1/100,000 map in
+thus giving all tracks accurately will hardly appear to the reader unused
+to the Pyrenees, but it will be seen clearly enough when we come later to
+speak of travel upon foot in the mountains.
+
+It is a defect of the 1/100,000 map that heights, though accurately
+marked, cannot always be as accurately referred to the exact spots
+standing near the figures. This is because the heights are marked in
+pale blue ink, and the ambiguity is accentuated by that absence of
+contour lines which is the chief fault of the series. The method of
+marking is to point a small blue point close to the figures, and this
+dot marks the exact spot to which the figures refer. Where the figures
+are printed in a white space, and where there are no other features to
+interfere with them, this small blue spot is plain enough, but where
+they come upon woodland or steep shading, or other print, it is almost
+impossible to discover the dot. Thus, for instance, in the xi. 37 sheet
+to which allusion has just been made, a little lake will be found right
+upon latitude 42° 50′, just before its intersection with longitude 2°
+40′. The height of this lake is given as 2170 metres, and the small blue
+point to which that altitude exactly refers is unmistakably marked at the
+southern extremity of the lake; but immediately to the right of those
+very figures, one of the highest peaks of the Pyrenees, the Bat Lactouse,
+marked 3146 metres, presents no point of which one can be certain. The
+frontier happens to cross this peak, and the little blue spot has got
+lost in the chain of black dots marking the frontier and in the print of
+the name of the mountain.
+
+As a general rule, however, if you are in doubt as to what a figure may
+refer to, you are pretty safe in referring it to a peak, rather than to
+a pass or a group of houses in the neighbourhood. I have said that the
+accuracy of the map is undoubted for the French side; it is less certain
+upon the Spanish, where indeed its accuracy is not guaranteed. It is the
+best map to use upon the Spanish side (save for that restricted district
+over which Schrader’s contour map applies), but do not, upon the Spanish
+side, take the map against the evidence of your senses, as you will be
+wise always to do upon the French side. The map is notably wrong upon the
+Spanish side where unfinished works are concerned; it is not revised with
+the same frequency and care as upon the French side; for instance, the
+big new road from Sallent up to the French frontier goes in long winding
+zigzags, which make the total distance between eight and nine miles. The
+1/100,000 map marks it in dots as though it were not finished, makes it
+far straighter than it is, and thus reduces the distance by nearly half.
+
+Finally, the 1/200,000 map gives the best bird’s-eye view of the whole
+district, and is the only one showing contours, and penetrating further
+upon the Spanish side than any other. It will be my advice to those who
+desire to take a walking tour of some length in various parts of the
+range, to equip themselves with the whole set of the 1/200,000 maps (5
+sheets), with the whole of the 1/100,000 map, but only with such of the
+1/800,000 (the uncoloured map of the Ministry of War) as cover small
+districts of the nature of which one is in doubt. Those, on the other
+hand, who purpose spending their time in one or two valleys only, should,
+without fail, purchase the sheets of the 1/100,000 survey covering that
+district, and would do very well to add to these all the corresponding
+sheets of the 1/80,000 survey.
+
+With these remarks, most that can be usefully told to my readers with
+regard to the maps of the Pyrenees has been told them, but perhaps a few
+final notes will not be without their use, thus: The English traveller
+must always remember that none of these maps comes up to the English
+one-inch Ordnance for accuracy and detail—the scale forbids this. Next,
+let him remember that the dates of revision of each map will differ,
+as do the dates of revision of ordnance maps in every country. For
+instance, I have before me, as I write, the 1/200,000 of Luz, purchased
+in this year (1908); no date of revision is attached to it, but the
+new road (which is at present an excellent carriage road, one of the
+best in Europe, up the Gallego to the French frontier) is marked, at
+first as a lane, afterwards as a mule track. On the 1/100,000 (Laruns
+sheet), purchasable this year, the new road is marked as existing for
+traffic, but not fully completed beyond a point about three miles from
+the frontier, and its true form is not given but merely indicated. It is
+evident that these sheets were revised at different times (the Laruns
+sheet bears a date six years old), and that we must always take the later
+of any two impressions, if we can obtain it. The highways of the Pyrenees
+upon the French side especially, both by road and by rail, are being
+extended with such rapidity that every year makes a difference to the
+accuracy of the information conveyed.
+
+It remains to enumerate with their titles the maps covering the district:
+in England they may be most easily obtained from Messrs. Sifton & Praed,
+The Map House, St. James’s Street. This firm provides the 1/200,000 for
+the whole chain of the Pyrenees range mounted on canvas, the most useful
+map perhaps for motoring and cycling. Any sheet of the 1/100,000 can
+also be obtained from them, as all are kept in stock, but by far the
+most convenient form in which to carry them is to have them folded in
+the stiff cover issued by the French Government: to get them in this
+form, a few days’ notice in London will be needed. From the same firm
+the military maps can be procured in a similar manner, but I do not know
+whether all are kept in stock as a regular thing.
+
+In ordering the sheets of the 1/200,000 (if one does not purchase them as
+a whole), reference is made not to numbers, but to names. There are five
+sheets, “Bayonne,” “Tarbes,” “Luz,” “Foix,” and “Perpignan,” the price of
+which in England is 10_s._; the whole series can also be purchased mounted.
+
+The sheets of the 1/100,000 map may be referred to either by the names of
+their central towns, or by the index number of the series in which they
+are printed. It is difficult to say what numbers of these maps exactly
+cover the range, unless one knows how far from the watershed towards
+the plain the traveller intends to go. The smallest number sufficient
+to cover the actual watershed and the highest peaks is 16, or, for the
+whole frontier, 17. These sheets are by name (going from the Atlantic
+to the Mediterranean, from west to east), St. Jean-de-Luz, Bayonne,
+St. Jean Pied-de-Port, Mauléon, Ste. Engrace, Laruns, Luz, Gavarnie,
+Bagnères-de-Luchon, Val-d’Arouge, St. Girons, Mont Rouch, Perles,
+Ax-les-Thermes, Saillagouse, Ceret, and Banyuls. Referring to their
+numbers in the series upon the index map, they are respectively viii. 35,
+ix. 35, ix. 36, x. 36, x. 37, xi. 37, xii. 37, xii. 38, xiii. 37, xiii.
+38, xiv. 37, xiv. 38, xv. 38, xvi. 38, xvi. 39, xvii. 39, and xviii. 39.
+It will be observed that in the index map of the 1/100,000 series, the
+divisions running from north to south are marked in Roman numerals, those
+from east to west in Arabic numerals, and that the gradual increase in
+Arabic numerals from 35 to 39, corresponds to the gradual trend southward
+of the Pyrenean chain from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
+
+Very few of my readers will be concerned with the main crest of the range
+alone; it will therefore be necessary to add to that list northward of
+the frontier (the lower Arabic numerals) the further sheet according to
+the district each may have chosen to travel in. A certain number of extra
+sheets are necessary to those who travel in the main chain only, for
+instance, “Perles” (xv. 38) includes within the limits of its sheet the
+frontier upon either side, but this frontier so nearly approaches the
+northern limits in one spot, that it will be quite impossible to travel
+in this part until we also add the sheet “Foix” (xv. 37), to the north
+of it. Even the little lake of Garbet, which is not three miles from the
+crest of the range, is half out of the map and half in.
+
+Those who desire a complete collection of all the sheets of the 1/100,000
+survey, extending from the furthest mountain over the Spanish side up on
+the foothills into the French plain, may remark the following lists: in
+series viii. 35; in series ix. 35 and 36; in series x. 35, 36, and 37; in
+series xi. 35, 36, and 37; in series xii. 36, 37, and 38; in series xiii.
+36, 37, and 38; in series xiv. 37 and 38; in series xv. 37 and 38; in
+series xvi. 37, 38, and 39; in series xvii. 38 and 39; in series xviii.
+39; in all twenty-five sheets will cover the mountainous region in this
+survey, and anyone who desires a complete map of the French Pyrenees,
+with as much of the Spanish side as the survey includes, should possess
+them all.
+
+Schrader’s map is in six sheets upon the scale of 1/100,000 and with
+contours. It is essentially a climber’s map. Detailed maps of special
+districts of course exist in many shapes, but they must be sought for in
+the periodical reviews, and in monographs in which they have appeared.
+Finally, it may interest the reader to know that in the Casino of
+Bagnères-de-Luchon he may inspect a fully detailed relief map of the
+whole range on a scale somewhat larger than one inch to a mile, though
+the inspection of it rather satisfies curiosity than affords any guide to
+travel.
+
+Schrader’s map is of the greatest value for one particular piece of
+touring, which I shall describe later in these pages. Meanwhile it may be
+as well to add a further note upon it here. It is by far the best, so far
+as it goes, of all the Pyrenean maps; it is due to private enterprise,
+and if the whole range had been done in the same way there would be no
+need to discuss any other type, it would amply suffice for all purposes.
+Unfortunately, whereas the range, within the limits laid down in this
+book, stretches in length from a degree east of Paris to nearly four
+degrees west of that meridian, covering, that is, four or five degrees
+of longitude, and stretches in latitude from 43° 25′ to at least 42°,
+Schrader’s survey covers only 1½° in longitude (namely, from 1° 10′ west
+of Paris to 2° 40′), and in latitude extends over no more than half a
+degree, namely, from 42° 20′ to 42° 50′.
+
+As the reader may see by comparing these bearings with a general map,
+Schrader’s map is intended to include no more than the very high Pyrenean
+peaks: it is the result of many years of careful individual survey, begun
+before the war of 1870 and carried on to quite the last few years.
+
+Like the French Home Office map, it is in the scale of 1/100,000, and,
+like it, it is printed in colours, but unlike the Home Office map, it
+shows the invaluable feature _of contours_. You have an exact plan of
+the country before you, and in clear weather, with the aid of this map,
+you can fall into no error in connexion with the relief of the land.
+The contours are at some distance, at 100 metres or 328 feet apart, but
+this in such country is an advantage; indeed, the cramping of the closer
+contours on the official 1/200,000 map, greatly detracts from their
+usefulness. Not only are contours marked, but all rocky places are given
+with the greatest care, and the impression of relief is helped by shading
+as well as contour lines. The only drawback of the map, apart from its
+restricted area, lies in the absence of any indication of woods. As to
+the steepness, to which woods are often a guide, his contours amply make
+up for the deficiency, but for camping it affords you no indication. On
+the other hand, all cabanes and all paths are very clearly marked.
+
+All heights and distances with which you will have to do in these hills
+upon either side are marked in metres, save in the popular talk, which
+measures distances by the time taken to traverse them. With this I shall
+deal in a moment. Let me first deal with what is a constant source of
+trouble to Englishmen on the Continent, the turning of the metrical
+system of measure into its English equivalent.
+
+There are two ways of doing this. One is the application of quite easy
+and rough rules of thumb, the other is the more complicated process which
+aims at a fairly high degree of accuracy. It is the first of these of
+course which most people will want to know, and there are two simple
+rules, one for heights and one for distances.
+
+The rule for heights is, divide by 3, shift the decimal point one place
+to the right, and you have the height in English feet, _within a certain
+limit of error_, which I shall presently detail.
+
+The rule of thumb as applied to measures of distance is to take the
+number of kilometres (a kilometre is 1000 metres, and is, as one may
+say, the French mile), divide by 8, and multiply by 5, and you have the
+corresponding number of English miles _within a certain limit of error_,
+which I shall describe presently.
+
+For all ordinary purposes these two rules are sufficient, though in both
+cases they somewhat exaggerate. They make a French distance measured in
+English miles a little too far, and a French height, measured in English
+feet, a trifle too high.
+
+The exact constant of error is, in the case of the heights, 1.6 feet in
+every 100. Thus if your rough calculation gave you a height of 10,160
+feet, the exact height ought to be just 10,000; you see upon the map in
+the blue figures referring to metres, “3048” (which happens by the way to
+be within two steps of the height of the Bac Lactous). You divide by 3,
+add a 0, and get 10,160, and you know by the constant of error that the
+true height is just exactly 10,000 feet.
+
+The knowledge of this constant gives us a rough-and-ready method of
+getting a height within a very small degree of accuracy, and for any
+purposes where such accuracy is required, I recommend it. It consists in
+cutting off the last three figures, multiplying what is left by 4, and
+then again by 4, and subtracting that from your first rough calculation.
+It sounds complicated, but it does not take half a minute, and you will
+be well within two feet of any height; for most heights you are likely to
+calculate, you will be right within a few inches.
+
+For instance, you see 2403, in blue figures upon the map dividing by 3
+and shifting your decimal point, you at once get 8010; there is your
+rough calculation, which you know to be a trifle in excess of the truth.
+Cut off the last three figures and you have left 8, multiply 8 by 4, and
+then again by 4, and you have 128 as the amount of your error. The peak
+is by this calculation 7882 feet high, and rough as the rule is you are
+within 20 inches of the truth: the exact height of such a peak in English
+feet is 7883.7624....
+
+However, if you want absolute accuracy, multiply the French measure by
+3.2808992, and you will be sufficiently near the truth to save your soul.
+
+As to distances, the exact proportion of error, when you turn miles into
+kilometres by dividing by eight and multiplying by 5, is 2 inches or so
+short of 50 feet too much in every mile; when, therefore, you are dealing
+with a hundred miles, you are very nearly, but not quite a mile out in
+this form of calculation. The error is, within a very small fraction, 1%.
+
+If therefore you want an easy rule for turning your rough calculation
+into an accurate one, you cut off the last two figures and subtract from
+your total the figures thus left. For instance, 244 kilometres divided by
+8 gives 30½, and that multiplied by 5 is 152.5; cut off the 52, leaving
+“1” on the left, subtract that 1 (making 151.5), and you are within a few
+yards of accuracy. As questions of distance count nothing in mountains
+compared with questions of height, I will make no mention of decimals,
+but proceed to a very different matter, which is the way of counting that
+the _mountaineers_ have, and this you will do well to heed blindly.
+
+When you are tired and distracted and wondering perhaps whether you can
+push on, if you have the good luck to find a shepherd, he will tell you
+your distance to such and such a place in _hours_. The Spanish, the
+Gascon, the Béarnais, and the Catalan dialects all use the same words,
+so far as sound goes, for this kind of measure, and the Basque will
+never speak to you in Basque: it is part of the Basque tenacity never
+to do this. So if you find yourself in any part of the high hills where
+a man can talk to you of distances, you always hear the same sounds
+“Dos Oras,” “Quart’ Ora,” “Mi’ Ora,” and the rest. This habit, as every
+reader knows, is universal throughout the world wherever true peasants
+exist; but in mountains, whether they be Welsh or African, it is not only
+universal, but it withstands all the invasion of the modern world.
+
+What I would particularly impress upon anyone going into the Pyrenees
+is this, that such a method of counting is exceedingly accurate, and is
+moreover the only accurate method. Nothing is more fatal to a civilized
+man of the plains than to take his little measuring stick and measure
+upon the map by the scale the distance between two points, saying, “It
+will take me so many hours.” There was a Basque at Ste. Engrace who very
+well expressed to me the contempt which mountaineers have for that method
+of the plains. A deputy of the French Parliament had stopped in his inn,
+had thus measured the distance from the village to the pass, and would
+not believe that it could take three hours. It always takes exactly three
+hours. I have done it in four by careful dawdling, and the dawdling, when
+I came to reckon it up, had taken exactly one hour out of the four. Now,
+measured upon the map, that distance, as the crow flies, is precisely
+three miles, but it takes three hours none the less. You will not do it
+in less, and what is odder, you can hardly do it in more, for if you
+deliberately go too slowly, you are done for in no time, and if you halt,
+you will find that your halt fits in exactly to make the walking time
+three hours. Similarly, over the Pourtalet, from the last Spanish hamlet
+to the first French one, is six hours; part of the way you may choose
+between a good road and a mule track, but whichever you choose it is six
+hours; and there is nothing more astonishing in Pyrenean travel than
+the accuracy of this rough method. As I said just now, you must heed it
+blindly; it is by far your best guide.
+
+The use of maps has one last thing to be said about it, which applies
+particularly to the Schrader map and to the 1/100,000, and this is that
+where you think you see a short cut, and the map gives you no track,
+there the short cut is to be avoided. I say it applies particularly to
+the Schrader and 1/100,000, because these two maps are so particular
+in detail that you think their information must be enough without
+the further aid of a path. Moreover, the path sometimes takes such
+apparently needless turns that you are for escaping it by an easier cut.
+
+You will never succeed. You may indeed succeed in a bit of exceptionally
+hard climbing, you may not lose your life, but you will most certainly
+wish that you had never attempted the unmarked crossing of the ridge you
+have attacked. It is obvious that the exception to this doctrine would
+be found in a piece of genuine experiment. If you say to yourself for
+instance, “I can get over the shoulder of the Pic d’Anie into the valley
+of the rivulet beyond, which has no name, but which runs into the Tarn
+of Uterdineta,” you will probably do it, but it will not be a short cut
+from the Val d’Aspe into the valley of Isaba, though it is the shortest
+way. These temptations for cutting across the hills come very often in
+one’s first experiments in the Pyrenees: they get less frequent as one
+knows more of them. These mountains are full of vengeance, and hate to be
+disturbed.
+
+  NOTE.—A convenient map for viewing the whole range is the 1/400,000
+        which is sold by Messrs. Sifton & Praed, mounted in two sheets,
+        and in a case. It is especially of use in showing a large belt
+        of the Spanish side. Motorists in particular should see it.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE ROAD SYSTEM OF THE PYRENEES
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There are two kinds of platforms for travel in the Pyrenees—mule tracks
+and great, highly engineered, modern roads. No others exist. When,
+therefore, one is describing travel in the Pyrenees, one must separately
+describe the opportunities of wheeled travel open to all vehicles,
+however elaborate, and of travel on foot or with a mule. As the last will
+take up the greater part of my space, I will speak of wheeled travel
+first.
+
+To understand what are the opportunities of this, one may take as one’s
+standard the roads which can be traversed by a motor car. Those passages
+which a motor car cannot use cannot be used by a bicycle or a carriage,
+for the roads of the Pyrenees are, as I have said, either very good broad
+roads, well graded, and with a hard surface, or they do not exist; the
+change is always abrupt throughout the chain from an excellent highway,
+carefully engineered, to a mule track.
+
+The scheme of Pyrenean roads, as it exists now, is, briefly, _first_: a
+couple of great lateral roads on the French side, which may be called the
+upper and the lower road; _next_, four roads traversing the chain (six if
+you count the roads along the sea-coast at either end, which I omit—the
+one goes by St. Jean de Luz, the other by the Pass of Lacleuse or La
+Perthuis); _thirdly_, a series of roads, numerous on the French side,
+rare on the Spanish, which penetrate the valleys but do not cross the
+chain, and end at a greater or less distance from the watershed.
+
+The main lateral road from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, along the
+base of the Pyrenees, links up all the towns upon the plains; it joins
+Bayonne to Pau, Pau to Tarbes, Tarbes to St. Gaudens, and so on through
+St. Girons, Foix, and Quillan to Perpignan: this may be called _the
+Lower Road_. The upper road has been but recently completed. It is made
+up of sections, some of which are old highways, some links quite newly
+built, and the characteristic of the whole is that it skirts as nearly
+as possible the crest of the main chain, crossing at some places very
+high passes over the lateral ridges, and everywhere keeping right up
+against the high summits of the range. The whole line runs from Perpignan
+over the Col de la Perche up the Val Carol and over the Puymorens to
+Ax, Tarascon, and St. Girons. At St. Girons, it is compelled by the
+conformation of the country to touch the lower road, but it leaves it at
+once to pass from Fronsac to Luchon; thence through Arreau, Luz, Argelès,
+Laruns, Oloron, and Mauléon—all the high mountain towns—to St. Jean
+Pied-de-Port, and thence back again to Bayonne.
+
+The four roads over the ridge into Spain lie all of them on the western
+side of the hills. They are, first, the road through the Baztan valley,
+which connects Bayonne with Pamplona; secondly, the Roman road over
+Roncesvalles, 12 or 15 miles to the east of this, which used to be the
+high road between Bayonne and Pamplona before the Baztan road was built,
+and which was during all history the westernmost road of invasion and
+communication between Gaul and Spain; thirdly, the road which goes over
+the Somport, which was also a Roman road and the chief one, uniting
+Saragossa with the French plains; fourthly, a road parallel to this and
+not 10 miles east of it, running over the Pourtalet Pass and joining the
+Saragossa road lower down. No other roads cross the range from France
+into Spain until one reaches the Mediterranean, and all these four lie
+within the first westernmost third of the Pyrenees.
+
+It would be quite easy to open other roads which should unite the last of
+the Spanish highways with the first of the French, notably over the easy
+pass of Bonaigo, where 20 miles of work would be enough, and through the
+Cerdagne, where there are no engineering difficulties. One such road is
+now in process of completion between Esterri and St. Girons over the pass
+of Salau. Another, which was begun from the valley of the Ariège into
+Andorra, was abruptly stopped, and it will probably never be completed.
+There are some half-dozen other places, where a road could cross and
+where the French are building their side of it: but the Spaniards are
+reluctant to meet them.
+
+Of the roads of the third kind, roads running up the valleys but not
+attempting to cross the mountains, one may say that on the French side
+every valley has one or more good roads, the one drawback to the use of
+which in a motor is that you are compelled, unless you can take a cross
+road from one high valley to another high valley, to go back by the way
+you came into the plain.
+
+Not only has every valley its highway leading to the very foot of the
+main range, but often the bifurcations of the valley will have roads
+as well. Thus along the valley of the Nive you can go in a motor not
+only to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, but also right up the eastern valley to
+a country-side called the “Baigorry” as far as Urepel; along the next
+Basque valley to the east, you can go from Mauléon in the plains right
+up into the hills as far as Larrau, but you cannot go to Ste. Engrace,
+where the valley splits, because the track thither, though a good one,
+will not take wheels. You can go up the branch valley from Oloron as high
+as Aritte, and the main road up the Val d’Aspe (which is that leading
+to Jaca by the old Roman way), has lateral branches, one taking you to
+Lourdios, the other across the foot hills to Arudy and the Val d’Ossau.
+The valley of Lourdes has a road which, with the exception of the roads
+over the passes, goes nearest to the main watershed. I mean the road to
+Gavarnie; and the Val d’Aure, which comes next to the westward, has a
+road going as far as Aragnonette, almost as close to the last cliffs as
+Gavarnie is; and there is an embranchment to the east which takes one to
+the very foot at the Hôpital of Rivanagon in one of the loneliest parts
+of the hills. The road to Bagnères de Luchon is carried some miles beyond
+that town, as far as the Hospitalet, which stands at the foot of the pass
+into Spain. The road to Viella in the Val d’Oran goes on up to within
+a mile or two of the pass of Bonaigo. A road from St. Girons takes one
+up the valley of the Lez as far as Sentein, which, like Gavarnie, lies
+right under the main chain, while the road from the same town up the
+main valley of the Sallent goes up to the watershed itself, and is being
+constructed to cross it, and to afford (over the pass of Salau) one more
+badly needed passage into Spain. The valley of the Ariège has a road all
+along it, almost to the sources of that river. It is continued through
+the Cerdagne and down the valley of the Tet into the Roussillon.
+
+There is not a main valley on the French side of the Pyrenees which has
+not its great carriage road, and most of the lateral valleys have now the
+same kind of communications. The journey up them is nearly always of the
+same kind, save the few which are prolonged to carry over the watershed
+into Spain. There is the succession of two or three enclosed plains or
+jasses after one has left the plains, the sharp pitch up to one flat,
+and then another, through short but steep rocky gorges, till we reach
+the little terminal mountain village, sometimes not more than a group of
+three or four buildings, lying under the last escarpment, and in sight
+of the frontier ridge above it. Of this terminal sort was Urdos until
+Napoleon III pushed the road out beyond it into Spain; Gabas, until the
+Republic did the same with the road there; and of this sort still an old
+Hospitalet, Sentein in the Val d’Aure, and though it is in a state of
+transition, for the road is now being pushed beyond it, of this sort is
+Gavarnie. Little places almost as old as our race, with no history and no
+national memories, but with immemorial traditions, rooted as deep as the
+mountains, were brought into the life of our time by that new activity
+of the French, which is to many foreigners so hateful, to many others so
+marvellous.
+
+[Illustration: PLAN L.]
+
+On the Spanish side there are no roads of this kind penetrating the
+valleys except the incomplete road to Isaba from Pamplona by way of the
+Val d’Anso, and the short stretch from Sandinies to Panticosa.
+
+A road is being made up the Val d’Anéu, but it is not yet finished, and a
+road goes just so far up the broad Segre valley as Seu d’Urgel.
+
+All the other valleys have mule tracks alone.
+
+The general scheme of existing roads in the Pyrenees is roughly as upon
+the map on previous page, where it will be seen that much the greater
+length of the chain is impassable to a wheeled vehicle.
+
+Motoring sets a standard for every other form of wheeled traffic, I will
+therefore first speak of this kind of travel. The best road to take with
+a motor, if one wishes to obtain a general idea of the Pyrenees, is the
+Lower Road (by Tarbes and Foix) from Bayonne to Perpignan; one may then
+come back again from Perpignan to Bayonne by the upper road, many parts
+of which are of very recent construction and which goes right through
+the highest part of the chain across the main lateral valleys of the
+Pyrenees. Such a round—about 500 miles altogether—gives one from far and
+from near the whole of the French Pyrenees: from the first one sees the
+chain as a whole before one: by the second one mixes with its deepest
+valleys.
+
+The first day’s run from Bayonne had best end at Tarbes; it is a town
+central with regard to the chain, and it is also a very pleasant place
+to stop at under any conditions; not cosmopolitan like Pau, and not in a
+hole and corner like Foix.
+
+The lower road from Bayonne to Tarbes runs through Orthez, Puyoo, and
+Pau, and if one starts early, Pau is a good halting-place for the middle
+of the day. This part of the road is, during the whole of its length or
+nearly the whole of it, a rolling road of the plains with no striking
+points of view save in where it tops a slight rise. It first follows but
+runs above and north of the valley of the Adour below it, next descends
+after the first 20 miles or so to cross the Adour, and so comes to
+Peyrehorade, the first town (and railway station) upon its course. During
+all this first part of the run one has sight after sight of the range
+which stretches out eastward before one to the south rising higher as it
+goes; and one sees at first before one upon the horizon, later abreast of
+one and due south, the pyramid of the Pic d’Anie, which is the first of
+the high peaks.
+
+From Peyrehorade to Pau, between 40 and 50 miles, the road goes through
+Orthez along the valley of the Gave de Pau, for the most part following
+the river bank and allowing but few sights of the range; but at Pau
+itself it rises on to the high plateau of the town whence the most famous
+general view of the Pyrenees is spread before one.
+
+From Pau there are two roads to Tarbes; for curiosity and for general
+travel it is the road round by Lourdes which is generally taken, and that
+is during the whole of its length a lowland road though it runs among the
+foot hills; but the better road on such a drive as I am describing is the
+direct northern road, which, after it has climbed on to the plateau of
+Vignan, goes up and down steep small ravines until it comes down again
+upon the main valley of the Adour and the plain of Tarbes.
+
+There are on this road two points, one just after one leaves the railway
+line, not quite half-way to Tarbes on the climb up to Vignan, the other
+just before the loop and descent above Ibos, which afford fine views of
+the range to the south, and one begins to gather one’s general impression
+of these mountains, which, more than any other range, present an
+appearance of simplicity and the united effect of a barrier. Tarbes, less
+than 30 miles from Pau, may seem a short run for one day from Bayonne,
+but it breaks the journey exactly and conveniently.
+
+After Tarbes (where the hotel for you is the Hotel Des Ambassadeurs) the
+road goes through much broken country, passing by Tournay up on the high
+plateau of Lannemezan to Montréjeau. It is a road full of short hills,
+but it is necessary to take this section in order to go eastward from
+Montréjeau and to proceed through St. Gaudens, taking an elbow by St.
+Martary and so down to St. Girons.
+
+After St. Girons one follows the new and excellent road which runs along
+the valley side by side with the new railway to Foix. From Foix to
+Nalzen your way is to go along the main road from Foix up the Ariège
+Valley for some 4 miles and then turn to the left, leaving the railway
+and making due east. From Nalzen continue to Lavenalet; there take the
+right-hand road to Belesta and Belcaire; thence, when you have crossed
+the plateau, a very winding road takes you down hundreds of feet, on
+to Quillan. After Quillan you have a few miles through the very little
+known and wonderful gorges of Pierre Lys to St. Martin, through which
+gorges the railway accompanies you. Do not follow it round by Axat, but
+cut across by the road which goes eastward to La Pradelle. This road
+takes you across a low pass to the watershed of the Mediterranean. From
+La Pradelle to Perpignan the road is a perfectly clear one through St.
+Paul and Estagel. It is a straight, good road, following the valley all
+the way, save the last stretch, which runs across the plains between the
+river Agly and the Tet.
+
+This second day will of course be far longer than the first; it is nearer
+200 miles than 120. If you would break it, however, break it rather after
+the short run to St. Girons, than at Foix, for though Foix be nearly the
+half-way house, yet the accommodation is better at St. Girons, and so is
+the cooking.
+
+A two days’ run of this kind from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean,
+following such a route, gives you the whole distant range in one general
+appearance, and gives it you better than you will have along any other
+line with which I am acquainted.
+
+The way back by the upper road from east to west through the Pyrenees
+is a piece of travel quite peculiar to these mountains; nowhere else
+in Europe is there a lateral road driven right across the buttresses
+or supports of a main range. The Pyrenees possess such a road in their
+highest part. What the French have done here is as though the Italians
+had driven a road from the sources of the Dora Baltea right under Mont
+Rosa, and the Matterhorn to Lake Maggiore, or as though the Swiss had
+driven one from Faido and Fusia right over into the valley of Domo
+d’Ossola. From Tarascon in the valley of the Ariège to Laruns in the
+Val d’Ossau—that is, over all the central part of the chain and for
+just over half its length—a mountain road goes right up against the main
+heights (only once coming near the lowlands at St. Girons), crossing the
+high, perilous passes which lie between the upper valleys. By taking
+advantage of this new piece of engineering you can return from Perpignan
+to Bayonne through the midst of those hills which the road just described
+from Bayonne to Perpignan showed you in a distant general view: when you
+have so returned you will have seen the heart, the French Pyrenees.
+
+I will now describe such a return journey by the upper road. From
+Perpignan you will do well to run the first day to Ax. The road is the
+great road from the Roussillon into France. You go up the valley of the
+Tet (which is the main river of the Roussillon) through Prades with the
+Canigou first right in front of you, and at last rising steeply to your
+left. You continue through Prades up the gorges and tortuous zigzags of
+the Upper River until you come to the head of the pass at Mont Louis:
+there the broad and easy valley of the Cerdagne opens to the south,
+sloping gently before you. The road runs down, almost as in a plain, to
+Bourg Madame, where you must turn to the right up the Val Carol to Porté.
+The pass above Porté (called the “Puymorens”) though long, is of an easy
+gradient, and once over it you run down all the 18 miles to Ax, following
+the valley of the Ariège.
+
+Ax is, of course, an early stopping-place. The whole distance from
+Perpignan is under 140 miles, but Ax is so much more comfortable than
+Tarascon that it is better to make one’s halt there.
+
+Next day go down the valley as far as Tarascon and there take the
+mountain road off to the left; it is not a national[1] road but it has a
+perfectly good surface in spite of a considerable climb. One little col
+comes almost immediately at Bedeillac, after that you climb steadily up
+the valley to the Col-du-Port (which is about 4000 feet high) then down
+the mountain side to Massat, which lies on the western side of the pass
+and about 2000 feet below it. Thence it is an ordinary valley road until
+you come to St. Girons again.
+
+    [1] The French metalled roads are of three main kinds, supported
+    by the State, the County and the Parish respectively. Of these
+    the first and most important are called “National Road.”
+
+From St. Girons you continue this progress parallel to the watershed and
+right among the high peaks, by taking the cross road from St. Girons to
+the valley of the Garonne. Just before the railway station at St. Girons
+turn sharp to your left, taking the road which goes up the left bank of
+the Lez. At this starting point you are not more than 1300 or 1400 feet
+above the sea; at Audressein (300 feet up) turn to the right, cross the
+river, and begin to climb the upper valley until you reach the col of
+Portet-d’Aspet at about 3400 feet, that is, some 2000 feet above St.
+Girons, and between 15 and 20 miles from that town. From this col the
+road descends rapidly down the valley of the river Ger, falling in 5
+miles 1500 or 1600 feet. At the end of the 5 miles you take a road that
+goes sharp off to the left before reaching the village of Sengouagnet,
+this road going off to the left crosses a low watershed, makes, at the
+end of another 5 miles, a great loop round the forest of Moncaup (the
+church of which village you leave to the left just before making the
+turn), and comes down into the great open plain into which the valley of
+the Garonne here enlarges. It is one of the finest enclosed plains in the
+Pyrenees, and to come down upon it by this road is perhaps the best way
+to approach it.
+
+The first village in this plain is Antichan, thence several long windings
+take one down to Frontignan below, and thence it is a straight road
+through Fronsac to Chaum where there is a bridge over the river, and
+where the plain of which I have spoken terminates in a narrow gateway
+through the hills. You cross the river by this bridge, fall at once into
+the great national road upon the further or left bank, and a straight
+run of not more than 12 miles in which one only rises 300 or 400 feet up
+the tributary valley brings one to Bagnères-de-Luchon. Though at the end
+of an even shorter day than was Ax from Perpignan, Bagnères will make a
+convenient stopping-place after a good deal of hill climbing and roads
+the surface of which, especially in the early summer, is occasionally
+doubtful. Bagnères has, of course, everything that people motoring can
+want, it is the capital of the touring Pyrenees, and even if this cross
+journey has not proved enough for one day, the character of Bagnères
+makes it the right place to stop at on the second day.
+
+Though Bagnères is right in the middle of the mountains, but a mile or
+two from the frontier of Spain, not 6 miles, as the crow flies, from the
+watershed and within ten of the highest peaks of the Pyrenees, yet the
+importance of the town has caused good communications to spring up around
+it, and there is an excellent road crossing straight over from the high
+valley of Bagnères into the next high valley, the Val d’Aure. It starts
+at the market-place just opposite the new church, crosses the col called
+“Port-de-Peyredsourde,” and comes down into the main road of the Val
+d’Aure at Avajan, which follows down the stream at an even gradient to
+Arreau, 7 miles further on.
+
+Arreau is the capital of the Val d’Aure, and when you have reached it you
+will have come about 20 miles from Bagnères.
+
+The next parallel valley to the Val d’Aure is that of the Gave-de-Pau:
+the valley which has at its mouth the town of Lourdes, and at its
+head, right under the Spanish frontier, the famous village and cliff
+of Gavarnie. There is, indeed, a small subsidiary valley in between
+where the Adour takes its rise, and of which Bagnères-de-Bigorre is the
+capital, but it is shorter and stands lower than the two main valleys
+upon either side. The section I am about to describe, the great new road
+from the Val d’Aure to the Valley of Lourdes, just touches this upper
+valley of the Adour but does not pursue it.
+
+The cross road from Arreau in the Val d’Aure to Luz in the valley of
+Lourdes is the steepest and the most diverse in gradient, as it is also
+by far the finest in scenery, of all the new sections which have recently
+been pierced through the highest parts of the range and between them
+build up what I have called “The Upper Road.” The distance as the crow
+flies from Arreau to Luz is not 20 miles, but the long windings of the
+road which take it over two passes, and the northern diversion necessary
+to turn the great mountain mass of the Port Bieil, lengthen it to nearly
+double that distance.
+
+There is no mistaking this road. It branches off at Arreau, leaving the
+valley road not half a mile beyond the bridge and going to the left up a
+little side stream, the name of which I do not know. Within 2 miles it
+crosses this stream and begins to take the long complicated and graded
+turns up the mountain. One must be careful, by the way, at the point
+where the road crosses the stream to turn sharp to the right and not go
+straight on towards Aspin, for though one can get to the main road again
+from Aspin, it is by roads too steep for a motor. If one so turns to
+the right, the road goes up to the col in great zigzags and climbs in
+some 6 or 7 miles the 2000 feet between Arreau and the summit, thence it
+falls rapidly for 3 or 4 miles to a point where the new road cuts off
+the corner the old road used to make. It is important to recognize this
+point, not only because it saves one at least 6 or 7 miles of travelling,
+but also because it saves one going right down into the valley of the
+Adour and climbing up again. I will therefore attempt to fix for the
+traveller the exact place where he must turn off to the left, though the
+description is difficult on account of the absence of any landmark.
+
+As you come down from the Col d’Aspin, you run through a wood along the
+mountain side for perhaps 2 miles. The road sweeps round the curve of a
+gulley on emerging from this wood, crosses the rivulet of that gulley,
+and comes down close to the stream at the foot of the valley which is
+the source of the Adour. Just at this point a road will be seen coming
+in from the left, descending the slope of the valley beyond the stream
+and crossing it by a bridge. This is _not the road_ you are to take. You
+must continue on the same road you have been following down from the
+pass, until, in about half a mile, it crosses the stream to the left
+bank, and approaches on that bank a wood that lies above one on the hill.
+Immediately after this bridge there is a bifurcation; one branch goes
+straight on, the other goes off to the left; this last is the one you
+must follow. The branch going straight on is the old road which leads
+down the valley of the Adour, and from which one used to have to double
+back some miles on at an acute angle to reach Luz. The new road, which
+you must thus take to the left, cuts off that angle.
+
+There are no difficulties from this point onward. The road winds a good
+deal round the hill-side, and almost exactly 5 miles from the point where
+you turned into it you come again upon the main road to Luz over a bridge
+that crosses a stream. Just where you join that main road it begins its
+long climb up to the pass called Col du Tourmalet.
+
+This pass is the highest and steepest on the secondary or lateral passes,
+over which the new roads have recently been driven. It is just under 7000
+feet in height, is everywhere practicable, and once it is surmounted
+there is a clear run down of some 10 miles and more (following the valley
+called locally that of the Bastan) to Vielle and to Luz in the main
+valley.
+
+Of all the crossings between the high valleys of the Pyrenees this is the
+one best worth taking. The height of the pass, the great mass of the Port
+Bieil dominating one side of the road, and of the Pic-du-Midi dominating
+the other, give it an aspect different from any other of the secondary
+roads, and comparable only to the two main passes of the Somport and the
+Val d’Ossau.
+
+From Luz a great national road takes one down the valley to Argelès and
+the railway, a distance of about 18 miles, and the end of about as fine a
+piece of engineering as there is in Europe. From Argelès, which is just
+above Lourdes and whence Lourdes can be reached at once by road or by
+rail, the cross road which I am describing goes on over another high pass
+into the Val d’Ossau.
+
+The motorist must decide whether to make Argelès his stopping-place or
+not. In distance from Bagnères he will have gone no more than somewhat
+over 70 miles, and that is a short day; but it is a day that will have
+included a great deal of climbing and of sharp descents, and that will
+have had at the end of it one of the highest passes in the Pyrenees. If
+he does not choose to stop at Argelès, he will find in Eaux Bonnes above
+the Val d’Ossau, rather more than 20 miles on (but over a high pass), a
+very wealthy little modern town, like Bagnères on a lesser scale, with
+everything that he or his machine can want; and only an hour or an hour
+and a half beyond Eaux Bonnes, by one of the great national roads and
+along the lowlands, is Pau.
+
+This cross road from Argelès and the valley of Lourdes, into the Val
+d’Ossau runs as follows. You take at Argelès the road for Aucun, a
+village about 5 miles off, up a lateral valley, during which 5 miles you
+climb over 1200 feet.
+
+From Aucun, still climbing, the road passes Marsous, winds up the
+hill-side away from the stream, and reaches the first pass, the Col de
+Soulor, thence it makes round the head waters of the Ouzan valley and
+round the flank of a bare hill called in that country-side “Mount Ugly,”
+until it reaches the point called the Col de Casteix. Here the foot
+passenger would naturally cross, as he might have crossed still lower
+down by the Col de Cortes, but for the sake of a gradient the road goes
+right round to the north and over the Col d’Aubisque, falling from thence
+in very long curves down to Eaux Bonnes. The town is not 2½ miles from
+the top of the col in a straight line. It is more than 5 by the long
+zigzags of the road.
+
+From Eaux Bonnes a road of less than 3 miles takes one down the Pyrenees
+to Laruns in the valley, and here the great lateral road of the high
+Pyrenees may be said to end.
+
+One may go to Pau the same night, but, sleeping at Eaux Bonnes, it is a
+most interesting journey to continue down the valley of the Gave d’Ossau
+to Arudy and to Oloron, thence by the road through Aramits, and Tardets
+to Mauléon, thence by Musculdy, Larceveau, and Lacarre to St. Jean
+Pied-de-Port, but all that run is through the foot hills, and though one
+has fine views of the range from every little pass and hilltop, these
+last 80 or 100 miles are not of the same nature as the track I have just
+been describing, the chief feature of which is the presence of a good
+carriageway running through the very core of high and abrupt mountains.
+Still, anyone who has taken the lower road, as I have advised, from
+Bayonne to Perpignan and wishes to go back all the way to Bayonne by a
+higher road nearer the mountains, cannot do better than go on from Eaux
+Bonnes to Laruns, to Oloron, Mauléon, St. Jean Pied-de-Port, and thence
+down the lovely valley of the Nive to Bayonne.
+
+So far I have described the main circular journey, west to east, and from
+east back again to west, which one can take in a motor car in the French
+Pyrenees.
+
+To describe or to advise as to a similar journey from north to south is
+not so easy, because the Spanish roads are uncertain. Moreover, there is
+no Spanish road crossing the lateral ranges as the French one does, so
+that, unless one abandons the Pyrenees altogether and goes right down
+into the plains, a circular journey from north to south and back north
+again is confined to the very narrow choice between Roncesvalles, the
+Somport, and the new Sallent road.
+
+The road over the Somport is the best international road between France
+and Spain. It is completely finished, and yet it is sufficiently modern
+to present every advantage for travel. On the French side it has been
+complete since the time of Napoleon III; on the Spanish side its highest
+stretches have been finished only in recent years. It is perfectly
+possible to take the whole road from Oloron to Jaca, and so back by
+Sallent and Laruns to Oloron again in one day, but it would be a foolish
+thing to do, and if the ascents try the machine, it might mean going
+through some of the best scenery of the Val d’Ossau in the dark. It is
+best therefore to break the journey at Jaca, and no number of hours spent
+in that delightful town are wasted. The first part of the road—the first
+16 miles or so—are nearly level. It is interesting to see the straight
+line which the Roman track makes for the gate of the hills at Asasp. The
+pass seems to invite the road: it is the most obvious gap in the whole
+Chain.
+
+The rise, as I have said, is slight. The river, which is rather less
+than 800 feet above the sea at Oloron, is not 1400 above it at Bédous;
+in the whole 20 miles or so, you rise but 600 feet. There are occasional
+hills, but they are insignificant, and the general impression is that of
+following the floor of the valley. When, however, one has passed through
+the great enclosed plain of Bédous, and left behind him its chief town,
+Accous, one passes through a narrow gorge, which rises continually to
+Urdos about 12 miles on. The rise is gradual, however, and never steep.
+It was at Urdos that the old valley road used to stop, until Napoleon
+III continued it to the summit of the pass, and for 7 miles above Urdos
+there are continual and steep rises. The pass, however, is low (it is
+but slightly over 5000 feet) and the last 2 miles before the summit are
+fairly flat. From the summit the road runs down on the Spanish side a
+little steeply, but with no really difficult gradient, and after about 2
+miles of this, where the Canal Roya falls in and forms the river Aragon,
+the road takes on quite an easy slope. Indeed, the escarpment is so much
+steeper upon the French side that Jaca, though it is 25 miles away,
+stands no lower than Urdos close by just over the ridge. Rather less than
+half-way between the summit and Jaca is the little town of Canfranc. It
+would be a pity to stop there, the food is doubtful, and so is the wine,
+and if one wants to breakfast on the journey, it is better to make an
+early breakfast at Urdos.
+
+After Canfranc the mountains open out and you are fairly in the lowlands;
+17 miles on, through a wide valley, you come to Jaca.
+
+Your hotel at Jaca will be the Hotel Mur, as good and comfortable a one
+as you will find in northern Spain. From Jaca you may go on to Pamplona
+westward, or down further south into Spain by Saragossa. As you enter the
+northern gate of Jaca, you will have gone exactly 57 miles from Oloron; a
+short distance I know, but I repeat, it is foolish to go to Jaca and not
+to spend your time in so charming a place. Moreover, the run back has no
+opportunities for repose.
+
+The return journey is first eastward by the Guasa road, which has (or
+had, when I went along it last), a most indifferent surface in parts, and
+you follow this, with a railway never far from the road, some 10 or 12
+miles, until at Sabiñanigo the railway turns down south and in much the
+same neighbourhood (but north of the line) the road turns up north and
+reaches Biescas (a smaller town than Jaca), in about another 8 miles.
+After that it begins to climb. At Sandinies the road bifurcates. That on
+the right goes up to Panticosa; crossing the river by the stone bridge of
+Escar, your road goes straight on up the valley and climbs up to Sallent
+for 3 or 4 miles.
+
+I confess I have never been over this bit, but I am assured that it is
+practicable for a motor, and I have indeed seen a motor which had come
+round from Panticosa. There is nothing at Sallent that you can call
+habitable, though as motors live there it is to be presumed that there
+are ways of looking after them. You will do well to volunteer at the
+guard room (which is on the left of the road as you leave the town)
+information as to your whereabouts. It has happened to me not to be
+allowed to leave a Spanish town without all manner of formalities, while
+on other occasions it has happened to me to walk through one and over
+into France without a question being asked.
+
+From Sallent the new road goes up with rather steep gradients at first,
+zigzagging up the side of the Peña Forata. The old road, a mere track,
+may be seen cutting off the great bends as one climbs the mountain.
+About a mile from the frontier, where the steepness of the road grows
+level, is a post of police where they may or may not bother you; they
+bothered me on one occasion, and on another they let me alone. From the
+summit, which is some 12 kilometres and more—say 8 miles by road—from
+the town of Sallent one goes down first gently, then steeply, with the
+Pic-du-Midi d’Ossau, a vast isolated rock, right in front of one, and one
+is accompanied by a torrent upon one’s left—which is the Gave d’Ossau.
+The road follows the right bank of this for some 7 miles, crosses over
+to the left bank, and 3 miles after this bridge reaches Gabas, a tiny
+hamlet, where is one of the most delightful hotels in the Pyrenees. Gabas
+is the highest inhabited point in this valley, and is just the same
+distance from the summit that Sallent is upon the other side, that is,
+between 8 and 9 miles. From Gabas down to Laruns the road continues all
+the way downhill, a matter of another 7 or 8 miles, and from Laruns back
+to Oloron, through Buzy, is a lowland road with a flat surface. The whole
+round from Oloron back to Oloron again is somewhere between 125 and 150
+miles.
+
+There is but one other circular journey for which I can vouch that it can
+be made in a motor car; it is the journey from Bayonne to Pamplona, by
+way of the low passes on the Atlantic side of the range, and back again
+through Roncesvalles.
+
+You find yourself at Bayonne as a starting-place. The main road into
+Spain and towards Madrid goes along the sea, much as the railway does,
+and bears westward, but there is another road through the tangle of
+Basque mountains, or rather those hills which between them make up French
+and Spanish Navarre, and this road is the direct road to Pamplona. It
+is a short day’s journey of some 60 miles at the most when all the
+windings are taken into account, and there are no really high passes or
+steep gradients throughout. You leave Bayonne by the main straight road
+which leads out south-west towards Biarritz, but, immediately outside
+the fortifications, you turn to the left along the high land above the
+valley of the Nive. A mile and a half out you cross over the main line
+and immediately afterwards take the road to the left which leads you to
+Arcangues. There are many branch roads on this little bit, which is well
+under 4 miles, but the chief road is plain. At Arcangues, just after you
+have left the church on the right, you turn to the left, still following
+the high road, and in some 2 miles you strike the forest of Ustaritz,
+the confines of which were for so many centuries the sacred centre of
+the Basque people. Through this forest there is no doubt of the way. The
+road leading to the town of Ustaritz, which goes off to the left in the
+midst of the forest, comes in at so sharp an angle that one would not be
+tempted to take it, and the high road goes on, without any bifurcations,
+to St. Pée. You have, by this time, crossed the low watershed between
+the basin of the Adour and that of the Nivelle, upon which river St. Pée
+stands at some 13 or 14 miles from Bayonne.
+
+You turn to the left in St. Pée by the road that leaves that village
+due south, and take the left-hand road again at the first bifurcation,
+which is immediately outside the village; then follow steadily up the
+valley of the river. There is but one doubtful place, not 3 miles out of
+St. Pée, where you choose the left of two roads, but even that is not
+really doubtful, for your road obviously follows the stream, which it
+there crosses by a bridge, while the right-hand road goes over into the
+hills. About 3 miles more from this bifurcation you cross the frontier,
+and thence onwards there is no doubt of your way. The high road goes over
+the Pass of Ostondo, or Maya, quite low, and brings you into the Basque
+valley of Baztan. Come on down through Elizondo, a most delightful town
+of this people, and climb up continually thence (taking the left-hand
+road at Irurita, one and a half miles from Elizondo) until you come to
+yet another pass, called the “Port La Betal” or “Vetale” in French, some
+2000 feet or more in height. After crossing this col you are in the basin
+of the Ebro, and the road thence into Pamplona is a straight stretch all
+the way to the plain, which appears suddenly spread out as you round a
+corner, a fine sight.
+
+The old road back from Pamplona into France over Roncesvalles, the road
+which the armies of Charlemagne took, and which the Romans built, went
+first east and west, and was the first portion of the great road to
+Saragossa. It met the road over the mountains and branched north towards
+Roncesvalles. There is a modern road which cuts off this corner, and
+joins the Roncesvalles road quite close to the hills. It crosses three
+low lateral ranges by very easy gradients, and has an excellent surface.
+It takes one through Larrasoaña, Erro, and finally, without any doubtful
+cross roads or turnings, falls into the old Roman road, just below
+Burguete.
+
+Here you must make ready for one of the greatest sights in Europe.
+You are on a very high upland plain, something like the glacis of a
+fortification. The last crest of the Pyrenees stands like a long wall
+of white cliffs, which seems low and familiar, because you are so very
+high up on this sloping plain. You go through a fine northern-looking
+wood which might be in England, with great spacious clumps of beeches and
+broad glades. You pass the monastery, and then go up through the hamlet
+of Roncesvalles, quite an insignificant few hundred feet of road; you
+see a ruined chapel upon your right (ruined quite recently by fire, and
+yet no one has taken the trouble to rebuild it!), then suddenly you are
+at the summit, and a profound trench opens sheer below you and points
+straight to the French plains, miles and miles away.
+
+It is here that Roland died, in the valley below.
+
+From this summit the roads run down directly on the northern side of
+the watershed, but still politically in Spain, till you come to the
+last Spanish town, Val Carlos, where you will do well to ask for papers
+permitting you to leave the country. These papers are obtained from the
+Corregidor. Two miles on you cross the river into France, and four miles
+further you are in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, where there is good food and
+promptitude and news and all that is necessary to man.
+
+From St. Jean Pied-de-Port the main valley road takes you, without any
+doubtful turnings, down the river and the railway, now on one side, now
+on the other, all the way to Bayonne. There is but one place where the
+traveller might be a little confused, and that is some 12 miles or more
+from St. Jean Pied-de-Port, where the road, which has been running right
+along the railway and the river for miles, turns sharp over to the right
+to reach a village called Louhossoa; but this village (which is but a
+mile from the river) once reached, everything is plain again. Turn to the
+left at the church, where the road goes straight back to the river (a
+matter of 2 miles), crosses it, and goes along the heights on the left
+bank, all the way back to Bayonne.
+
+The whole of this circle is about equivalent in distance to that which
+I have described round from Oloron to Jaca, and back again round by
+Sallent; and, as in the former case, you will do well to break the
+journey in Spanish territory and at Pamplona, for though this makes two
+short days in a motor, they are days in which you ought to see what you
+can see. For my part also, I would stop at Elizondo, to eat and to watch
+the place; but I would not eat at the hotel in the main street, where the
+people are cruel and grasping, but rather at the cheap and genial place
+kept by one Jarégui.
+
+Besides these two circular journeys upon good roads, which a man can take
+across the main range, there is the variation of them that can be made
+by taking the valley road from Pamplona to Jaca, a journey of at least 70
+miles or more. I know that it can be done, for I have seen motors that
+had done it, and for all that I know the road may even be excellent:
+or it may be very bad—I am not acquainted with it. Such as it is, it
+takes you all along Aragon and the parallel outer ranges of the Spanish
+Pyrenees.
+
+I have mentioned another extension to the roads described, the run
+down to Saragossa from Jaca. This of course takes you right out of the
+Pyrenean country, but the first half of it at least is in the hills,
+and no journey shows you better the nature of the outlier mountains on
+the Spanish slope of the main range. Off the direct road one may make a
+long elbow eastward to reach Huesca, which was St. Laurence’s town. The
+surface is good, and there are few steep gradients, though there is a
+long climb out of Jaca itself. From Jaca to Saragossa, by way of Huesca,
+along this road, is just about 100 miles, and, as far as Huesca at least,
+it provides a complete knowledge of the mountain types upon the Spanish
+side of the watershed. Nor is this typical scenery anywhere finer than in
+the splendid gorges and chimney-rocks of Riglos, nor is any one of the
+parallel ranges more characteristic than the high Sierra de Guara, which
+stands up above the burnt plain of Huesca, 30 miles out from the main
+ridge, quite separate from the general range, and yet reaching a summit
+of nearly 6000 feet.
+
+All the roads suitable for motoring, especially in such a district as
+this, are suitable for bicycling also. I say “especially in such a
+district as this,” because the identity between motoring and bicycling
+roads is more striking in the Pyrenees than in most parts of France,
+since the expense and difficulty of making the great highways here has
+been such that it was not worth while building a carriage road on these
+hills unless the engineering was to be of the most perfect kind, and the
+surface of the best, and the gradients as easy as nature would allow. The
+consequence is that there are in the Pyrenees no roads (which he will
+find in the plains) where a man on a bicycle can go with difficulty, and
+a motor cannot go at all. Stretches of this kind, due to bad surface or
+to steepness, are familiar to every one, but I can remember none of
+the sort, not even of a few miles, between St. Jean Pied-de-Port and
+Puigcerdá, nor between the French plains and the Spanish.
+
+The question will, however, be asked by anyone who proposes to bicycle
+in this district for the first time, whether the long gradients are not
+such as to destroy the advantage of using the greater part of the roads.
+To this objection a general rule applies, one which will seem a little
+unusual when it is first read, but which I have found from experience
+to be true. It is this, that the few crossings of the hills from north
+to south make easier journeys for the bicyclist than do the lateral
+roads across the ribs or buttresses of the main chain. Anyone going for
+instance on a bicycle from Laruns to Lourdes, will have some very fine
+scenery for his pains, and, if the day is fine, he will not regret his
+experience, but he should be warned that on this lateral road most of his
+energy will be taken up in slowly climbing the great pass over the Mont
+Laid; for though it is but a few miles as the crow flies, it is a big and
+toilsome business along the highway. Nor would that be the only pass. It
+is characteristic of these lateral roads that they usually contain more
+than one big ascent. He will be troubled again at the Col-de-Soulor and
+to get from Laruns to Lourdes, though the two towns are in contiguous
+valleys and no further apart than London and Windsor, would be a day’s
+work for most men.
+
+Another example of the same sort could be given from the other lateral
+roads of the Pyrenees, as, for instance, the low cross road between St.
+Jean Pied-de-Port and the valley of Mauléon. Here the pass is much less
+high, but a mile or two from St. Jean, when you have gone through St.
+Jean-le-Vieux, you begin to climb, and all the long way of the valley
+of the Bidouze, and out again, over the next range, that overlooks the
+Saison, is a succession of long wheelings uphill.
+
+For the purpose of seeing some particular place in the next valley, it
+may be worth while to follow one of these lateral roads, but a general
+tour of that sort is not worth while. If, on the contrary, a bicyclist
+chooses the main north and south roads, he will find many advantages
+in the choice, and I would recommend in particular, as the best that
+he can undertake in these mountains, the round from Oloron to Jaca and
+back, which I have already described. Such a journey is a task taking
+three full days, four or five easy days, and it gives such an opportunity
+of contrasting two civilizations, and of learning the barrier which
+separates them, as does not offer itself in so short a space anywhere
+else, I think, in western Europe. I will not detain the reader in this
+particular with what I have to say upon this road in general, for that
+will rather concern the description I will make of it when I speak of
+travel on foot, but I will point out in what way it can be dealt with by
+the bicyclist.
+
+All the long road from Oloron to Bédous, though it leads to the very
+heart of the mountains, needs no more energy upon a bicycle than does a
+two-hours’ ride (and it ought not to take two hours) in any part of the
+plains. There are one or two half-miles of hill, all of them rideable,
+but the general run of the way is flat, or burdened with a slight rise
+which is hardly perceived, and the approach to Bédous, in its magic
+circle of hills, is actually _down_ along a fine slope, which faces the
+last ridge and the frontier watershed. So far, it is a ride which one
+may take even upon a high gear, and have for his pains as fine a survey
+of great mountains as he will find in Europe. From Bédous the road cuts
+straight across the dead level of the valley floor for 2½ miles, passes
+a “gate” of rock, and thence continually runs through gorges up the 7
+miles to Urdos. It rises considerably in this last bit—nearly 1 in 20—and
+though the distance from Oloron to Urdos may not take one more than one
+afternoon, anyone bicycling into Spain will do well to pass the night at
+Urdos, for the big climb begins just after that place. In this hamlet, of
+no pretensions, you may choose with advantage the little inn called the
+“Hotel of the Travellers,” of which, and whose charming terrace, I speak
+in another place.
+
+Next day, unless you wish to accomplish a feat, you will begin to walk
+up to the summit of the road. There are parts that can be ridden—the
+last quarter is almost flat—but the earlier part and the larger is too
+steep for comfort. The continental road-book makes the whole distance 12
+miles, the kilometres by the roadside, which are somewhat more reliable,
+make it 8, and so does the map; anyhow it is a continuous uphill which
+should be taken leisurely, pushing one’s machine until one gets to the
+flat bit at the top. The short cuts are here, unlike those of some other
+cols, quite impossible to a bicycle, even when one is pushing it, and
+the whole way must be taken upon the high road; if one can afford it, it
+is wise to have the machine carried on a cart as far as the hospital, 2
+miles from the obelisk which marks the frontier and the summit of the
+pass; but whether one pushes it, or whether one has it carried, it is a
+three-hours’ climb. It is wisest to take these three hours in the early
+morning.
+
+From the summit at the entry into Spain there is 2 miles of steep new
+zigzag, falling a little too sharply, and all around is the very novel
+aspect of the southern side of the range, where the dryness and the sun
+have eaten up the forest; at the foot of this zigzag begins an easy and
+continual run down of 7 or 8 miles into Canfranc; your bicycle takes its
+own way; there is no place so steep as to fatigue one with the break,
+still less to be of any danger. The 17 miles from Canfranc onwards
+towards Jaca is a road upon the whole descending, but by that time one
+has entered the foot hills, which are flat and undulating rather than
+mountainous, and at Jaca you will find the Hotel Mur, which I have called
+the kindest little hotel in Europe, and certainly one of the cleanest in
+Spain.
+
+You will leave Jaca early after spending there your second night. I am
+not saying that the whole distance from Oloron could not be done in a
+day, on the contrary, it could be done quite easily. A man could pass
+the night at Oloron, starting in the early morning from that town, be at
+Urdos easily by ten, lunch there at leisure, get to the summit by four,
+and be down at Jaca before dark on a July day, and before the hour of the
+late Spanish meal. But the climbing of the pass would fatigue him, it
+would come at an awkward time of the day, and he would have to count upon
+what is not so certain in the Pyrenees, fine weather. It is best to break
+the journey at Urdos as I have advised.
+
+From Jaca, a great road leads all the way down to Saragossa, throughout
+scenery where you are at first amazed by the contours of the isolated
+cliffs above the gorges of the Gallego, and afterwards almost equally
+amazed by the aridity of the great plain that slopes down to the Ebro.
+The run from Jaca to Saragossa is too much for one day in the hot season.
+It had best be broken at Huesca. If he choose to make this excursion,
+the traveller will have to return by the same road, and he would perhaps
+be wise to save himself the tedium of it and to put his machine upon the
+train, for a railway goes back, much as the road does, to Jaca.
+
+If one does not take the excursion to Saragossa but returns to France,
+the way is by Biescas, Sallent, and the Val d’Ossau.
+
+The Biescas road leaves Jaca to the east and runs so for 10 miles, then
+it goes 8 miles northward to Biescas.
+
+From Biescas it begins to rise, in the last part heavily; and Sallent,
+which is not 10 miles from Biescas as the crow flies, is nearly 1500 feet
+higher. The gorge of approach to Sallent is a plain embranchment from the
+Panticosa road at Sandinies about 8 miles from Biescas.
+
+Sallent offers a problem to the bicyclist which it does not offer to
+the man with the motor, and that is the problem of lodging. It is a bad
+place to stop at, and yet the next place where one can sleep is over
+the pass, 17 miles on at Gabas. One will have gone nearly 40 miles from
+Jaca, and the last bit one will have been climbing all the way; for some
+miles up to Sallent quite steeply, and more or less uphill all the way
+from Biescas. To push the machine up another 8 miles to the summit (for
+it cannot be ridden) is a task, but it is a task worth accomplishing,
+especially if you have a long evening before you, for once on the summit
+you will have not only a run down of 8 or 9 miles to Gabas without
+putting your foot to the pedal, but also the prospect of the best inn
+in the Pyrenees, the delightful inn which the Bayous who own it call
+the Hotel des Pyrenees; or, if you like to take the whole pass at once,
+you have nearly 20 clear miles downhill without stopping, past Gabas
+to Laruns; but the inn at Laruns is not to be compared with the inn at
+Gabas.
+
+If one takes on a bicycle the round which I have spoken of for a motor
+from Bayonne to Pamplona by the valley of the Baztan and back again by
+Roncesvalles, there is no difficulty about inns, but on the other hand
+there is a multitude of shorter hills, some of which cannot be ridden.
+You could make two short days of the journey out by sleeping at Elizondo,
+in which case on your first day you climb up a pass and down into a
+valley, and your second day is a repetition of the same process. The
+third day back from Pamplona to France has one hill at Erro, which you
+will hardly be able to climb, but from that valley through Burguete and
+right on to the top of the pass is rideable on any reasonable gear. From
+the summit down to Val Carlos all the way to the frontier is one long
+easy run down, and you may continue the valley road along the Nive as far
+as you like upon the same day. Even Bayonne is not too far at a stretch.
+
+As for those who wish to know how to get a series of long coasts in
+these hills at the least pains, my advice to them is this: start from
+Perpignan, take the train from Perpignan to Mont Louis. From Mont Louis
+you have a run of 15 miles, falling 1000 feet all through the French
+Cerdagne to Bourg Madame, uninterrupted save for two or three short
+rises. At Bourg Madame next day an omnibus (with a very bad-tempered
+driver—at least he was so in my day) will take you up the Val Carol to
+the summit of the Puymorens; from there it is an uninterrupted coast all
+the way down the valley of the Ariège to Ax, and beyond as far as you
+like to go, 20 or 30 miles of downhill with scarcely an interruption.
+
+The other way round is good coasting too. By the rail to Ax, up the
+Puymorens by coach, coast down Val Carol, _ride_ up (through Llivia)
+to Mont Louis and coast down the gorges of the Tet. It is only in this
+eastern part of the range that you will get such long uninterrupted
+downhills: there is, in the central part, the run down from the Pourtalet
+(but no coach to take you up), and there is a coach up the Val d’Aran to
+Viella, with a run back of a few miles down the Garonne; but neither of
+these are like the Ariège valley or that of the Tet, and the roads up the
+enclosed western valleys to Luz, Bagnères, etc., have not sufficient
+fall for long coasting.
+
+One ought not to leave the road system of the Pyrenees without saying
+something on driving. Your best town, I think, for beginning a drive is
+Oloron, and there is a job-master close to the station from whom you can
+get horses and carriages by the day, by the week, or by the month. I do
+not speak of this from my own experience but from what I have been told,
+and I know that there are relays of horses all up the pass; but whether
+the job-master has arrangements for relays I do not know. That sensible
+kind of travel has so generally died out that I should think it doubtful.
+It is better to depend upon the same horses for the whole journey, and
+whether upon the round by Navarre or that by Jaca the posthouses are
+frequent everywhere, your longest stretches without one being the bit of
+new road, 17 miles long, between Sallent and Gabas, and the similar 14 or
+16 miles between Urdos and Canfranc.
+
+On the other roads, should you determine to drive along them, there is
+one rather long piece without a relay up the Tourmalet, between the
+eastern foot of that pass and Barèges; but this road is continually
+traversed by carriages at all times, and there is sufficient provision
+for the distance. These three are the only long gaps without relays which
+you have to fear in driving through the Pyrenees. For the rest, except
+that your days’ journeys must be so much shorter, what I have said of the
+roads for motoring applies to driving also.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+TRAVEL ON FOOT IN THE PYRENEES
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The road system of the Pyrenees and the opportunities it affords for
+motoring, bicycling, and driving are but a small part of what most
+English readers desire to know about travel in these mountains. For most
+men the pleasure of such travel is to be found in wandering upon foot
+from place to place, in learning a district by slow daily experience, in
+camping, and in the chance adventures that attach to this kind of life,
+and also in climbing. Of climbing I can write nothing; it is an amusement
+or a gamble that I have had no opportunity of enjoying. Those who think
+of mountains in this way can learn all they need in Mr. Spender’s book,
+“The High Pyrenees.” They can get more detailed knowledge from Packe—if
+a copy of the book is still to be bought—and I am told by those who
+understand such matters that the rock climbing of this range is among the
+best and the most varied in Europe. In the matter of travel upon foot
+other than climbing, I have some considerable experience, and this is
+the sort of travel which I shall presuppose when I come to speak of the
+various districts into which travel in the Pyrenees may be divided.
+
+There are two ways in which travel on foot in these hills can be enjoyed;
+the first is by laying down some long line of travel—as over the Somport,
+across from the Aragon to the Gallego, and so through Sobrarbe to
+Venasque—the second is by fixing upon a comparatively small district in
+which one can slowly shift one’s camp from one day to another. In either
+case, the aspect of travel on foot is much the same, and so are its
+difficulties and its necessities.
+
+I have heard it discussed whether a man should travel with a mule
+in these hills. The practice has in its favour the fact that the
+mountaineers, whenever they have a pack to carry and some distance to
+go, travel with a beast of burden. The mule goes wherever a man can go,
+short of sheer climbing, and it will carry provisions for some days. The
+expense is not heavy; a mule is saleable anywhere in these mountains;
+one can buy it at the beginning of a holiday and sell it at the end of
+one, never at a great loss, sometimes at a profit. Nevertheless, upon the
+whole, the mule is to be avoided. You are somewhat tied by the beast.
+He is not always reasonable, and feeding him, though it will be easy
+two days out of three, is sometimes difficult, for while he will carry
+many days of your provisions, he can carry but few rations of his own.
+With a mule one always finds one’s self trying to make an inn, and that
+preoccupation is a great drawback to travel in the mountains. Moreover,
+the keep of a mule, at a Spanish inn especially, is expensive. It is a
+better plan to hire a mule occasionally, as one needs repose, or in order
+to carry any considerable weight for a short distance over some high pass.
+
+I presuppose therefore a traveller upon foot carrying his own pack, and
+I will now lay down certain rules which my experience has taught me to
+apply to this kind of excursion.
+
+I shall speak later of what sort of kit one should carry, what amount of
+provision, etc.; and I shall also speak later of the nature of camping in
+these hills; but these two main things do not cover the whole business,
+and the more you know of the Pyrenees, the more you will find them
+enemies unless you observe the laws which they teach you in the matter of
+exploring them.
+
+Now, the first and the most essential of these laws to regulate your
+travel is to make certain of no one distance in any one time. Do not
+say to yourself “I will leave Cabanes” (for instance) “and will sleep
+the night in Serrat.” Such plans are too easily made at home or on the
+plains. One measures the distance upon the map, and the thing seems
+simple enough. One may be lured into security by starting in fine weather
+or over easy ground, but _unless you have been over the place before_,
+never make a plan of this kind, and even if you know the territory,
+beware of the false confidence which comes so easily in the plains, when
+one has forgotten the terrors of the high places.
+
+Here are two examples within my own experience to show what dangers
+attend this sort of confidence, the first taken from the Aston, the next
+from that very easy place, the Canal Roya; and remember that nothing I am
+saying has to do with the fantastic exercise of climbing, but only with
+straightforward walking and scrambling.
+
+A companion and I had settled to force in 36 hours the passage from the
+Aston valley into Andorra. There is a path marked upon the map; the
+way is apparently quite clear and one might have made sure that with
+provision and calculation for one night, nothing could prevent one’s
+reaching the first houses of the Andorrans. On the contrary, this is what
+happened.
+
+The first evening was mild and beautiful, the sky was clear, the path
+at first plain. It was so plain that we did not hesitate to continue it
+after dark. Here was a first mistake, and the breach of a rule I shall
+insist upon when we come to camping. Still, it was not this error which
+destroyed us.
+
+We slept the few hours of darkness under a thorn bush before a most
+indifferent fire, and the next morning we began our way.
+
+We came almost immediately after sunrise to a place where the valley
+bifurcated, and that in so confused a manner, with so many interlacing
+streams and so unpronounced a ridge between the main bodies of water,
+that we took the wrong ascent by the wrong stream, and only found, when
+we had ended in a precipitous cul-de-sac, that we had made an error.
+We went back to the bifurcation (which, remember, was of that confused
+sort where nothing but a very large scale map is of any use), and we
+made up the other stream. The hours which we had lost had brought us
+into the heat of the day, and the day was exceptionally hot. We climbed
+a shelving slope at the end of this further valley: a matter of 2000
+feet, very steep and rough. When we were already near the summit there
+bowled over towards us from beyond it, without the least warning, a
+violent storm. We were so close to the top, and there was so little
+shelter on the open rocks we were ascending, that we thought it well to
+gain the summit before halting. On the whole the decision was wise. We
+found overhanging ledges upon the summit and took refuge there until
+the worst of the downpour had ceased. But the storm left behind it a
+mass of drifting cloud, now rising and now lifting, which made it quite
+impossible to determine what our true way should be. The summit of the
+slope was an open grass saddle with great boulders dotted about, and
+from this saddle a man might go down one of three declivities which
+branched southward from it. There was no seeing any complete view of the
+valleys below even in the intervals of the drooping clouds, for, as is
+so frequently the case in these steep hills, there was a great deal of
+“dead ground” just below us. We had to guess which of the undulations of
+the summit we should follow, we could not be certain until we had gone
+down some hundreds of feet that we had definitely entered an enclosed
+valley, but once on the floor of this we were fairly certain by our
+general direction that we had crossed the main watershed and were in
+Spain. The storm renewed itself; the late hour made us anxious, we pushed
+on through the driving mist and rain, necessarily losing a consistent
+view of the contours and the windings of the valley; when the sky cleared
+again we saw before us a great open gulf stretching down for miles and
+miles, and the very amplitude of the prospect further deceived us into
+believing that we were certainly descending into the first of the Spanish
+open places, but hour after hour went past and no sign of men appeared.
+There were not even any huts in the Jasses. To confuse us still further
+and to lead us on in our error, a definite path suddenly appeared; we
+naturally made certain that it was the head of the valley road upon the
+Spanish side. So confident were we that we _must_ by the map and by all
+common sense be now close to habitations that, after consulting together
+a little, we thought it wiser to eat what little provisions remained so
+as to gather strength for a last effort, than to camp hungry and reserve
+our food for the morrow. When we had so eaten it grew dark; hour after
+hour of the night passed, and the path was still plain—but there was no
+sign of men. By midnight we were dangerously exhausted and incapable of
+pushing further: we lay down where we were by the side of a stream and
+slept. The morning of the third day we might well enough have failed to
+reach succour. We had come to the end of our powers, we had no more food
+and it was only the accidental encounter with a fisherman who happened
+to be thus far up in the hills that guided us to safety. He told us
+that by choosing that particular one of the three slopes we had come
+down, not upon the Spanish side, but into a long curving valley that
+had led us back again into French territory. We had made a circle in
+those forty-eight hours of strain and certainly had we not found him our
+getting home at all would have been doubtful.
+
+Now these errors, for which there seems very little excuse when they are
+set down thus in print, were not only natural, but as it were, necessary.
+Anyone unacquainted with the district _might_ have made them, and under
+our circumstances _would_ inevitably have made them. Nothing but a large
+scale map—which does not exist—would have saved us the hours lost at the
+bifurcation of the streams, and not even a large scale map could have
+properly decided us at the confused summit of the pass where a full view,
+which the storm had prevented, was necessary to judging one’s direction.
+The true remedy lay not in maps, however perfect, but in allowing for the
+chances of error, in taking a full three days’ provision, and in avoiding
+that sort of forced marching which had exhausted us, and which we had
+only undertaken from fears about our remaining stock of food.
+
+The other matter, that of the Canal Roya, is the more significant in
+that it was quite a little detail that might have betrayed us into a
+very nasty situation. I knew the Canal Roya, and acting on the strength
+of that knowledge, my companion and I decided late one summer evening
+not to camp in the valley but to push on over the pass at the head of
+it, for immediately beyond this pass we knew to lie the good new modern
+high road which leads down to Sallent. The pass was marked on the map
+in the clearest possible fashion, the valley was of a very particular
+and decisive shape, and the pass lay straight over the end of it. Now
+at that end was a sweep of high land, and rising up from it two rocky
+peaks. The map and the general trend of the land made it certain that
+the pass would go to the right or to the left of the lowest of these two
+rocky peaks. There was no difficulty of approach, and one unacquainted
+with the Pyrenees might have thought that it mattered little which side
+of the peak one took, but we both knew enough about the mountains to be
+sure that there was one way and only one way across; smooth and easy as
+the approach appeared from our side, all the chances were that somewhere
+upon the other side there would be precipices. The sun was getting low,
+and the path which we had been following was suddenly obliterated under
+a new-fallen mass of scree. Neither of us can to-day ascribe what we did
+to anything but luck. We looked at the peak carefully and determined that
+a certain little notch upon the _right_ of it, was the port. We were
+fatigued after nearly 20 miles of walking (which had already included
+one Col) and we wearily began the last ascent. It so happened that as we
+painfully toiled up over and round the loose boulders, the surface to
+the _left_ of the peak became more and more inviting. Our doubts as we
+surveyed it were like the conflict which goes on in daily life between
+instinct and reason. Every bit of thought out reasoning put the port at
+the little notch on the _right_, but every temptation which could assail
+two tired men, made us hope and wish against reason that it lay over the
+smooth grass to the _left_; at last in a cowardly and (as it turned out)
+salutary moment, we broke for the grass. We tried to persuade ourselves
+that if that smooth round sward was a cheat, and betrayed (as such
+enticements often betray in the Pyrenees) nasty limestone cliffs on the
+further side we still had daylight and strength enough to come down again
+and to go up to the rugged notch to which reason and duty pointed. We
+reached the grass and there found two things, first, the path which had
+been lost on the stones and the scree suddenly reappeared _there_, and
+secondly, the descent on the further side towards Sallent was as easy as
+walking down an English hill.
+
+The reason of this apparent error in the map we soon discovered. Out of
+sight, beyond the Col, was yet another rocky mass, to the left. The scale
+of the map was not sufficient to indicate every mass of rock, upon this
+ridge, but the map, as a fact, did indicate this peak which had been
+hidden from the valley and was unable specially to indicate the other
+peak which had been more prominent to us as we walked up from below.
+The adventure ended well for we got on to the main road before dark and
+to Sallent before nine, having covered in that accidentally successful
+day close upon 30 miles. But it might have ended, and should in reason
+have ended, very differently. For when we looked at the Sallent side of
+the range the next morning we saw that this notch on which we had first
+directed ourselves would have led to a perfectly impossible fall of rocks
+upon the further side. It would have been equally impossible to have gone
+back in the dark. We should have spent the night on a high stony ledge,
+without a fire and without shelter and without food, and the next day we
+should have had no choice but to come down again into the Canal Roya,
+utterly exhausted, certainly without the strength to climb up again by
+way of experiment upon other issues, but bound to make our way, if we
+could, to Canfranc, miles away down the Aragon Valley. It is not certain
+that we should have had the strength to do this. These examples and many
+more that one might give, prove the inadvisability of any plan that does
+not allow for a wide margin of delay: and, as I have said, a margin of
+three days is not too ample.
+
+Not only a misjudgment of topography, to which these hills particularly
+lend themselves, may put one into a hole of this sort, but mist may do
+it, or worse still, a sprained ankle. Or one may find oneself cut off by
+marshy ground, or 20 or 30 feet of sheer cliff, too small for the map
+to mark, may take one an hour out of one’s way. In general, allow three
+days’ provision for any task, and never plan single days in the Pyrenees
+unless you are following a high road.
+
+A second rule is to take the first part of the day slowly and yet without
+halting. It is the morning usually that gives you your best chance
+upon the heights, and such examples of mist as have endangered any of
+my excursions have fallen usually from mid-day onwards. Apart from the
+danger of mist, if you break the back of the day by ten or eleven, before
+the first meal, you are safe for the end of it; and breaking the back of
+the day usually means getting over a port.
+
+A third rule is, stick to the _path_, and if the path seems lost, cast
+about for it with as much anxiety as you would for a scent.
+
+I have already said in speaking of the use of maps in the Pyrenees, that
+the great advantage of the 1/100,000 map was the clear way in which it
+marked the _paths_. The idea of paths does not fit in very well with the
+wild life which the Pyrenees promise one as one reads of them at home,
+and it is of importance to know what a Pyrenean “Path” is, and why such
+tracks are essential to travel in these mountains.
+
+It is perfectly true that if you are going to camp and fish, or
+ramble about certain small districts for your pleasure, the point is
+unimportant, but if you are making a journey from one place to another,
+upon a set itinerary, a very little experience in the mountains will show
+you that a “path” must be known and followed, nor do the inhabitants
+of these hills, whose experience is based upon so many centuries,
+underestimate the value of these slight and _sometimes imperceptible_
+tracks. On the contrary, you will hear one of the mountaineers carefully
+indicating to some fellow of his, who has not yet made a particular
+crossing, how to find and keep the _path_. You do not hear him giving
+general indications of scenery, nor distant landmarks, but particular
+directions as to how the path may be made out in passages where it is
+difficult to trace.
+
+The reason that these tracks are essential to Pyrenean travel lies in
+that formation of the hills which I have already often mentioned, a
+formation which causes them to be broken everywhere with sharp descents
+of rock down which no man can trust himself, and many of which are
+overhanging precipices. It also lies in the peculiar complexity of the
+tangled ridges so that not even with a good map and a compass can you be
+certain of guessing your way from one high valley into another.
+
+Now the interest of these paths is that they are not, as the mention of
+them suggests to one unacquainted with these mountains, definite and
+continuous. Even the most frequented of them have difficulties of two
+kinds. The first difficulty is the crossing and multiplicity of tracks as
+one approaches a pasture, the second is the loss of the way over certain
+kinds of soil.
+
+Wherever people go to cut wood, or to lead their flocks on to enclosed
+fields known to them, a divergent path appears and it is often difficult
+to tell the main path from the branch one. Save over very well-known
+ports these paths are not made-ways; they are never mended or laid
+down, they are but the marks left by travel which is sometimes that of
+but one man on foot in a week, and that man shod in soft and yielding
+sandals that leave little impress. For many months in the year these
+faint traces are covered with snow, and in early summer they are soaked
+in the melting of it. No money is voted for them, and if here and there
+the crossing a rivulet or the getting past a difficult corner of rock has
+been artificially strengthened, this will only be upon the main ways and
+usually only near the villages. A Pyrenean path is the vaguest of things:
+it is a patch of trodden soil here and there, a few worn surfaces of
+rock, then perhaps a long stretch with no indication whatsoever. Yet upon
+this chain of faint indications with only occasional lengths marked, your
+life depends; and the finding and picking of it up has the same sort of
+interest and excitement as the following of a scent or a spoor.
+
+There are three kinds of soil over which the path is almost invariably
+lost. The first is swampy land, the second is any broad stretch of clean
+grass, the third is scree.
+
+Loss in swampy land is rare, for the simple reason that the path avoids
+such land; loss on scree is often made good towards the end of the summer
+by the passage of men and animals whose treading down of the loose
+stones can be noticed from place to place, but intervals of grass are
+most baffling. The native knows where to pick up the track again upon
+the further side; the foreigner has no chance but to guess, from the
+last direction it took, where he is likely to find it again. He will
+almost invariably be wrong, and then he must cast about in circles until
+he finds it upon the further side of the pasture, entering a wood or
+picking its way between gaps of rock. There is a lacuna of this sort on
+the perfectly easy way up the Peyréguet, and it cost me last year three
+valuable hours; for easy as the Peyréguet is—and it is little more than
+a plain walk—if you get too much to the right of it, there is a slope on
+the further side that a goat could not get down.
+
+So much for the importance of _Paths_ in the Pyrenees. It is a point
+very difficult to make in print, but one which the reader, if he intend
+to walk there, will do well to take on faith. Make the 1/100,000 map
+your infallible authority, don’t expect to find on the black line it
+gives—especially if it is a dotted line—more than the merest string of
+indications, often separated by very wide gaps, and regard the discovery
+and continuity of these indications as vital to your safety.
+
+I now turn to equipment.
+
+The first question asked by an Englishman about to attempt fresh journeys
+will be what things he must take with him from England. My answer is.
+Two things only, his woollen clothing and a pannikin. With regard to
+this last, the best form is one which I myself get from the Army and
+Navy Stores, and which is of the following character. The handle is
+double-hinged, and curved, so that it fits to the outside curve of the
+pannikin. A spirit-lamp is sold which just fits into the interior,
+and with it, a curved metal receptacle for methylated spirit which
+also fits into the interior. The whole is bound together by a strap,
+passing through staples upon the sides, and through one upon the cover.
+The advantage of carrying this sort of pannikin lies entirely in its
+compactness. Weight counts. Every ounce counts when you are knocked out
+upon the third day; and the third day—the forty-eighth hour of losing
+your way and of missing human succour—may happen to you oftener than you
+think.
+
+Weight counts even upon the first day, after the first few miles. Weight
+counts all the time. Now it so happens (why, I cannot tell) that when
+things are packed in a close compass they weary a man less than when they
+are loose and straggling, and there is the further recommendation that
+when they are closely packed, there is less chance of knocking them about
+and hurting them. So this is the kind of pannikin I recommend. Note, that
+the people who know most about these hills, the inhabitants of them,
+carry no provision for cooking. But there is a reason for this which
+does not apply to the traveller I have in view. The inhabitants of these
+valleys walk from a house to a house, with the chance of one night at
+most in the mountains; they carry with them, bread, cold meat and wine,
+and for the night they make a great fire for warmth but not for cooking.
+A person exploring at random, and liable to pass several nights in the
+open, must have the chance of getting a warm meal, and that opportunity
+will make all the difference if ever he finds himself, as he probably
+will very frequently, in a tight place. As to the woollen clothing, no
+one needs to hear the merit of that, and nowhere can it be got so good
+or so cheap as in England. Everything upon you should be of wool, except
+your boots. The differences of temperature are excessive, you are certain
+to be frequently wet, you will not have a change; good wool is, moreover,
+the substance that will wear least in the rough-and-tumble of your going.
+
+In this connexion I must speak of socks. Those who know most about
+marching, wear none, and for marching along roads it is a sound rule
+(startling and unusual as that rule may sound) to have the skin of the
+human foot up against the animal skin of the boot, that boot being well
+soaked in oil and pliable. There is no form of foot covering within the
+boot that does not chafe and tear and therefore blister the skin, if
+one goes a long way at a time, and for many days of continual tramping
+on end. That is the general rule, and in the French service it is
+universally recognized in the infantry. Now, to the particular kind of
+going which these mountains involve that rule does not apply, because, as
+we will see in a moment, boots are not what one commonly wears. You must
+therefore take woollen socks—two pairs.
+
+If woollen clothing and the pannikin I have described are to be purchased
+in England, where are you to get the rest of your kit, and of what kind
+will it be?
+
+You must purchase it in any one of the towns of the foothills, and the
+nearer to the mountains you buy it, the better for you, since the further
+out you are upon the plains, the more they look upon you, with justice,
+as a fool who will buy bad or useless material at too dear a rate, and
+lose, waste, or destroy it in a very few days, a mere tourist to be
+fleeced. Buy at St. Jean Pied-de-Port, at Tardets (admirable town!),
+at Bédous, at Laruns (where the people are hard-hearted), at Argelès
+(where they are too used to tourists), or at Ax. Buy, if you can, _in the
+fairs_: to these the mountaineers come down to sell their wares and one
+can bargain, and as for bargaining, I will tell you the prices of things
+as I proceed. But of all things do not put off purchasing till you are
+_deep_ in the range. Do not buy south of Ax, for instance, nor north of
+Jaca. The materials grow scanty and bad.
+
+The things you will need are four: first you will need a gourd, next
+sandals, next a sack, and lastly a blanket.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As to the gourd. The gourd is the universal vessel used throughout these
+mountains, and its use extends from an indefinite distance upon the
+Spanish side (where it is universal) to the towns of the plains upon
+the French side: to Oloron that is, Mauléon, Foix, St. Girons, and the
+rest. It is a leather bottle of an oval shape, made in all sizes from a
+quart to a gallon, and this picture represents the structure. It is in
+three parts: the oval leather case (_a_), which is made of goat’s skin
+with the hair inside; the top (_d_), which is made of goat’s horn, with
+a mouth from an inch to half an inch across, and the nozzle (_e_), which
+screws on to this top and is pierced by a tiny hole (_g_), through which
+one drinks, also made of goat’s horn. There is a fourth part if you will,
+the little stopper (_h_), which screws on to the nozzle, and is made of
+the same material and tied by a string to the mouth of the gourd for fear
+of losing it. On the inner edge of the leather bottle are two leather
+loops through which to pass the string, by which the whole thing is
+carried over the shoulder.
+
+Remember that the name for this invaluable instrument (one has a right
+to call it invaluable, for it saves the lives of men) is _Gourde_ on the
+French side, and _Bota_ upon the Spanish. This detail is not unimportant,
+for in many French villages they have never heard of a _Bota_, and
+certainly in no Spanish villages have they ever heard of a _Gourde_.
+It is in this convenience that one carries one’s supply of wine. The
+horn nozzle on top (_g_) screws off, the wine is poured into the mouth
+(_d_) through a funnel, until the gourd is completely full; one then
+screws the top (_g_) on again, and the little stopper (_h_) into that.
+When one wants the wine to pour into one’s mouth or into one’s mug, one
+screws off no more than the little stopper which protects the hole in the
+nozzle. If you can learn the proper way of drinking out of the small hole
+pierced in the horn-work, do so. It saves an infinity of delays, and it
+is the universal method of drinking throughout the Pyrenees. Here is one
+of those practical things in the trade which you can never get by book
+learning, and which one can only learn by doing them, nevertheless I will
+describe it.
+
+Unscrew the little stopper (_h_) and let it hang by its string; take the
+double horn top piece (_d_ and _g_) in the left hand, and grasp with
+your right the bottom of the leather bottle; tilt the whole up, squeeze
+slightly with your right hand, held high in the air, and let the thin
+straight stream of wine from the little hole (_g_) go straight into your
+open mouth; then (to paraphrase Talleyrand’s famous phrase to the Maker
+of Religions), “if you can possibly manage it,” let it go down without
+swallowing; if you swallow you are lost.
+
+For Talleyrand well said to the Maker of Religions, after having
+described to him how, to found a religion, he should first suffer
+obloquy: how he should be ready to stand alone and the rest of it,
+then added, “If you can possibly manage it,” work a few miracles: and
+this kind of drinking also seems at first miraculous. But it can be
+accomplished; all it needs is faith, and that strength of will which
+overcomes the subconscious reactions of the body.
+
+Do not swallow. When you think enough has poured down your throat, do
+three things all at the same time: relax the pressure of your right hand,
+tilt the gourd that you are holding upright, and put the forefinger of
+your left hand smartly down upon the hole in the nozzle. For the first
+few hundred times you will spill upon yourself a little wine, but in the
+long run you will learn, and you will drink as neatly and as cleanly as
+any Basque or Catalan.
+
+If you do not learn to use this instrument thus, you will be compelled
+to carry a glass, which is not only difficult but dangerous; and if you
+compromise by using the gourd, but pouring the wine into a cup, it would
+either take you infinite time through the nozzle, or else you will have
+to unscrew the main top piece (_e_) of the gourd, and if you do that too
+often it will certainly leak.
+
+These are the elements of the use of the gourd, but, like all things
+noble, the gourd has many subtleties besides. For instance, it is
+designed by Heaven to prevent any man abusing God’s great gift of wine;
+for the goat’s hair inside gives to wine so appalling a taste that a man
+will only take of it exactly what is necessary for his needs. This defect
+or virtue cannot be wholly avoided, but there is a trick for making it
+less violent, a trick advisable with an old gourd, when one is starting
+out on one’s journey, and absolutely essential with a new one. This
+trick consists of pouring into the gourd somewhat over half a pint of
+brandy and shaking it well up and down, and after that carrying it for
+a few hours, jolting about and irrigating all the hairy inwards of the
+bottle as one goes. But do not imagine that the brandy so used can be
+drunk; when you have thus used it for a few hours it must all be poured
+away, for it is wholly spoilt. By the way, if you can get an old gourd
+second-hand that does not leak, it is far preferable to a new one; all
+things really worth having are better old than new. As to the price of a
+gourd, you will not get a small one of a quart or two for less than 8 to
+10 francs, nor a large one from a quarter to a half gallon or upwards at
+less than an extra 3 or 4 francs for every quart. Gourds are not things
+to haggle about. Satisfy yourself that it does not leak and be grateful
+to get a sound one. It will last you all your life. As to weight, a
+gallon is ten pounds: a quart is two pounds and a half.
+
+Further, you will find very often that when your gourd is empty,
+especially if you have carried it empty upon a cold and misty morning,
+the inside sticks together, and when you try to blow it out through the
+mouth (as is advisable, before pouring in the wine), no effort of yours
+can swell it; the trick is to put it before a fire and warm it gently;
+after it has warmed about ten minutes, it will swell easily.
+
+As to the sack, nothing is more difficult than to advise upon this
+matter. Some men to be happy must carry a block, and pencils, and
+colours, and brushes. Others cannot live without combs. Nothing is really
+necessary besides bread and meat. Each traveller must decide his own
+minimum, but I can give advice both as to the shape and the weight of the
+sack. The people of the hills, when they carry a sack, carry a light bag
+slung by a strap over the shoulder, and for a light weight, up, say, to
+seven or eight pounds, that is the most practical equipment: thus what
+we call in England a satchel, and what the French call a Havresac does
+very well. For anything heavier a knapsack is often advised; but there
+are disadvantages in the knapsack: it is complicated, one cannot get at
+it without taking it off, and it is hot to the back. If you will be at
+the pains of a knapsack, always have one that is watertight in material,
+with a large overhanging flap, and never burden yourself with a knapsack
+which has outside pockets. The value of a knapsack for heavy carriage
+is that the weight of it comes right down on to the build of the body.
+Weight is quite a different thing, when it sags, backward or sideways,
+from what it is when it presses right down upon the framework of a
+man’s bones. That is why all those used to carrying very heavy weights
+habitually carry them upon the head or the shoulders, the human body is
+built for taking a strain in this way down the length of the bones. Now
+if you carry the haversack by a strap over the shoulder, any appreciable
+weight, even one so small as ten kilos, becomes a grievous burden after
+a short distance. Light weights, under that amount, can be so borne, but
+directly _upon_ the shoulders weights up to forty pounds can be carried
+without destroying a man’s marching power, and indeed both French and
+English armies have often repeatedly climbed the mule tracks of these
+very hills carrying such weights in this fashion.
+
+It must, however, be remarked in connexion with the knapsack that it will
+not save you fatigue unless the weight bears right down upon the crest of
+the shoulder blades, and in order to ensure this, make certain of three
+things. First, that the shoulder straps come well down the knapsack, so
+that a good part of the weight is above the point where they are sewn
+on; secondly, that your knapsack is so packed that the weight is at the
+top, that no heavy things sag towards the bottom; and thirdly, that you
+have strings or straps going from the shoulder straps in front to a belt
+round your middle, whereby you can brace up the knapsack whenever it
+begins to lean away backwards. Every soldier knows the difference between
+a knapsack fitting close to the back and coming well above the shoulder,
+and one that drags away backwards.
+
+To have said so much about the knapsack may mislead some of my readers.
+I would not advise it; it is only necessary if for some reason or other
+you want to carry weight. If you are wise, and content to take only
+the necessary, a haversack slung at the side from the shoulder will do
+perfectly well, and it has the advantage of being get-at-able at any
+moment. You may balance the weight of it by carrying the gourd slung over
+the other shoulder.
+
+As to sandals—Many an Englishman will understand the need of the gourd
+and the sack who will not understand the advantage of sandals. All the
+Pyrenean people, for the matter of that, most Spaniards, travel not in
+leather boots but in cloth slippers with a sole made of twisted cord,
+and to these the French give the name of sandals. But, as in the case
+of the gourd, the name suddenly changes on the Spanish side. In France
+you must ask for _Sandales_, in Spain for a pair of _Alpargatas_. The
+advantage of these is a thing of which you can never convince a man the
+first time he attempts these mountains, but he is sure enough of it at
+the end of his first day. For some reason or other, the loose stones
+and the pointed rocks of a mule path make travel upon foot intolerably
+painful and difficult if it is too long pursued in ordinary boots. With
+_Alpargatas_ on, you do not feel the fatigue of a track that would finish
+you in 5 miles if you tried to do it in leather. And conversely, oddly
+enough, a high road with a good surface soon becomes as intolerable in
+Alpargatas as is a mule track in boots. There is nothing for it but to
+leave your boots at the nearest town, if you propose to return to it, or
+if you do not, to carry them with you and change from one footgear to the
+other as you pass from the mountain to the road, and from the road to the
+mountains.
+
+Remember that, in Alpargatas, you will _always_ end the day with wet
+feet. Let not that trouble you. They dry at once before the camp fire and
+they do not shrink. The reason you will always have wet feet is that in
+every few miles of hills you have to cross a marshy place or a stream.
+But though it is easy to dry Alpargatas in a few minutes, it is advisable
+to change socks at night, while those you have worn during the day dry
+before the fire.
+
+As to the blanket—No more than any of the inhabitants can you go through
+these hills without a blanket. It is often of the greatest use in the
+changes of weather during the day, it is absolutely necessary at night.
+Were you to take it from England, you would certainly take one that
+would be too heavy, or if you took a light one, one that would be too
+cold. The people of the Pyrenees who have thought out these things slowly
+for thousands of years, have ended with the right formula. They have a
+thin, close, narrow blanket, which just protects a man and protects him
+as much by its double fold with the air between as by its texture. Get
+one of a neutral colour, a sort of dark slate grey is the commonest, and
+pay from 30 to 50 francs for it.
+
+With these five things, a pannikin from England, a gourd, a sack,
+sandals, and a blanket, you are equipped. You cannot take less, you need
+not take more, and if you take more you will certainly repent it.
+
+I have said nothing about tents. The tent like twenty other luxuries
+is taken for granted in England. I have heard of people roughing it in
+various mountains who took with them not only a tent, but an india-rubber
+bath, a Norwegian kitchen, and for all I know, collars as well. But many
+a man who will have had the sense to get rid of his luxuries when he
+begins scrambling, will be reluctant to give up the tent, for it seems
+necessary to be at least dry. Now the arguments against having a tent
+have always seemed to me final, so far at least as the Pyrenees were
+concerned.
+
+You are dealing here with a great expanse of mountain in which weather
+is very variable, but in which you do not have snow or prolonged furious
+weather during the months you are likely to travel in. This argument is
+enforced by the peculiar structure of the mountains. Everywhere in the
+Pyrenees you can find either rock shelter—and you find this much more
+frequently than in any other part of the world I have ever seen—or dense
+forests, or, on the bare upland sweeps of grass, those stone cabins of
+the shepherds, upon the shelter of which the inhabitants largely depend.
+These, of course, are not very near one to another, but they are always
+marked on the 1/100,000 French map, under the title of _Cabanes_. The
+owners, when they have owners, never mind one’s using them, and the only
+drawback about them is that sometimes you make certain of using one
+particularly far from mankind, and discover it to be all in ruins. One
+way with another I have never known three nights upon the Pyrenees which
+could not be passed in succession without a tent, if the rules which I
+shall give for camping were properly observed; and that is the experience
+also of those who have spent their whole lives in these mountains.
+
+Next, let it be remarked that a tent is a great hindrance, it is either
+very light—in which case it is always fairly useless—or it is heavy, in
+which case there is an end to your free going. As will be seen later,
+when I speak of the way of settling for the night, there need never be
+occasion for such a shelter, which, moreover, in high winds is more
+troublesome than an animal or a child.
+
+If your equipment consist in no more than a gourd, pannikin, blanket,
+sack, and sandals, what is your provision to be?
+
+You must never make your provision for less than forty-eight hours, and
+it is better to make it for sixty. However modest is your plan, always
+allow for two nights on the mountain and for the better part of the third
+day as well. Remember that you will start in the early morning from the
+shelter of a roof, that you will therefore have a whole day before you
+dependent upon your own resources, that if you are making anything of
+an effort you will certainly camp the first night, but if the weather
+goes wrong or you miss your way or come upon any accident, you may very
+well have to spend the second night out, and if you do this, the chances
+are in favour of a long tramp and scramble on the third day before you
+reach human beings again. All this will be clearer to the reader when I
+come to speak of the accidents of weather in these hills, but I may here
+mention as an example of the truth of what I say that two companions and
+myself were once held for exactly twenty-four hours in a space of not
+much more than a square mile, and almost within earshot of a high road
+and a village, and that yet it was merely a piece of good luck towards
+evening—a fog lifting just at the right place for a few moments—that
+saved us from spending a second night out of doors. In work of this kind
+the chief part of strategy is to secure your retreat, but you cannot
+make even one day’s excursion without your retreat involving at least
+another day and perhaps two. Therefore, inconvenient though it be, you
+must have ample provision.
+
+The first element of this provision is bread, and you will do well to
+allow a pound and half per man per day. Those are the rations of the
+French army and they are wise ones. If each man of a party carries a
+four-pound loaf, you have just enough, but not too much for accidents.
+A man must have bread, he can do without meat, and at a pinch he can do
+without wine, but I know by experience that he cannot depend upon any
+form of concentrated food to take the place of the solid wheaten stuff
+of Europe. Half a pound of bread and a pint of wine is a meal that will
+carry one for miles, and nothing can take their place. For meat, you will
+carry what the French call Saucisson, and the Spaniards, Salpichon. You
+will soon hate it, even if you do not, as is most likely, hate it from
+the bottom of your heart on the first day, but there is nothing else
+so compact and useful. It is salt pig and garlic rolled into a tight
+hard sausage which you may cut into thin slices with a knife, and it is
+wonderfully sustaining. If you like to carry other meat do so, but you
+can live on salpichon and it means less weight than meat in any other
+form.
+
+These two, bread and saucisson, are the essentials of provision, but
+other provision hardly less essential should be added to them, and the
+first of these extras is _Maggi_. Maggi is a sort of concentrated beef
+essence, sold both in France and in England, and to be got anywhere in
+the French towns, but you will do well to make quite certain by laying in
+a good stock of it in some large town, such as Bordeaux or Toulouse or
+Paris itself, on your way south: I have known the grocers of a Pyrenean
+town to be out of it. The essence is packed in little oblong capsules
+which you buy by the dozen, at about 2_d._ a capsule, and you will do
+well to start with three or four dozen a man. They keep indefinitely,
+they weigh next to nothing, and the great advantage of them will be
+seen in what follows. You can, with two capsules to a quart of water,
+make in a few moments a hot and comforting soup which quite doubles
+the nourishment of your bread; with three capsules to a quart of water
+you have a very strong soup, which will bring a man round a corner of
+extreme fatigue. It is a food which can be prepared in a moment under
+almost any conditions, and one which is invaluable when you find yourself
+lost, especially if you are cut off by thick weather, or in any other way
+exhausted. It may seem an insignificant detail to tell the reader how to
+prepare so simple a meal, nevertheless I will do so. It took me a little
+time to learn, and he may as well be saved the trouble. Each little
+cylinder of extract is contained in two gelatine caps which fit together,
+you pull these off, you drop the essence into a little water while it is
+warming, but it will not melt of itself, you must crush it and mix it
+thoroughly with the water, and then add more water, still stirring till
+you have full measure. It needs no salt in the proportions I have given.
+
+Further, you will do well to fill the little curved receptacle in the
+pannikin with methylated spirit, and to carry an extra provision of this
+in your sack. A pint is enough for many days, and very often you have
+no occasion to use it at all, but you may be caught in some wet place,
+or in a rocky piece where there is no wood, or in one way or another
+have a difficulty in making a fire; and even where you have plenty of
+wood, a drop or two of the methylated spirit makes you certain of the
+fire catching even in wet weather; of that I shall speak when I come to
+camping. By the way, take plenty of English matches and of two kinds,
+fusees and others, and if you are carrying a sack and not a waterproof
+knapsack, wrap your matches in a little square of india-rubber cloth, for
+if there is one thing that imperils a man more than another, it is to be
+caught in the hills without the means of making a fire.
+
+As for brandy, the people of the hills themselves discourage its use; it
+is, on the whole, best to have some with you, only you must not depend
+upon it; it is quite honestly, under the circumstances of climbing, what
+some foolish fanatics think it under all conditions, that is, a medicine.
+If you take it when you do not need it it will fatigue you, especially
+in high places. Such as you do take carry in a flask. The gourd, as I
+have said, spoils it utterly.
+
+Here then you have the rules for equipment and for provision, and I will
+sum them up before continuing.
+
+For equipment: Haversack or knapsack, a blanket, sandals, a gourd, a
+pannikin fitted with spirit lamp and spirit vessel, four pounds of bread
+for each man, a pound of sausage, a pint of methylated spirits, and
+matches; to which you may add, if you will, a length of candle, and one
+of those little mica lanterns which fold into the shape of a pocket-book,
+and three or four dozen capsules of Maggi. Fill your gourd with wine
+as full as it will hold, you will need it. So much for equipment and
+provision.
+
+As for the packing of it I have already spoken of this in connexion with
+the knapsack. A few additional remarks may be of use. See that your bread
+is always covered from the air; to wrap it in paper is enough for this,
+and if it will fit into the sack so much the better. Work if possible
+a broad band of cloth into the straps where they catch the shoulder,
+keep the straps short so that the weight hangs high, carry the blanket
+loosely over either shoulder: it gives far less trouble thus carried
+than it does when it is rolled and tied over the chest. If you carry a
+knapsack, however, roll the blanket tight upon the top of it, it will
+then incommode you even less than when it is carried loosely. Wrap your
+matches as I have said in a waterproof cloth (if you have no knapsack),
+and wrap in the same the maps you need for each particular climb; forward
+the rest by post to the town for which you are making if it is in France;
+if it is in Spain, don’t, for they will not get there.
+
+I had forgotten to mention that most useful thing, a pocket compass. Take
+a large cheap one, and allow for the variation when you put it on your
+map: but of using this and of several other little points I will speak
+later. I have dealt with what regards equipment: let me now speak of
+Camping.
+
+Camping in the Pyrenees differs from camping under any other conditions
+that I know. The structure of the range, its climate, and even the
+political condition of the valleys, make it differ from camping in
+Ireland or in the Vosges, or in those few parts of England where the
+wealthy will allow plain men to indulge in this amusement. It is not the
+same as camping in the Alps, in Savoy, or in the Apennines, or in the
+Ardennes; and it is the particular conditions of camping in the Pyrenees
+which made me say just now that one can do without a tent.
+
+Though geologists are careful to describe the very varied structure of
+the range, yet to the traveller one feature, peculiar to these among
+all mountains, perpetually appears common in every part of it, and
+that is the continual presence of overhanging rock. I can remember no
+considerable stretch in any main valley, not any in a crossing between
+two valleys, where you are not perpetually finding examples of this
+formation. It is this upon which one must first depend for shelter. Next
+to such overhanging rocks one must depend upon the great forests; lastly,
+upon the cabanes. But before speaking of their various advantages rules
+of time must be given, for upon the time of day chosen for the halt the
+success of a camp will depend.
+
+I am speaking of course throughout these notes of the warm weather
+alone; that is, of the end of June, July, August, and the first part of
+September. Seasons vary, and there are years when the whole of September
+may be included. At the end of the season one may count, especially in
+the eastern part of the Pyrenees, upon a sufficient succession of fine
+nights to make camping possible; but if one comes upon a streak of bad
+weather it will last, especially in the western part, for three or four
+days, and it is better, if the people of the valley foresee such weather,
+to let it go over before taking the heights. Thunderstorms and very
+heavy rain may happen upon any night in these mountains. They are said
+(I do not know upon what authority) to be commoner upon the French than
+on the Spanish side. More dangerous than these, though less momentarily
+annoying, are the mists which gather quite suddenly in the higher parts
+of the range, and which as suddenly interfere with every form of travel.
+
+It is absolutely necessary, unless one is quite certain of the finest
+weather, to cross the col or port, in the route one has traced out
+for the day, before that day is far advanced. The reason for this is
+twofold; first, that wood for a camp fire is not usually to be found upon
+the higher slopes, secondly that good water is not easily to be found
+there. It is further necessary to choose the place for one’s camp an
+hour or so before sunset, and it is wiser to make it even earlier. The
+disappointments which I remember within my own experience in this matter
+have nearly all proceeded from pushing on from a likely place discovered
+in the afternoon; one so pushes on in the hopes of finding a likelier
+spot before the end of the day. Such an extension of one’s journey is
+nearly always ended in a rough, unsuitable camp, sometimes without a
+fire, and under the most uncomfortable conditions. When therefore you
+have found in the course of the afternoon, the shelter of good rock,
+overhanging a dry place by the stream you are following, pitch upon it
+and do not regret the hours you appear to lose.
+
+When you have chosen the place for your camp your first act must be to
+gather at once as much dry, _large_ wood as you can find. The local
+customs in this matter are very liberal. Even if you are quite close to
+a village, no one grudges you the use of wood, and your only possible
+disturbance will come from the frontier guards if you are so foolish as
+to choose their neighbourhood, which, by the way, can only be the case if
+you encamp near one of the few chief crossings of the range. These may
+ask you questions and make trouble, not for your gathering of wood, but
+for their suspicion that you are smuggling.
+
+The temptation to gather only small wood is strong. It always seems as
+though the branch you have chosen will be large enough to last for some
+hours. But a little experience of these fires will show you that nothing
+small enough for you to drag will be too large for your purpose. The
+eight hours or more during which you must feed the fire consume a great
+deal of wood, and the keeping of the fire in depends upon having large
+logs for its foundation. You will not, of course, be able to cut these
+into the right length, you will have so to arrange them when the fire is
+once well started that they burn through their middles. You can then,
+later, shift into the centre of the flame the halves that fall aside. If
+there is any breeze pile a few stones to windward of your hearth, for you
+will have to sleep to leeward of the fire, and an arrangement of this
+kind will break the force of the wind and prevent the smoke and flame
+from coming too near you. If the wind is too strong, you must make your
+fire and your camp under the lee of some great rock, or it will both burn
+out in a very short time and make itself intolerable to those who depend
+upon it for warmth. For a wind that rises in the middle of the night, you
+have, of course, no remedy; short of heavy rain it is the worst accident
+that can befall you. If you have enough wood make your fire of a crescent
+shape with the hollow towards the wind. It is the warmest and the best
+way. You must so arrange that in sleeping you lie with your feet towards
+the fire, and your great provision of wood must be brought quite close
+to hand otherwise, most certainly, you will not have the energy to feed
+it in the few wakeful moments of the night. That wood should be somewhat
+green or wet matters little if you have a great fire well started, but if
+you let it get low while you sleep, it will be impossible to revive it,
+and when the fire fails, there is an end to sleep for every one. It is
+impossible to say what the effect of such a fire is by giving reasons for
+it; it does not perhaps warm one so much as do something to the air which
+makes sleep possible and easy without a shelter, and it is the universal
+aid and solace of all the Pyrenean mountaineers, whom you will often find
+in groups, woodcutters or shepherds, gathered round one of these great
+blazes for the night.
+
+The conditions of a good rock shelter, of a neighbouring stream and
+plenty of wood, though common, are not universal, and if from the
+structure of the hills and from the nature of the map you fear you will
+not reach one, or if the greater part of the afternoon is passed without
+your finding such a place, your next choice must be a spot in one of the
+great woods that everywhere clothe the range. They are more common upon
+the French than upon the Spanish slope. Here there is always cover from
+the wind, for they are very dense, and even a partial cover from the
+rain, but it is important to make your fire in a clearing, and luckily
+there is nearly always a succession of open spaces between the forest
+and the stream. With such a fire and with such an arrangement to leeward
+of it the Pyrenean blanket with which you have provided yourself will be
+ample covering for the night.
+
+As for using cabanes, I have already said that there is no grudge felt
+against you for doing so, but you must treat any man coming upon you in
+such a shelter as though he were the owner, for the local shepherds will
+certainly regard you as their guest, and will think they are doing you
+the favour of a host. Moreover, your fire, if you make one here, must be
+lit outside the building, though the local people who use the cabanes
+most constantly, will often make it inside. On the whole the night is
+more comfortably spent in the open than in one of these shelters, unless
+one is caught by rain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The open sandy spaces such as are quite common by the side of the larger
+streams may be used with safety. There are no places where a spate will
+be so rapid as to endanger one, unless one choose, as a companion and
+I were once compelled to choose, a cave almost cut off by the water.
+The only places where it is essential that one should _not_ camp, are
+the higher flats where wood is rare, and where the cold of the night is
+exceptionally severe. It is a choice to which one is often compelled,
+if one pushes on too long, after having miscalculated the fatigues and
+duration of the climb; but it is an error which one always regrets.
+
+A further recommendation is, _not to camp by the map_. The map may
+look like that on p. 131, and one may say that one will follow up the
+stream at one’s leisure. The reality may turn out a series of ascending
+precipices, quite unassailable.
+
+But it is a great temptation. A man may have known the Pyrenees and
+experienced time and again the error of trusting to a map for a camping
+site, but there is something so convincing about the print and the
+colours that after years of experience one may commit the same folly
+again. It was but this year that, trusting to the 1/100,000 map, I
+planned to camp at the place where the Cacouette falls into the main
+stream below Sainte Engrace. I did not know the spot; it seemed to come
+at a convenient hour in the ascent of the mountains: I should be there
+about 5 o’clock. There was wood marked, good water; it was on the lee
+side of the wind that was then blowing from the south. When I came to
+it the place was a sharp ledge of limestone higher than Cheddar cliffs,
+dotted here and there with trees and affording between the wall of rock
+and the water not three feet of ground. It was not to be approached from
+above; it could not be reached from below. A more impossible place for
+camping never was. I had the same experience some years ago on the Aston,
+though that was before I knew the Pyrenees well. There a place was chosen
+by my companion and myself for its mixture of wood and meadow upon the
+map, there were cabanes and apparently plenty of good water; it was so
+plain on the map, that one did not hurry to reach it before darkness;
+but when we got there it was a marsh; no cabane appeared until daylight,
+and there was even that very rare thing in the Pyrenees, doubtful water.
+As for the wood that should have dotted the pasture, it turned out to be
+tough little live bushes, and all green, that would neither cut nor burn.
+
+There is one last and very grave danger of which I would warn the reader
+in connexion with travel on foot in the Pyrenees, with a map and even
+with a map and a compass. Without map or compass it is more than a
+danger, it is a sort of necessary misfortune perpetually attending men,
+and the gravity of it is proved by the fact that the local people who
+use neither compass nor map when they go into a district with which they
+are unacquainted, carefully ask the marks of the path and get themselves
+accompanied, if they can, by someone who knows the country-side. This
+danger may be called “Getting into the wrong valley.”
+
+As one sits at home, one thinks of the scheme of mountain valleys too
+simply. One thinks of the stream as coming down through a ravine with its
+head waters appearing below a definite saddle or notch in the watershed.
+This stream, let us say, is flowing north. One sees on the further side
+another stream rising just on the other side of the notch and flowing
+on through a simple valley, going to the south. The crossing of the
+port between these valleys seems to depend upon no more than physical
+endurance and fine weather. One goes up one stream to the saddle, crosses
+the saddle, follows the other stream downhill, and so makes one’s passage
+from France to Spain.
+
+There are many passes of this simplicity, but there are many more that,
+both between the lateral valleys and over the main range, present the
+danger of which I speak, and which consists in a complexity at a summit
+such that it is difficult in the extreme to know—even when one is certain
+one has gone up the right part of the hither slope—what one should do on
+the thither.
+
+This danger of “getting into the wrong valley” cannot be seized without
+illustration, and in the following rough sketches I give examples of this.
+
+In the first example is a bit of country such as one very often gets in
+these mountains with summits round about the 2600 metre line and the
+last valleys under the ports somewhat above the 2000. I have marked with
+hatching the contours below 2200 and in black the summits above 2600. The
+main watershed I have indicated by a dotted line.
+
+When one is crossing a port of this type one sees before one from the
+summit a confused and gentle slope leading apparently to one obvious
+valley on the far side like the obvious valley out of which one has just
+ascended. It seems indifferent whether one should come down on to this
+by M or by N, to the left or to the right, yet the two valley floors to
+which each leads are quite separate and may lead one round to different
+river basins. How deceptive such a place is, the rough sketch appended
+may help the reader to grasp. It shows the kind of thing one sees from
+the summit of such a pass and how indifferent the choice appears between
+the ways by which one may descend.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This type of confusion exists sometimes in a still more dangerous form,
+as in the contour lines of sketch on next page.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A man arrived at the port P climbing up from the valley Q, which is
+deep and well defined, sees before him another valley R exactly in line
+with the last, also deep and also well defined. On either side of him,
+as he gets to the saddle, run high ridges perpendicular to the line of
+the two valleys. It seems common sense to take the watershed as running
+along these ridges and across the port, and if Q is the French valley,
+R will be the Spanish one. As a matter of fact the watershed may not
+run in this simple way at all, but (as indicated upon the sketch map)
+take a sharp turn to the right. R may be a French valley after all, and
+the proper way down into Spain may be over the gradual grassy slopes
+indicated by the arrow line. A man standing just at the port, and having
+a rocky ridge A and the rocky ridge B to his left and right, sees before
+him the obvious trench of the valley R and takes for granted that it is
+the Spanish valley, whereas his true way is across the vague grassy land
+towards S, and the watershed which he thinks runs from B on to A really
+turns round from B and runs on to the distant mountains before him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It must be remembered that on these summits all traces of a path as a
+rule disappear. What is worse, indications of a path may begin on the
+other side into the wrong valley and not into the right one.
+
+A second type of this peril is that in which some feature upon the
+ridge which looks quite unimportant upon the one side turns out to be
+all-important upon the other. Thus a man coming from A in the map below,
+where the valleys are hatched and the highest summits are black, would
+have before him the plain ridge B-C. It is indifferent where he crosses
+it from that side, but on the far side he finds a confusion of falling
+valleys, and if he does not pick out the right one he may find himself
+in a few hours shut in by high walls which constrain him to a journey he
+never meant to make. He may have intended to follow valley (1), and so to
+reach food and shelter, he may find himself in valley (2) caught for the
+night far from men and with walls of 3000 feet between him and them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Sometimes this confusion takes the form of one’s being led on to an
+obvious notch in the ridge before one: a notch lower than the general
+line of the ridge which (one thinks) cannot but be the port. When one has
+climbed to it, however, one finds that the valley one was seeking lies
+far to the right or to the left of such a notch, and that the gap which
+was so noticeable on the one side of the pass corresponded to nothing
+useful upon the further side.
+
+There is a good example of this under the peak called Negras where
+an obvious notch which one thinks surely must be the way over to the
+Gallego, leads to nothing more useful than an enclosed Tarn under the
+precipices of the mountains.
+
+A sketch of the aspect of this particular ridge will make the difficulty
+plain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+All the contours upon the Aragonese side invite one to the notch at N,
+yet the true way lies over the ridge between A and B, and the nearer to
+B the better is the descent upon the further side. Indeed at A it is
+perilous, at B it is a very gradual descent of easy grass.
+
+The third type of mountain structure which may lead one into the wrong
+valley is what may be called “The Double Col.” It is damnably common and
+a good example of it will be found in the track I describe later on in
+this book when I speak of the short cut from the Ariège Valley into the
+Roussillon.
+
+The accompanying sketch will explain the character of this sort of
+tangle, and it is most important that anyone unacquainted with these
+mountains and wishing to learn them should seize it thoroughly, for it is
+the worst of all the lures that get a man astray.
+
+Observe carefully the numerous contours on the sketch map overleaf. They
+are numerous because it is necessary to show the minute details of such
+a case. I will suppose them to be about 50 feet apart. The traveller is
+coming up the valley marked V, the floor of which is marked in black
+upon the sketch, and the apex of which is, let us say, 6000 feet above
+the sea; he climbs the last little slope of 250 feet and reaches the col
+at C, which is 6250 feet above the sea. On this saddle he has upon either
+side of him precipitous slopes, which lead up to two summits of mountains
+upon the right and the left, the one towards A, the other towards B.
+Right in front of him opens another valley corresponding apparently to
+the valley V from which he has come, and which we will call W. The floor
+of this also is marked in black upon the sketch. It will be observed
+from the contour lines that the descent on to W is easy, though the
+walls bounding it on either side become increasingly precipitous as one
+proceeds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hidden from him by rising ground upon the right, as he stands at C, there
+is yet another valley, the floor of which is also given in black. This
+valley we will call Y, and it is this valley which leads the traveller
+towards his object; valley W only gets him deeper into the wilderness.
+Both valleys W and Y, are so precipitous that once engaged in either
+of them one is caught and compelled to pursue them for many miles. It
+is evident that on a very large scale map such as this, and with full
+contour lines giving every few feet of height, the traveller would make
+no error. Once at C he would go up to the right around the base of
+mountain B, rising continually until, somewhat under 6500 feet, he came
+to the second col, D, which would bring him down into valley Y.
+
+But consider how this corner would look upon an ordinary small scale map!
+
+The whole distance from the apex of valley V to the apex of valley Y is
+not half a mile. It would occupy little more than a quarter of an inch
+upon your French map. The general trend and nature of the valleys, which
+the traveller shut in by high mountains cannot grasp, would seem obvious
+upon such a map and he would take it for granted that he could make no
+error and that the passage marked from V to Y would be perfectly plain
+sailing. It would never occur to him that he could be trapped into the
+little ravine W leading nowhere and in no way connected with his journey.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The map would look something like this, perhaps, giving one a perfectly
+accurate general impression of the whole country-side, but quite
+useless for the critical point C-D, the difficulties of which nothing
+but numerous contours and a very large scale can possibly explain. The
+traveller consults the map, he sees the mountain group whose summits are
+A, H, and K, with their heights marked, he sees the other mountain group
+culminating at B with its height also marked, he see the main valley V up
+the road of which he has proceeded with the town in which he stopped and
+the river which he has been following. He sees the pass clearly marked
+at C-D, leading over to the further valley Y with its town, river, and
+road—and the journey seems to present no difficulties. It is only when
+he gets actually shut up in the hills at the heads of the valleys that
+he may begin to doubt or to be misled. On his map he could never believe
+that the little torrent W going right round out of his direction could
+take him in, or that he would get into its valley.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+If you consider what he actually sees when he gets to the summit of the
+pass, you will appreciate yet more easily how his error will come about.
+He will see something like this, with an obvious way straight before him,
+and with nothing to tell him that he must go up a second col, two or
+three hundred feet above him to the right at D, if he is to get into the
+right valley.
+
+It is in cases of this sort that Schrader’s map is so useful—so far as it
+goes; but it only covers the quite central part of the Pyrenees, and the
+contours are 100 metres apart.
+
+The particular ways in which one may get into the wrong valley are
+innumerable, but these three types which I have given include all the
+most common of them; and, of the three, the last which I have described
+in such detail is at once the most perilous and the most common.
+
+While I am upon this subject of getting into the wrong valley on the
+_downward_ side, I ought to mention the tricks which the map and one’s
+own judgment play upon one as one goes _upwards_.
+
+Errors made as one follows the map _up a ravine_ are nearly always due
+to making a false estimate of distance. The path may be lost for a
+considerable stretch, and the contours may at first be puzzling, but if
+one will trust to one’s map and to one’s compass one will never go far
+wrong, unless one misjudges distance, and it is on this account that in
+the directions I give below for particular places, I mean distance with
+what care I can.
+
+Thus you may miss the path which branches off from the main path from the
+valley of the Cinqueta to go eastward over the Col de Gistian; but if you
+have made an accurate estimate of distance, and trust to the measurements
+given, you cannot fail to identify the stream up which that crossing lies.
+
+Nothing can replace judgment, but there is a rule of thumb which is
+workable enough, and that is, save under conditions of extreme fatigue,
+that your kilometre on a mule path hardly ever takes you less than twelve
+minutes or more than fifteen. I except steep climbing of course, but
+steep climbing only comes at the port itself, or in quite unmistakable
+ravines and gorges, where you will not lose your way. Where you lose your
+way is in the Jasse, or in the bifurcation of main valleys, and there,
+as you plod up your mule path, you will, as I say, never take less than
+ten minutes over your kilometre (which is a centimetre upon your map)—and
+you ought always to have a little measure with you—nor will you ever take
+much more than twelve, save when you are quite knocked out and unable to
+calculate distance at all.
+
+These limits will seem narrow to those who have not experienced such
+paths. But they are wide enough. You must of course note the times during
+which you choose to stop, and it is also true that if you make quite
+short halts for a moment or two, of which you take no record, you will
+quite put out your calculation; but twelve minutes to the kilometre is
+3 miles an hour, fifteen is 2½ miles an hour, and if a man gets over a
+level mule track in the early morning carrying weight a little faster
+than the first pace, or on a steep part at evening a little slower than
+the second, yet the occasions when this rule of thumb fails are rare.
+
+When your watch tells you that by the distance measured you should be
+approaching a bifurcation, or any other doubtful place, halt and decide.
+
+If you do miss your way going upwards, or do take the wrong valley, if,
+in a word, you are lost (as I was badly four years ago, so that I have
+the right to speak of it), the first thing to remember is that the path,
+if you will take it _downhill_, will lead you at last to men. The rule
+about following running water is all very well in many mountains of the
+ranges, but it won’t do in the Pyrenees, for the running water very often
+goes under sharp limestone cliffs, and if you don’t find your way round
+or over them, you may spend more hours than are safe in looking for a way
+out. They form a very complete prison door, indeed, do these gorges.
+
+The path, I say, if you follow it downhill, will save you, but if, when
+you find you are in the wrong valley, you attempt to recover your track
+by going up the lateral ridge, you always run a grave risk. It is by
+experiments of that sort that men die from exhaustion. It is true that
+one is not usually tempted to this extra effort. It is much easier to go
+on the way one is going, and to follow the path down, though one knows it
+is a wrong one, but there are occasions, especially late in the day, when
+one has _all but_ conquered the main crest of the range, after perhaps
+one failure, and when one knows that one is lost, when the idea of one
+vigorous effort to get over while it is yet daylight is tempting. It is a
+fatal temptation.
+
+When you have made up your mind that you are lost, or even when the map
+has told you so, pay no attention to anything else about you or within
+you, such as the guess that such-and-such a rock in front of one may hide
+such-and-such a village, or the hope that your strength will hold out
+for 12 or 15 hours without food, but at once behave like a person in
+grave danger, that is, calculate your chances of retreat, and think of
+that only, for I repeat, it is more easy to die from exhaustion than in
+any other way in these hills, and nearly all the people that perish in
+mountains perish from that cause.
+
+When you have made up your mind that it is your business to find men
+again, and that you do not know how far men may be, first note your
+bread and wine and the rest, if any provision is left; next determine
+to reserve it until nightfall: eat it then, do not blunder on through
+the darkness (it is astonishing what very little distance one makes
+after sunset, and every half-hour of twilight makes it more difficult to
+camp)—sleep, and take the first half of the next day without food; you
+are reserving your very last rations until the noon of that day. For one
+can do a considerable distance without food if the effort is made in the
+early morning.
+
+Never bathe under such conditions of fatigue, and towards the end, when
+you are exhausted, drink as sparingly as possible.
+
+It is perhaps useless to give any hints about what a man should do when
+he is lost, because men get lost in mountains by hoping against hope and
+pushing on when common sense tells them to return. But I write down these
+hints for what they are worth. After my first bad lesson in the matter,
+I found them fairly useful. Remember, by the way, if you are lost and if
+there is no path apparent, that a cabane even in ruins somewhere in the
+landscape means a track visible or invisible, and that any rude crossing
+of the stream with stepping-stones or a log means the same thing. But
+you must not imagine that the presence or traces of animals will prove a
+guide, for even mules wander wild for miles on these mountains in places
+where a man can only go with difficulty and along random tracks leading
+nowhere.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE SEPARATE DISTRICTS OF THE PYRENEES
+
+
+For the purposes of travel upon foot, the range of the Pyrenees falls
+into certain divisions, which are not very clearly marked, but which
+arrange themselves in a rough manner under the experience of travel. As
+I come to deal with each of these, it will be seen that there is not
+one which does not overlap its neighbour, and it will be impossible to
+describe any mountain district without admitting this overlapping to
+some extent, because any valley connected by certain local ties with
+the valleys to the east and west is also, as a rule, connected with the
+valleys to the north or south of it. Still, the districts I speak of are
+fairly distinct, and consist in (1) the Basque valleys, (2) the Vals
+d’Aspe and d’Ossau, with the valleys of the Aragon and Gallego to their
+south, which I will call “the Four Valleys,” (3) the Sobrarbe, (4) the
+three valleys attaching to Tarbes, to which I also attach the Luchon
+valley, (5) the Catalan valleys and Andorra—in which I include the Val
+d’Aran, (6) the Cerdagne (omitting the Tet and Ariège valleys), (7) the
+Ariège and Tet valleys, (8) the Canigou.
+
+These I will take in their order, and I will begin with—
+
+
+I. THE BASQUE VALLEYS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The valleys immediately adjoining the point which we have taken for the
+western end of the chain, that is, the knot of hills just to the west
+of Roncesvalles, which have for their pivot Mount Urtioga, form one
+country-side and should be considered together.
+
+They are the Baztan to the west, the first of the many valleys into
+which the main range splits up like a fan as it approaches the Atlantic;
+the valley of Baigorry, parallel to it and immediately to the east; the
+valley called that of the St. Jean in its lower French part, and that
+of Val Carlos in its upper Spanish one; this valley stands eastward of
+Baigorry, and unites with it before leaving the hills to join the valley
+of the Nive. The two together, and the lower valley of the Nive, are
+called by the common name of “The Labourd”; on the south of the range
+comes the valley of the Arga and the plain south of Roncesvalles: these
+make one division of the Basque district. The same dialect of Basque is
+spoken throughout the Labourd (there are variations upon the Spanish
+side), the same type of house and of food and of hill is everywhere
+around. The other division of the Basque valleys is the French district
+of the _Soule_, just to the east with its corresponding valleys south of
+the frontier.
+
+As to the Labourd and its accompanying Spanish valleys, the space open
+for camping or wandering in this corner of the chain is less than in the
+higher central part. The low round hills are often cultivated to their
+summits, the valleys are always well populated, roads and villages are
+many, and though there are one or two fine stretches of forest in which
+a man can spend as many days as he chooses (notably the forest of Hayra,
+which lies up southward at the far end of the Baigorry), they are not
+to be compared in extent or in wildness with the forests further east.
+The whole width of the Hayra, counting both the French and the Spanish
+slopes, is, at its greatest extent, not more than three miles. Its length
+is not six. The small lakes also that are characteristic of the Pyrenees
+throughout their length, are lacking here, and the prosperity and
+industry of the Basques press upon the traveller wherever he goes.
+
+If one would stay some three or four days in this district, it is a good
+plan to leave the train at St. Etienne, just at the beginning of the
+Baigorry valley. St. Etienne is the terminus of the branch line which
+strikes off a few miles down the river from the line connecting St. Jean
+Pied-de-Port with Bayonne, and one gets to St. Etienne by the morning
+train from Bayonne about mid-day.
+
+Immediately to the west of St. Etienne, connecting it with the Baztan,
+lies the pass of Ispeguy. It is of course very low, as are all these
+hills; it is little more than 1000 feet above St. Etienne, or perhaps
+1500, but from the summit there is a fine view of the higher distant
+Pyrenees to the east. The frontier runs here north and south, passes
+through the summit of the col, down the further side of which an easy
+valley road leads down on to the main highway of the Baztan.
+
+This highway is the modern representative of the track which for many
+centuries connected Bayonne with Pamplona. It was, until recent times,
+a mountain way; the main Roman road went through Roncesvalles. It is
+now, as was seen when we spoke of roads for driving and motoring, the
+best approach from the French Atlantic coast into Navarre. From the
+point where you strike this high road, where the valley debouches upon
+it, and where the lateral stream you have been following falls into the
+river Baztan, there is a walk down to the left, or southward, of some 4
+miles, into the town of Elizondo, which means in Basque “The Church in
+the Valley.” For the Basques, like the Welsh, have the terms of their
+religion mainly in the form of borrowed words, and the Greek Ecclesia,
+which is “Egglws” in the Welsh mountains, has nearly the same sound
+here, 800 miles to the south, and with all those days of sea between.
+Christendom is one country.
+
+There is no easy journey from Elizondo down to the south of the hills and
+back east again into the French valleys, unless you go on to Pamplona,
+although of course there is nothing high or steep to stop you, if you
+have plenty of provisions, except the absence of maps (which do not exist
+for this district upon any useful scale to my knowledge). If you want to
+make a mountain journey of it without touching the town of Pamplona, go
+down a mile or two from Elizondo to Iruita, where the main road branches
+into two; thence going south and a little east up the stream which comes
+down from the frontier summits, you may go over a col between that valley
+and the valley of the Esteribar, where the Arga rises. You will find
+yourself at the first little Basque village, that of Eugui, by evening;
+the total distance from Elizondo to Eugui, if you go the shortest way, is
+only 20 miles. But, I repeat, it is a difficult job. Maps are lacking,
+the valleys have many ramifications, and the first part of your journey
+is all uphill for half the day. If the weather is cloudy it is more than
+possible that you will get into the wrong valley, and find at last, when
+you have got over your col, and are following the running water on the
+further side, that that running water is not the Arga at all, but one
+of the streams that lead you back again into the Baigorry. However, if
+you make Eugui in the Estribar, the rest is simple: there are villages
+all round, connected by paths, and not more than a mile or two from one
+another, and you may go through Linzoian to Espimal and so to Burguete,
+where you get the main road over Roncesvalles, without fear of losing
+your way; for there are people everywhere.
+
+It is best, however, when you have slept in Elizondo, which is a very
+pleasant little town, to take the motor-bus and get on to Pamplona; for
+the Basques, who detest as much as the Scotch to be behind the world,
+have a motor-bus along this mountain road. From Pamplona next day you can
+go by the new road to Burguete, passing through Larrasoaña and Erro. It
+is a long journey of nearly 30 miles; it can be broken, if you choose, at
+Erro, but the sleeping accommodation there is nothing very grand. If you
+push on beyond Burguete, over Roncesvalles, you can, in something under
+40 miles, get to Val Carlos, the last town in Spain, and for those who
+can walk 40 miles this is the best thing to do. If not, break the journey
+in two at Erro, desolate as the little place is.
+
+The object of course of this walk is the Pass of Roncesvalles, and the
+vast contrast between the slightly sloping Spanish plain of Burguete,
+running up to the summit of the Pyrenees, and the great chasm which opens
+beneath your feet when you have reached that summit, and which forms the
+entry into France.
+
+You will not easily make a camp in any part of this round, and it is well
+to remember here, where first mention is made of crossing the Spanish
+frontier, that the Spaniards will not let a man leave their country
+unless he has due permission upon a paper form. Why this should be so
+I do not know, and I have very often gone in and out of Spain without
+telling the authorities, as I have for that matter gone in and out of
+Germany on foot, though the German officials are more stupid than the
+Spaniards, and therefore attach much more importance to such things.
+Still, it is safer to ask for your permit, and it will be given you by
+a functionary called a “Corregidor,” at Val Carlos. A few miles beyond,
+eight to be exact, you are in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, which is the head of
+the railway to-day, and which has been for nearly 1000 years the depot
+town at the foot of the pass for armies and for travellers. On this same
+flat where it stands, was the Roman fort and depot, but not quite on the
+same place; it stood on the spot now called St. Jean le Vieux, 2½ miles
+up the lateral valley. This last was the halting place of Charlemagne in
+the famous story, and St. Jean, as we see it, is a town not of the Dark
+but of the Middle Ages.
+
+The next district to this of the Labourd, lying immediately to the east
+of it, we have seen to be called the Soule. It is also Basque, though
+it is Basque spoken with a different accent, and with certain verbal
+differences as well. The way from one to the other lies through wilder
+and more likely land for camping than is to be found in Baztan, Baigorry,
+or Roncesvalles. It is a good plan, if one has the leisure, to approach
+the Soule on foot by way of St. Jean, though the more ordinary way is to
+go round through the plains by train to Mauléon (which is the capital of
+the Soule).
+
+If one goes on foot directly across from the Labourd into the Soule, he
+strikes that valley in its higher reaches, and well above Mauléon.
+
+The shortest line, if one does not mind sleeping in a mountain village,
+is to take the high road from St. Jean Pied-de-Port to Lecumberry, and
+to follow that way up the valley of the Laurhibar until the high road
+comes to an end. It did so abruptly two miles or so beyond Laurhibar,
+some years ago, but as it is being continued, one may follow it every
+year further up the dale. The high road ends (or ended) about 10 miles
+from St. Jean; and Lecumberry is the last _village_ still, however far
+the road may have progressed up the valley. When the road ceases one must
+continue up the valley by a path on the left bank of the stream. One
+soon finds on this left bank a series of precipitous cliffs; one must
+there cross over to the path upon the right bank. It is also possible to
+keep to the right bank all the way—there is a track on either side—but
+I speak of the usual way. Henceforward the path remains quite clear and
+runs close alongside the stream, with steep cliffs upon the further
+shore, until, in the last mile or two, before the head of the valley,
+one enters a wood, and it is here that, if you are not very careful, you
+will lose your way. The contours are complicated, the valleys numerous,
+and the alternation of wood and open land most confusing. But if you will
+go _due east_ by your compass from the point where you entered the wood
+(abandoning the path where it crosses the stream and goes over to the
+south), and if you will remember always to turn any precipice or ledge of
+rock by descending to the _left_ of it, and always to _descend_ after you
+have made the first high open space, you will come upon a clear track not
+quite three miles from the point where the path enters the wood.
+
+It sounds but a vague indication, but it is a sufficient one, because bad
+precipices prevent you from going too much to the right, and the natural
+tendency of man to go downhill when he can will prevent you from going
+up on to the ledge upon your left. You will find yourself shepherded—if
+you always go as due east as is possible, and always turn a ledge of rock
+to the _left_—into a track which runs all along the high lands above the
+slopes that dominate the Brook Aphours; a little way down, that track
+falls into a high road, and a few miles further the road reaches Tardets,
+the central town in the valley of the Soule, half-way between Mauléon and
+the highest summits. The whole journey from St. Jean thus described is
+a big distance, nearer 40 miles than 30, with windings all the way, and
+you must be prepared if you become fatigued or have bad luck with your
+weather, either to camp out in the woods at the summit of the pass, or to
+sleep in the first hamlet upon the eastern side.
+
+There is, indeed, a short cut which strikes the valley much higher, but
+it is difficult to make and involves the climbing of two cols. For this
+short cut the directions are as for the last, until your path along the
+Laurhibar has struck the wood; there, instead of leaving it when it turns
+south, and instead of going east (as above), you must keep to the track.
+It will cross the stream, still going due south, wind up between an open
+space through the woods, and will point before you lose it to the climb
+over the shoulder of the Pic d’Escoliers; it is a stiff climb of nearly
+2000 feet from the point where you crossed the stream and very steep.
+The 2000 feet or so are climbed in under two miles. When you get to the
+shoulder of the peak a steep southern slope lies before you, diversified
+and made perilous by rocks, and separating plainly into an eastern and
+a western valley. Between you and the eastern valley (which is that you
+must descend) are steep rocks; they can be turned, however, by going to
+the _right_ of them, but the whole place is precipitous and difficult.
+The advantage appears when once you are down on the floor of the valley
+(which is but 1000 feet from the peak), for you come within a mile to
+a clear path, and once you have come to this, you are in another two
+miles, at the village of Larrau, which is the terminus of the great
+national road, and stands in the last upper waters of the valley.
+
+If you approach the Soule by the more ordinary way you will come by train
+through Puyoo, change there, and take the train for Mauléon; and Mauléon,
+as I have said, is the capital of the Soule. But the true mountain town
+is Tardets, half-way up the valley. Tardets is the market town for all
+the Basques of the hills, and you can never have enough of it, both
+of its heavenly hotel, of which I shall speak when I come to speak of
+hotels, and for its universal shops, and for its kindly people. It stands
+in an opening of the lower hills, just before the valley narrows and
+enters the high mountains, and you may reach it from Mauléon by a tramway
+which runs up the river as far as Tardets and then turns off to the left
+and goes round to Oloron.
+
+If you approach the Soule in this manner, making Tardets your
+starting-point, you will do well to equip yourself in that town and then
+to continue up the valley some five miles past Licq, until you come
+to the fork of the river. It is an unmistakable point, because a very
+definite rocky ridge comes down and separates the two sources of the
+river Saison, which is the river of the Soule. The branch to the right
+(as you go southward) leads up the valley to Larrau, of which I have just
+spoken, and the high road follows it; the one to the left (which is the
+main stream and is called the Chaitza) has no main road along it, but a
+good mule track, very clear and plain, and leading at last to the village
+of Ste Engrace, which lies at the extreme end of the valley and gives the
+whole district its name.
+
+Ste Engrace was a saint of the persecution of Diocletian. She was
+martyred in Saragossa, and the name of the village is one of the many
+examples of the way in which the southern influence overlaps these hills.
+I have said that the Spanish sandal is used to the very foot of the
+French Pyrenees, and so is the wine-skin which is common to all Spain,
+and so is the Spanish mule. Here you may see the Spanish saints as well
+reaching beyond the summits.
+
+From where you leave the main road and go up the Chaitza valley to Ste
+Engrace is a distance of 8 or 9 miles, and in this valley, in its upper
+waters, is to be found one of the wonders of the Pyrenees, and also one
+of the main passages into Spain.
+
+The wonder is the gorge of the Cacouette; the passage is the twin passage
+of the Port d’Ourdayte and the Port Ste Engrace, and near them to the
+west are two easier ports.
+
+The Cacouette is a cut through the limestone such as you might make with
+a knife into clay or cheese, with immense steep precipices on either
+side, and apart from the track above the cliffs there is some sort of
+tourist’s way along the cavernous ravine for those who admire such
+things. Of the two ports, the one path goes up the western side of that
+cleft in the limestone (which drops 1500 feet into the earth), and the
+other goes up the eastern side. To take the road up the western side,
+you leave the Ste Engrace road 3 miles after leaving the great highway,
+by a lane which goes off to the right and drops down into the valley; it
+is quite plain, and is the only road so leaving the main track, so that
+it cannot be mistaken. It climbs the opposing hill, and if you follow it
+through all its windings it will take you to the Port Belhay, or to the
+Port Bambilette, both under a mountain called Otxogorrigagne, and both
+easy. But if you continue just above the limestone precipice, you will
+come into a very striking circus of rock just under the watershed, up
+which your path perilously climbs to the summit and the frontier; this is
+the Port d’Ourdayte.
+
+The Port Ste Engrace, though not half a mile distant from it, is reached
+in quite a different manner, and the separation between the two is due to
+this limestone gorge, which cuts off one path from the other.
+
+If you are going to try to cross by Ste Engrace, sleep at the village
+before starting. There is a good comfortable inn kept by people of the
+same name as those who keep the inn at Elizondo, Jarégui. It is so steep
+and difficult a bit that if you were to attempt to do it in one day,
+without sleeping at Ste Engrace, you would hardly succeed unless you
+already knew the mountain well, and mist, which is the fatal difficulty
+of these western Pyrenees, will more commonly catch you in the early
+afternoon than at any other time in the day, so that you had better make
+your ascent before noon. When you have slept at Ste Engrace you will find
+the path the next morning winding round through the woods, at the base
+of the hill opposite the village. One must ask the way to the start of
+this path, and it is not always clear after the first two miles; one has
+now and then to cast about for it a little, but at last it emerges upon
+a high grassy slope, which runs all the way to the crest of the hill
+and the frontier. The path does not follow the straight ascent of the
+hill, it curves nearer and nearer to a precipice which is the same as
+that climbed by the neighbouring paths of the Port d’Ourdayte; for ten
+dangerous yards it runs on a tiny platform right along the gulf and makes
+over the crest into the further Spanish Basque valley, whose capital is
+Isaba.
+
+Of this valley I can say nothing, for I have not succeeded in crossing
+the Ste Engrace, though I have twice tried, but I am told that Isaba is
+among the best of these little mountain Basque villages or towns for
+entertainment and for cleanliness, and all Basque villages and towns are
+cleanly. There is a good posada. From Isaba also a high road runs into
+the higher valleys of Navarre and to Pamplona.
+
+Near this territory of the Soule, and partly included in it, are two
+great districts where a man may spend many days at his ease in camp
+there. The first is the great forest of the Tigra, which stretches to the
+west of Tardets and is full of rocks, rivers, and adventure. You may take
+it at its greatest width, counting one or two open spaces, to be 8 or 9
+miles, and at its greatest length, from the Peak of the Vultures to St.
+Just, to be much the same. Its high places, some of which are bare peaks,
+some clothed with woods, range for the most part round about 3000 feet,
+but the highest point—of which I have never heard the name, and which is
+on the very south of the forest, just passes 4000 feet. Tardets is always
+at hand on the one hand, St. Jean Pied-de-Port rather further on the
+other; from both one may re-provision oneself.
+
+Another and still larger district lies on the further side of the valley
+to the north and east of Ste Engrace itself. It is the great mass of
+wood, mainly beech, which stretches all over the hills between this last
+Basque valley and the Val d’Aspe, next to the east, which is the frontier
+valley of Béarn. These woods have no common name, they are intersected by
+clear spaces, notably round the higher peaks of the forest, but they make
+a district of their own stretching eastward and westward from Lourdios
+to Licq, northward and southward from the frontier nearly to Lanne, and
+thus measuring not much less than 10 miles every way, in French territory
+alone.
+
+There is no forest in which it is easier to lose one’s way than this
+great stretch of upland. This is especially true in the Souscousse
+district, due east of Ste Engrace; there is here a labyrinth of
+complicated valleys, and what seems on the map so easy a passage from the
+Soule into the Val d’Aspe is in practice nearly impossible to find. To
+camp in and to explore, this forest is even better than the Tigra; for
+its summits are higher, and its views more unexpected and remarkable.
+There are points in it which are more than 6000 feet in height, and the
+great Pic d’Anie, the first of the really high mountains of the chain,
+stands high above them, just beyond the southern limit of the trees.
+
+[Illustration: THE BASQUE VALLEYS]
+
+
+II. THE FOUR VALLEYS (BÉARN AND ARAGON)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Four valleys in the Pyrenees count together in travel upon foot. They are
+the Val d’Aspe and the Val d’Oussau on the French side, and the valleys
+of the rivers Aragon and Gallego on the Spanish side.
+
+These four form a unity for the reason that in one place (which is just
+to the south of the watershed) they are, without too much difficulty,
+approachable one from another.
+
+Many historical accidents have also served to unite these four valleys.
+One pair of them made the platform for that great Roman road to which
+allusion has so often been made in this book, and which ran from the
+French plains over what is now called the pass of the Somport, right
+down through Jaca to Saragossa. The parallel pair of valleys just to
+the east, the Val d’Ossau and the valley of the Gallego, on the Spanish
+side, though no highway ran along them until quite recently, had a
+similar historical unity which bound them both together, and bound a
+pair of them to the two sister valleys upon the west. For the eastern
+part of what later became the kingdom of Aragon, the county of Sobrarbe,
+stretched from the valley of the Gallego eastward, and was a natural line
+of defence southward against the Mahommedans; while the Val d’Ossau to
+the north of it was reached by an easy pass and must have formed—though
+we have no exact historical record of it—a good road for the parallel
+advance of armies.
+
+It must never be forgotten that when an army is advancing in great
+numbers it is of paramount importance for it that the host should be able
+to concentrate before action. But roads, especially roads over mountains,
+compel men to march in long strings, so that the head of the column will
+have arrived at a particular point hours before the tail of it; and what
+is more, the deployment of the column, that is the getting of it all into
+a front perpendicular to its line of advance, takes time in proportion to
+the length which the column had before it began to deploy. This accident
+it was, for instance, which destroyed the French and their allies at
+Crécy, for though they greatly outnumbered the English they had come up
+in columns too long to deploy in time. Now it evidently follows from this
+principle that armies on the march, even under the rudest conditions,
+will attempt to follow parallel roads. To find two roads parallel to
+one another and leading to the same field of action is to halve the
+difficulties of transport and of deployment. But it is very difficult
+(under primitive conditions) to find two parallel roads which are near
+to one another, and unless the lines by which the army advances are near
+to one another the advantage of the alternative routes will disappear in
+proportion to their distance one from the other. In mountain regions it
+is especially difficult to find two passages parallel to each other and
+yet in close neighbourhood. This is precisely the advantage afforded by
+the trench of the Gallego continued in the Val d’Ossau to the east, and
+in the trench of the Aragon continued in the Val d’Aspe to the west. Two
+hosts using the old mule paths could leave Sallent on the Gallego and
+Canfranc on the Aragon at dawn of one day, and both would meet at Oloron
+in the French plains before the evening of the morrow; on the southward
+march a host could assemble in the plains of Béarn, separate to use these
+two easy passes, and meet at Jaca at the end of the second day.
+
+It is fairly certain therefore—much more certain than a thousand of the
+historical guesses that are put down as truths in our textbooks—that
+the easy pass between the Gallego Valley and the Val d’Ossau was twin
+throughout the Dark Ages to the great Somport pass not 8 miles westward
+of it. Abd-ur-Rahman must have used both and so must the Christian
+knights when they came so often to the relief of Aragon in the heavy and
+successful fighting against Islam which marked the tenth and eleventh
+centuries.
+
+To appreciate how close these two parallel tracks were to each other one
+has but to remember that the gap between the Val d’Aspe and the next easy
+pass westward—right away at Roncesvalles—there is a matter of 40 miles.
+Between the Val d’Ossau and the next easy pass eastward there is a gap of
+indeterminate length according to the definition of the term “easy,” but
+there is at any rate no notch over which one could take any armed force
+until one gets to the Bonaigo, quite 60 miles away. All between is the
+mass of the highest and most rugged ridges of the Pyrenees, over which
+certain paths have always existed, indeed, and over which, in two places
+at least, at Gavarnie and at Macadou, the French propose to drive roads,
+but no gap in which was ever passable in the Dark and Middle Ages for a
+great number of men.
+
+I have said that these two parallel trenches were not only twin in
+history for the use of armies, but were also communicable one from the
+other just south of the watershed. North of it, indeed, the Val d’Aspe
+and the Val d’Ossau, though one can be reached from the other, only
+communicate by very high and rocky ridges, the easiest of which is the
+Col des Moines. But on the south side there is one accidental easy
+passage. You may go all the way from the Somport to Jaca and find nothing
+but the most difficult mountains on your left, and all the way from the
+Pourtalet (which is the pass at the top of the Val d’Ossau corresponding
+to the Somport) down to Sandinies and find nothing but difficult
+mountains on the right, save just at the beginning of the descent where
+this accident of which I speak occurs. Its feature is a lateral valley
+called the Canal Roya which takes its name from the streak of intense red
+scoring the side of its principal peak.
+
+This lateral valley points right away eastward from the trench of the
+Aragon, it is nowhere precipitous along its stream (a rare advantage in
+the Pyrenees) save in one spot where a quite low precipice is easily
+outflanked along the grassy slopes above it. And the end of that valley
+consists in a sort of semi-circular ridge of grassy steep banks in three
+places of which ridge, at least, a man or a beast can walk over without
+difficulty or danger. These three places are the Port de Peyréguet,
+the Port d’Anéou, and the col of the Canal Roya. This last is the
+principal one, the easiest and the lowest. Each is within half a mile of
+its neighbour, and on the further side one comes down quite easily by
+large steep slopes of meadow to the valley of the Gallego. The Port de
+Peyréguet and the Port d’Anéou bring one down just on the north of the
+flat dip of the pass, the col of the Canal Roya just on the south of it;
+but whether one comes down just north or south of the flat Pourtalet pass
+is an indifferent matter. The travelling in all three cases is little
+more than a walk.
+
+These “gates” up the Canal Roya from the Val d’Aragon into the parallel
+valley of the Gallego knit the whole four valleys into one system,
+and to this day their customs and their inhabitants have very much in
+common, and the two valleys, which were the core and heart of Aragon and
+the origins of its crusade southward against the Mahommedans, count in
+history and in local geography with the two valleys which were the heart
+and origin of Béarn up to the north.
+
+The Val d’Aspe, which is the most important of the four, is that valley
+in the Pyrenees where the characteristics of the range are most strongly
+marked. It might serve as the type of all the others. You cannot see the
+opening of it southward from Oloron without appreciating that you are
+approaching something distinctive and singular in landscape. It is so
+clean-cut and so obviously an invitation to the crossing of the hills.
+The gorges which divide into separate flat steps every Pyrenean valley,
+are nowhere more marked than here. The village of Asasp which stands at
+the first of them is singularly characteristic of such an entry; the gap
+through which the old lake broke is so clear, the walls through which
+the Gave runs are so perfect.
+
+Somewhat further on when yet another gorge has been passed there opens
+out one of those circular and isolated spaces of which Andorra is
+the historical example, and which in greater or less perfection are
+characteristic of all these hills.
+
+This plain, which still recalls in its contours the old lake which
+created it, and of which it is the floor, is more regular and more
+complete than any of the many _jasses_ and “_plans_” which distinguish
+the other vales. It is even more striking than that of Andorra.
+It nourishes five villages which might easily (had not the great
+international road run through them for 2000 years) have federated
+to form an independent commonwealth as the eight villages of Andorra
+federated to form one. Indeed this circus, surrounded by almost
+impassable hills which meet at either end in narrow Thermopylæ, was
+very nearly independent at the close of the Middle Ages, and when it
+appealed against the king for the preservation of its customs, these were
+preserved by the authority of the king’s court.
+
+Of the small towns or large villages which this little secluded corner
+of the world contains, Bédous is that which will seem the capital to the
+wayfarer, for it is the only one which stands upon the main road; it
+is the terminus of a railway which will soon be finished, and of which
+nearly all the track is already made. Bédous, by this time, must also
+have more population, as it certainly has more wealth than any of the
+surrounding places. But Accous is the true capital of the five, and it
+is pleasurable to hear with what reverence the villagers of the farms
+around speak of Accous as though it were an Andorra-viella or a Toulouse.
+All this wonderful and silent plain is marked with long lines of poplars
+which enhance by their straight lines the immensity of the heights around
+them.
+
+If one will pass some days in this singular valley it forms an excellent
+place from which to explore the high passes into the Val d’Ossau, and
+the bases of the two great mountains which, to the east and to the
+west, neither visible from the floor of the valley, are, as it were, its
+guardians: the Pic d’Anie and the Pic du Midi d’Ossau. The man who does
+not desire to cover much ground but who wants thoroughly to know some
+very Pyrenean part of the Pyrenees will do well to stop at the Hotel
+de la Poste at Bédous, and thence climb at his leisure up on to the
+platforms from which spring these isolated and dominant masses of rock.
+
+The Pic du Midi remains in one’s mind more perhaps than any of the
+isolated mountains of Europe. It is quite savage and alone, and you must
+fatigue yourself to reach it. There is no common knowledge of it and yet
+it is as much itself as is the Matterhorn. The Pic d’Anie, though it
+is less isolated, stands even more alone and has this quality that it
+dominates the whole of the seaward side of the Pyrenees for it is much
+higher than anything westward of it. Also it is the boundary beyond which
+the Basques and their language have not gone.
+
+Beyond this plain of Bédous, when you have passed the southern “gate” of
+it, you come into a long, deep and winding gorge which leads you at last
+to Urdos, and Urdos is and has been since history began the outpost of
+the French in these hills. It was the Roman outpost and the mediæval one,
+and it was the outpost through the Revolutionary wars.
+
+Napoleon, who in everything recognized and imitated the example of Rome,
+and who, for that matter, caused the Empire to rise again from the dead,
+determined that a modern road should go again where the old Roman road
+had gone. He determined this in connexion with his Spanish wars, and
+decreed in 1808 that a way for artillery should cross where the legions
+had gone. But Europe, as we all know, would not upon any matter accept in
+the rush of a few years the constructive desire of Napoleon and of the
+Revolution. It has taken more than three generations to do not half the
+vast work they planned, and this road, which like almost every good road
+over the Alps and the Pyrenees has Napoleon and the Revolution for its
+origin, waited till past the middle of the nineteenth century before it
+reached so much as the summit of the port.
+
+Under Napoleon III, in the sixties if I remember right, the thing was
+done and the road reached the summit of the Somport, the lowest and the
+most practicable of the high passes of the central mountains. But the
+Spaniards still hung back, and it was not till the other year that the
+road upon the Spanish side was completed. Now, however, one may not
+only go all the way upon a high carriage road from Oloron to Saragossa
+straight south across the hills, but one may find the whole way marked
+with mile-stones as the Romans would have marked it, and saved at every
+difficulty by engineering of which the Romans themselves would have been
+proud. Once over the summit there is no resting place till one reaches
+Canfranc, 6 or 7 miles by the windings of the road below one. After
+Canfranc the valley of the Aragon, which one has been following, opens,
+and the plain of Jaca lies before one bounded by its great ridge to the
+southward, the Peña de Oroel.
+
+If one would not go all that length of high-road (from Oloron to Jaca is
+over 50 miles) there are upon the Spanish side two lateral diversions
+which a man may take. The first is over the Col des Moines, the other
+into and over the Canal Roya.
+
+The first can be seen right before one at the summit of the pass; for
+when one stands upon that summit one has, running eastward from the road,
+a great open valley at the head of which is clearly distinguishable a
+bare rocky ridge with a low saddle which is the Col des Moines. It is
+perfectly easy upon either side, and upon the further side it shows one
+the splendid and unexpected vision of the Pic du Midi standing up alone
+beyond the little tarns at its feet: a double pyramid of steep rock upon
+which the snow can hardly lie in tiny patches and whose main precipices
+are dark, to the north, away from the sun.
+
+The next lateral valley southward of the Col des Moines is that of the
+Canal Roya, but one can only enter it after going down the main road for
+quite a thousand feet. There a bridge will be seen spanning the Aragon
+and a little doubtful path leading beyond eastward up the lateral valley.
+It is two hours up that valley to its head by a path going first on the
+right bank of the stream then crossing over to the left one. One thus
+reaches by a continuous ascent the cirque or amphitheatre which bounds
+it at the eastern extremity of the valley. Here there is a difficulty in
+finding the easiest and lowest col. The map is doubtful and the details
+upon the map are not sufficiently numerous. The Canal Roya is well worth
+camping in and returning by to the main Spanish road if one is inclined
+(and if one is, one would do well to camp near the wood upon the left
+bank of the stream not quite half-way up the vale for there is no timber
+further on). But if one does not camp and prefers to get over the col
+into the valley of the Gallego the rule is to note a sharp peak which
+stands exactly at the apex of the valley—it is the lowest of the peaks
+around but very distinct, forming an isolated steeple due east of the
+last springs of the stream. The way lies to the left or north of this
+peak and just under its shoulder up a loose mass of fallen rocks on which
+an eye practised in these things can discover from time to time a trace
+not of a true path but at least of infrequent travel. Upon the far side
+easy slopes of grass take one down in about an hour to the Sallent road.
+
+Note that these two cols and the stretch from road to road and from inn
+to inn can only with some peril be undertaken in one day from Urdos. In
+fine weather and without accident the thing is simple enough, but when
+you are baulked for an hour or two by the trail, or if you start a little
+late, or if you are detained by mist you may very easily not manage the
+passage from one of the great roads to the other, near as they look upon
+the map.
+
+With everything going well, carrying little weight and fresh, it is quite
+three hours (and more like three and a half) from Urdos to the bridge
+over the Aragon. It will be another two up the Canal Roya and two more
+over its col and down the other side to the high road, and even from that
+point on the high road, if you follow the road only, there are two more
+hours before you reach Sallent. It is a very heavy day of quite 30 miles
+with two cols, one of 5000 feet, the other of 6500 feet, to be taken on
+the way, and it is foolish to undertake either the Col des Moines or the
+Canal Roya from Urdos without allowing for the chance of one night at
+least upon the mountain.
+
+The second pair of valleys, that of the Gallego on the Spanish side, and
+the Gave d’Ossau on the French side, are linked together by two very easy
+passes, and one difficult one of which I shall speak in a moment.
+
+The old port, now called “Port Vieux de Sallent,” or the “Puerta Vieja,”
+is easy enough, though it went over a higher part of the mountain than
+the new pass just next door to it. I say it is _higher_ than the pass now
+used, and this contrast is not infrequently found in the Pyrenees, some
+feature or other in the topography of the ridge making it more convenient
+for a native to cross by a slightly higher saddle than by some lower one
+close by. For instance, the Somport itself is somewhat higher than a
+quite unknown gap four miles to the west of it, but this lower gap was
+never used because it led into a Spanish valley of a difficult and most
+isolated kind.
+
+In the case of the two passes from the Val d’Ossau into Spain, the
+obstacle which prevented the lower pass being used until quite lately,
+was a great mass of rock overhanging the sources of the Gave d’Ossau, in
+the highest part of the valley. When the new highway was made, this rock
+was blasted and cut so as to take the road round it, and thus the low
+pass beyond, called Pourtalet, was utilized. It is below 6000 feet and
+exactly 1000 feet lower than the old Port de Sallent. But even nowadays,
+if you are on foot you will do well to cross by the old port, high as it
+is, for it saves time.
+
+While I am on the subject I must warn the reader that the 1/100,000
+map does not accurately convey the shape of the last two miles of the
+road upon the French side, and the line of road mere guesswork upon the
+Spanish, though the shape of the mountains is accurately given.
+
+This pair of valleys is remarkable for another feature upon the French
+and upon the Spanish slopes: their wildness. Let me speak first of the
+French. The French valley, the Val d’Ossau, is one of the wildest and
+most deserted in the Pyrenees, and also it is the one most densely
+clothed with forests. The reason of this is that there is less flat
+ground at the foot of it than in any other. Nowhere does it expand into
+even a narrow circus, and about Laruns, where it debouches upon the
+lowlands, and the summit of the pass into Spain, a distance of perhaps
+17 miles, there is but one large village, close to the bottom of the
+valley, and that owes its existence to Thermal Springs; it is called Eaux
+Chaudes—a dismal place, squeezed in between the torrent and the cliff,
+dirty, uncomfortable, and sad. Higher up, however, a tiny hamlet, the
+humblest and most remote in the world, one would think, has of recent
+years taken on some little importance through travel; this is the hamlet
+of Gabas, which may be said to consist in three inns, a ruinous chapel,
+most pathetic, and a customs station. Of the excellent inn at Gabas, I
+will speak elsewhere.
+
+This valley of the Ossau is the base for two districts, both of which are
+very Pyrenean, and on either of which a man may spend a day or a month of
+lonely pleasure. One is the steep and very fine valley of the Sousquéou,
+the other is the short and extremely steep torrent bed which leads up to
+the foot of the Pic du Midi.
+
+This mountain dominates all this section of the Pyrenees. The approach
+to it by the Col des Moines I have already mentioned; this ascent by the
+short valley from Gabas, through the woods, is better, because you come
+right up on to the mountain suddenly from the depth of a vast forest, and
+you feel its isolation.
+
+I know of no hill which seems more to deserve a name or to possess a
+personality. Round its base there is matter for camping for days or for
+weeks, good water, lakes to fish in, shelter, both of rocks and of trees,
+human succour not too far off (Gabas is not three miles as the crow flies
+from the summit of the mountain), and a complete independence.
+
+The Sousquéou is a less human excursion, though it has a very fine
+lake at the head of it. The communication with men is steeper and more
+difficult than from the district surrounding the Pic du Midi, and, as I
+know from experience, it is not difficult to lose one’s way. Moreover,
+the exits from the upper end of this valley are not easy, and it is
+bounded on either side by the most savage cliffs in the whole chain.
+Should it be necessary to escape from this ravine by any path but that
+which leads down on to the high road near Gabas, you have no choice but
+the high and steep Col d’Arrius, which brings you down into the upper
+valley of the Gave d’Ossau, or on to the very high and most unpleasant
+Col de Sobe, which gets you into one of the most difficult parts of the
+Spanish side near the Peña Forata and so down to the Gallego. Its very
+remoteness, however, and its partial changes, may attract one kind of
+walker to the Sousquéou, but if he attempts it, let him go with at least
+three days’ provisions. There are huts in the lower part of the valley,
+but there is no very good camping ground near the lake I believe, save
+on the side of the wood to the north. It is a lonely place, not without
+horrors, and is perhaps haunted; the shape of the hills around is very
+terrible.
+
+The Spanish side of all this is more simply described, the new high
+road runs down 8 or 9 miles to Sallent, which can be turned into 5 or
+6 miles by taking the old mule track that cuts off the windings of the
+graded road. The river Gallego runs below and increases as it goes. To
+the right or westward of the valley there is nothing in particular to
+be done, there is but one place where you can conveniently cross over
+into the valley of the Aragon, which is the Canal Roya I have already
+described; south of that crossing the flank of the mountain lies bare and
+open affording neither camping ground nor interest. On the left are the
+curious serrated precipices of the Peña Forata, where climbing makes but
+a day’s amusement, but where also there is no opportunity for camping,
+and once Sallent is reached, though the “valley of Limpid Water” which
+runs north of it is fine enough, there is little to be done but to go
+on to Panticosa. There is a path over the very high ridge of the Pic
+d’Enfer, and there is a main carriage road which goes round the flanks of
+that mountain.
+
+All this part the valley of the Gallego is bounded by some of the highest
+and most abrupt peaks in the chain, and (as I shall presently describe)
+another district, meriting another type of description and travel, lies
+to the eastward, and constitutes those new fortresses of the hills, the
+roots of old Sobrarbe, where Christendom first began to hold out against
+Islam, and whence the men of Aragon could securely push southward when
+the advance to the Reconquest began.
+
+[Illustration: THE FOUR VALLEYS]
+
+
+III. SOBRARBE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When one says Sobrarbe one means all that eastern and larger part of the
+original valleys of Aragon which lie between (and do not include) the
+valley of the Gallego and the valley of the Noguera Ribagorzana, that
+is, the valley of Broto (which is that of the river Ara), the valley of
+the river Cinca and the valley of the river Esera; for, with central
+ramifications, these three make up Sobrarbe.
+
+That part of it of which I shall here speak, the part right up against
+the frontier ridge, is included between the big lump of mountains which
+surrounds Panticosa (of which the Vignemale is the most conspicuous) and
+the other big lump of peaks which is called the Maladetta group.
+
+It has three towns corresponding to its three valleys, Torla in the Broto
+upon the Ara, Bielsa upon the Cinca, Venasque upon the Esera.
+
+The Cinca, however, receives, right up at its sources, an affluent longer
+and more important than itself, called the Cinqueta, and on this stream
+is a group of villages, none of them important enough to be called a
+town, but standing so close together as to make a considerable centre of
+habitation.
+
+But for these towns, the group of villages I have mentioned and one or
+two tiny hamlets, these Spanish valleys are wholly deserted, and they
+form by far the most rugged and difficult district of all the Pyrenees.
+
+They also hold the highest peaks of the mountains; the culminating Nethou
+Peak of the Maladetta group, just upon the eastern edge of the district
+(11,168 feet); the Posets (11,047), the Mont Perdu (10,994), the Pic
+d’Enfer (10,109), the Vignemale (10,820) all stand here. Most of the
+high peaks are in Spain, but it is another feature of the district that
+the frontier ridge is higher here than in any other part, and is also
+more continuous. The summit of the Vignemale forms part of it, and the
+notches by which it may be traversed in these 40 to 50 miles lie but very
+little below the surrounding peaks. Only 3 of the passes miss the 8000
+foot line. The Port du Venasque, at the extreme eastern end opposite the
+Maladetta, is 7930 feet in height; the Port de Gavarnie at the extreme
+western end is 7481. These two form the chief thoroughfares over this
+high and difficult bit; that of Gavarnie, upon the French side, is being
+prepared for wheeled traffic. The third, the Port de Pinède, also misses
+the 8000 foot line, but only misses it by 25 feet. All the other passes
+are but slight depressions in this barrier of cliff. The Tillon or rather
+the passage to the side of it, is little under 10,000 feet, the Pla Laube
+is over 8000, so is the Marcadou, so is the better known and more used
+pass of Bielsa, while the Port d’Oo is 9846, and the Portillon d’O is
+9987.
+
+The impression conveyed by this long line, the only line in the Pyrenees
+where even small glaciers may be found, is of an impassable sheer height,
+just notched enough at one point on the west to admit a painful scramble
+into the valley of the Gave d’Pau and on the east to admit one into the
+Valley of the Lys (into the basin of the Adour, that is) at one end, and
+into the basin of Garonne at the other.
+
+A journey through Sobrarbe can be undertaken either from Sallent and
+Panticosa or from Gavarnie, and in either case your exploration of
+high Sobrarbe begins at the hamlet of Bujaruelo, which the French call
+Boucharo.
+
+How to reach Bujaruelo from Gavarnie I shall describe later: for the
+moment I propose a start on the Spanish side.
+
+If you start from the Spanish side at Panticosa, a plain path takes you
+up the valley of the Caldares until you are right under the frontier
+ridge. There the path bifurcates; you take the right-hand branch along
+the chain of lakes that lies just under the wall of the main ridge, and
+you climb slowly up to the path at the head of it. The whole climb
+from Panticosa to this pass is 3040 feet, and it will take you from
+early morning until noon. Or, if you will start before a summer dawn, at
+any rate until the heat of the morning. For though it looks so short a
+distance on the map, and though there is no difficult passage, it is very
+hard going. The reason I mention this matter of hours is that when you
+have got down the other side into the valley of the Ara, you are still
+8 miles by the mule path from Bujaruelo, and though it is all downhill,
+you will hardly do these 8 miles under two hours and a half; however
+early you start, therefore, the back of the day is likely to be broken by
+the time you come to Bujaruelo. Once there a new difficulty arises; for
+Bujaruelo is not a pleasant place to sleep in. I have not myself slept
+there, but the verdict is universal. Though you are coming from a Spanish
+town the Customs may bother you at this hamlet because they cannot tell
+but that you have come over some one of the high passages from France,
+such as the Pla Laube up the valley. At any rate, unless you are going
+to camp out you must push on to _Torla_, 5 miles on down the valley,
+and you will pass through a great gorge on your way. Now at Torla the
+hospitality, though large and vague, is good enough.
+
+If, however, you are taking the Upper Sobrarbe with the idea of camping,
+you must not go on to Torla, but you must do as follows. Just at the far
+end of the gorge of which I have spoken the path crosses the river Ara
+by a bridge called the Bridge of the Men of Navarre. There you will see
+a path leaving yours to the left, and zigzagging up the mountain side
+eastward. This is the one you must take. It climbs 600 feet, gets you
+round the cascade which here pours into the Ara from a lateral valley,
+and finally puts you on to the level floor of that lateral valley: it
+is called the valley of Arazas. Here there is excellent camping ground
+everywhere, and it will be high time to look for a camp by the time you
+are well upon the floor of that gorge; you may have to go up some little
+way to find wood, but much of this valley in its higher part is clothed
+with forests. The next day you must, as best you can, force your way
+to Bielsa, and unless the weather is fine you may very possibly have to
+sleep another night upon the mountain.
+
+The trouble of this difficult bit is the great height of the lateral
+ridges. At the end of this fine valley of Arazas, which curves slowly up
+northward as you go, is the huge mass of the Mont Perdu, and you cannot
+get out of the valley without going over the shoulder of it. In order
+to do this proceed as follows, and go along the stream until the path
+crosses over from the northern to the southern bank, at a place where
+the cliffs on either side come very close to the water. The path goes
+along under and partially upon the face of these cliffs in a perilous
+sort of way, until it comes to a lateral streamlet pouring right down the
+side of the terminal mountain. This lateral streamlet you must be sure
+to recognize, for upon your recognizing it depends the success of your
+adventure; and you may know it thus: The place where your path strikes
+it, is exactly 1000 yards from the place where you crossed the main
+stream. When you come to this lateral streamlet you will see, or should
+see, a transverse path running very nearly due east and west; and up that
+in an eastward direction, immediately above you, a distance of 800 yards,
+upon the shoulder of the great mountain is the depression for which the
+path makes. It is called the _Col de Gaulis_.
+
+For all of this by the way you will do well to consult Schrader the whole
+time. What the going is like on the further side of this col I cannot
+tell for I have never come down it, but I know that your way descends
+right by a very short and steep gully in which a torrent makes straight
+for the valley beneath, and I know that when you have made that valley
+your troubles are over.
+
+You fall through a descent of just under 2000 feet in a distance of
+less than a mile as the crow flies. You must therefore be prepared for
+a very steep bit of work. Once in the valley, however, everything is
+straightforward. On reaching the main stream of this new valley (which
+runs north and south) you turn to the right, southward, and follow its
+right bank between it and the cliff; you cross a rivulet flowing from a
+deep lateral ravine about a mile further on, and less than half a mile
+further again see a new path leaving your path and going to your left,
+crossing over the valley and its stream, and making up a gulley which
+comes down facing you from the opposing heights. Take this new path up
+this gulley (the path runs everywhere to the _south_ of the water), and
+you will find yourself after a climb of somewhat over a 1000 feet on the
+Col d’Escuain. Thence the way is perfectly clear, running due south-east
+for 5 miles, just above the edge of the cliffs of the gorge of Escuain,
+until you reach the village of Escuain perched above that ravine.
+
+Whatever efforts you may have made, and however early you may have
+started, you will hardly have reached human beings again at this place
+until, as at Bujaruelo the day before, the back of the day is broken.
+Nevertheless, unless you are to camp out again upon the mountain, you
+must try and push on to Bielsa. It is more than 10 miles, however much
+you cut off the windings of the path, which takes you past the chapel of
+San Pablo, leaving the village of Rivella on the left up the mountain
+side, then across a steep cliff down to the profound gorge of the Cinca;
+from there an unmistakable road goes through Salinas de Sin and follows
+straight on up the valley to Bielsa just 4 miles further on.
+
+If you can do that in one day you will have done well.
+
+There is another and shorter crossing, which, though it is invariably
+used by the mountaineers, I have not described because most people unused
+to the Pyrenees would shirk it. When you have come down from the Col de
+Gaulis into the valley below, if instead of going southward to the right
+you go northward to the left, crossing the stream, and climbing up on the
+further side of it, the path takes you at last to a very high col, called
+in Spanish the Col of Anisclo, but in French, the Col of Anicle. This
+col is not far short of 9000 feet high, and it is particularly painful
+to have to attempt it just after the difficult business of the Col de
+Gaulis. It means two ports within a few hours of each other, the second
+one 3000 feet above the valley, and what that is in the way of fatigue,
+a man must go through in order to know. Moreover, the descent on the far
+side from the Col of Anisclo is exceedingly steep.
+
+However, if you do this short cut you have the advantage of finding
+yourself at once in the main valley of the Cinca and, when once you are
+on the banks of that river, you are not more than 8 miles or so from
+Bielsa by a good path leading all the way down the stream on the left
+bank. You save in this way quite 6 miles, and reduce your whole journey
+from the mouth of the valley of Arazas to Bielsa to a little less than 20
+miles.
+
+The distance you have to go before you come to human beings is much
+the same by either track. Escuain is just about as far from the Col de
+Gaulis, as is Las Cortez, the first hamlet in the Cinca valley. Again, by
+this shorter way you miss the gorge of the Escuain, but you see the huge
+cliffs of Pinède, which are perhaps the finest wall in the Pyrenees with
+their summits along the crest of 9000 feet, 5000 feet or more above the
+stream at their feet: it is the edge of this ridge of cliff which must
+be crossed at the Col of Anisclo. Either way therefore is as fine and
+either as deserted as the other. But the second much shorter and far more
+painful.
+
+Before I leave this passage between the first and second of the Sobrarbe
+valleys—between the valley of Broto, that is (as they call the valley of
+the river Ara) and the valley of the Cinca—a few notes on the road should
+be added.
+
+First, I have said that Torla, Bujaruelo (Boucharo) may be made from
+Gavarnie as well as from Panticosa. This is so; and if you undertake the
+exploration of Sobrarbe from Gavarnie, it is a much easier business to
+get to Bujaruelo from the French hamlet, than it is to get to it from
+Panticosa.
+
+The excellent road from Gavarnie to the top of the port is a very small
+matter, and from there down into Bujaruelo is an easy descent of three
+miles. If you start from Gavarnie, therefore, in the early morning, you
+can with an effort and in good weather go the whole length of the Val
+d’Arazas, over the Col de Gaulis, and the Col of Anisclo and sleep in
+Bielsa that same night, or you can, taking it more easily, make a camp at
+the head of the Val d’Arazas, or you can break your journey in the valley
+between the two Cols of Gaulis and Anisclo, camping there for the night;
+I am told the camping ground in this gorge is not very good, otherwise
+that would be the ideal place to break your journey.
+
+You may next remark that in the lower part of the Val d’Arazas, right on
+the path, there is a good inn, which will save your camping out in the
+valley at all, if you are not so inclined; but the inn is so far down
+the valley that it does not save you very much in the next day’s walk.
+Further, you should note that all this group of valleys, the Arazas, the
+Pinède (which is that through which the Cinca flows), the Velos, which
+is the stream at the foot of the Col de Gaulis, the Escuain, etc., are,
+unlike most others in the Pyrenees, true _ravines_. They correspond
+to what Western Americans mean when they use the Spanish word Cañons,
+that is _clefts_ sunk deep into the stuff of the world and bounded by
+precipices upon either side. These not only make the whole district a
+striking exception in the Pyrenean range, but also make the finding of
+and keeping to a path necessary as it is throughout the Pyrenees, more
+necessary here than anywhere else. If, for instance, you lose the path at
+the head of the Arazas, where it goes up the cliffs, you will never make
+the Col de Gaulis though it is less than a mile away, and if you miss the
+path up to the Col of Anisclo you can never get down into the Pinède at
+all.
+
+It is worth remembering that from the foot of the Col de Gaulis a path
+of sorts leads up the flank of the mountain to the Spanish side of the
+Brèche de Roland. I have never followed it, but I believe it to be an
+easier approach than that over the glacier upon the French side.
+
+Once you are at Bielsa on the Cinca, you are in the centre and, as it
+were, in the geographical capital of the high Sobrarbe and it is your
+next business to go on eastward into the last valley, that of the Esera,
+the central town of which is Venasque. Between the upper part of these
+two valleys and right between these two towns lies the great mass of the
+Posets, a huge mountain which lifts up in a confused way like an Atlantic
+wave and is within a very few feet of being the highest in the Pyrenees.
+It is a mountain which, though it is not remarkable for precipices or
+for any striking sky line, should by no means be crossed (though it can
+easily be ascended), but must be turned.
+
+The straight line from Bielsa to Venasque lies slightly south of east
+and is but 15 miles in length, but it runs right over the mass of the
+Posets and crosses that jumble of hills only a couple of miles south of
+the culminating peak. Venasque must therefore be reached by a divergence
+one way or the other, and one approaches it from Bielsa by going either
+to the north or to the south of the mountain group of the Posets. The
+northern way is a trifle shorter but much more difficult and much more
+lonely. On the other hand, it takes one into the very heart of the
+highest Pyrenees, right under the least known and the most absolute part
+of the barrier which they make between France and Spain. I will therefore
+describe this northern way first, as I think most travellers who desire
+an acquaintance with the hills will take it.
+
+From Bielsa a path going eastward crosses the Barrosa (at the confluence
+of which with the Cinca Bielsa is built), runs round the flank of the
+mountain and goes right up to the Col of the Cross “De La Cruz,” 4000
+feet above the town. You may know this pass, if you have a compass, by
+observing that it is due east of Bielsa. To be accurate, the dead line
+east and west from the top of the Col exactly strikes the northernmost
+houses of the town.
+
+The eastern descent of the Col is quite easy and once down upon the
+banks of the Cinqueta, you see, half a mile to the north of you, the
+hospital or refuge of Gistain. From that point you follow up the valley
+north-eastward, on the right or northern bank of the stream under a steep
+hill-side for a couple of miles until you come to a fairly open place
+where the two upper forks of the Cinqueta meet. You cross the northern
+fork and go on eastward and northward up the eastern one, still keeping
+at the foot of the northern hill-side.
+
+[Illustration: THE PASSAGE OVER THE COL DE LA CRUZ AND THE COL DE
+GISTAIN]
+
+What follows is not very easy to describe and should be carefully noted.
+What you have to pick out is a particular col on the opposite slope
+beyond the stream. This col is three miles or so from the fork, five from
+the Refuge, and is called “the Col de Gistain.” As you go up this valley
+the opposing side is formed of the buttresses of the Posets. From that
+mountain four torrents descend to join the east fork of the Cinqueta,
+between the place where you crossed and the col you are seeking. The
+first torrent falls into the valley which you are climbing half a mile
+or so after you have crossed the north fork and begun the new valley; a
+second comes in about a thousand yards further on, a third about a mile
+further yet, and you may see each of them coming into the stream at your
+feet from down the opposing side, which consists, as I have said, in the
+buttresses of the Posets.
+
+Another way of recognizing these three torrents (and it is essential to
+recognize them) is to note that between the first and the second the
+slope is not violent, while between the second and the third it is a
+rocky ridge.
+
+When you have seen the third come in, you must watch _exactly a mile
+further on_ for the entry of the fourth. This fourth one is your mark by
+which to find the col. Just after passing in front of the mouth of this
+fourth torrent, your path, such as it is, will cross the Cinqueta, turn
+sharply eastward, and begin to climb up the right or northern bank of
+this fourth torrent.
+
+The ascent is not steep, and in 1500 yards you are on the _Col de
+Gistain_ between 8200 and 8300 feet above the sea, and almost exactly
+3000 feet above the spot where you left the north fork of the Cinqueta to
+follow the eastern valley. Another way of making certain that you do not
+miss the all-important turning is to count the torrents coming in upon
+_your_ side, the _north_ side, of the valley; that is the torrents, each
+coming in from its own ravine, which your path crosses.
+
+They also are three in number and fairly equidistant one from another,
+the first about a mile after you have crossed the north fork, the next a
+mile further on, and the next just under a mile beyond that. It is after
+you have crossed the third and have proceeded another 500 or 600 yards
+that your path to the Col de Gistain will go off opposite to the right,
+crossing the stream at your feet, and following the torrent that falls
+from that opposing side.
+
+Yet another way of making sure is to watch (if the weather is fine) for
+the col itself, an unmistakable notch with a ridge of sharp rock just
+to the north of it and a less abrupt arète going south of it up to the
+summit of the Posets.
+
+I have written at this length of the passage not only from the difficulty
+of discovering, but also from the danger that will attend any delay in
+finding it. If you go on past the turning where the path to the col goes
+off eastward you may get over the wrong port on to the French side, miles
+from anywhere, or you may take the rocks of the Anes Cruces and find
+yourself on a ridge beyond which there is no going down either way; while
+if you turn off too early you may climb right up on to the glacier of the
+Posets, and lose a day and be compelled to pass a night in that frost.
+
+Once you have got to the top of the Col de Gistain, however, you are
+free. All the running water below you leads you down into the valley of
+Venasque; there is no steepness and no difficulty. The rudimentary path
+follows the stream, there is a little cabane on the upper waters of it,
+soon the floor of the valley widens out a trifle, and four miles on, not
+quite 3000 feet below the pass, is another cabane; that of the Turmo.
+The path from this point becomes more definite; it crosses the stream 2
+miles down in order to avoid rocks upon the southern side, recrosses it
+again a mile later to negotiate a steep and narrow gorge, it comes over
+once again to the northern side by a bridge a few hundred yards further
+on, and almost immediately reaches the valley of the Esera at a point 9
+miles or so from the summit of the pass. Here an ancient and remarkable
+bridge, the Bridge of Cuberre, crosses the Esera, and enables you to gain
+the wide mule track to Venasque, which town lies rather more than 2 miles
+down the road.
+
+It will be seen that the whole difficulty of this passage lies in making
+certain of the Col de Gistain.
+
+If I have exaggerated that difficulty I have fallen into an error on the
+right side, for to miss the col is to fail altogether and possibly to
+be in danger. If those who have approached the Col de Gistain from the
+east, or who have only seen the place in clear weather, imagine it to be
+discoverable under all circumstances, they are in error; indeed, if the
+weather is bad, it is just as well not to attempt the passage at all.
+
+This northern way from Bielsa to Venasque is, as I have said, the most
+difficult. The southern way is as follows.
+
+You go down the gorge to the Cinca by the road to Salinas de Sin, there
+the road branches, the main part goes on down the Cinca, the side road
+goes sharply off to the left up the first affluent of the Cinca, a
+lateral valley which points south-east, and is that of the Cinqueta.
+This road crosses the Cinca, follows the eastern or right bank of the
+lateral stream for some two-thirds of a mile, then crosses over and
+in about 3 miles from the crossing reaches the hamlet of Sarabillo.
+Thence it proceeds, still upon the same side of the stream and facing
+a considerable cliff upon the further bank, to the village of El Plan,
+which lies somewhat less than 5 miles up from Sarabillo, and is reached
+by crossing the stream again just before one comes to the village.
+
+At El Plan one may repose. One will have walked by the mule paths more
+than 12 miles, and there is a long way before one.
+
+The main path goes on to the next village, that of St. Juan, and so up
+the Cinqueta to the hospital of Gistain, where it joins the northern
+route we have just been tracing. The southern way, which I am now
+describing, is by a path leaving El Plan at the end of the village and
+going down to the river (which here runs through a broad valley floor),
+across the river by a bridge, and then up the torrent valley of the
+Sentina, a little south of east. The path runs on the right or northern
+bank of this torrent, and any path or tracks to be seen crossing the
+water are not to your purpose. Keep always to the same side of the stream
+until you come to the col, which is more than 4 but less than 5 miles
+from El Plan and is called the Col de Sahun. From this col the path
+continues a little less clearly marked, but quite easy, down the sharp
+valley on the further side to the village of Sahun, which lies exactly
+due east of the col and just over 3 miles from it. The whole passage,
+therefore, from El Plan to Sahun, is a matter of not more than two hours,
+and from Sahun to Venasque there is an excellent mule road following up
+the open valley of the Esera; a distance of just 4 miles.
+
+By this southern approach the whole distance is but a plain walk of under
+20 miles with only one low and easy col to climb, but of course it tells
+you far less of what the Pyrenees can be than does the northern passage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the valley of the Esera and the town of Venasque you have come to
+the end of Sobrarbe, and of all that remote and ill-known district which
+is the most savage and the most alluring in these great hills. Indeed,
+you are no longer properly in the Sobrarbe, but rather in the subdivision
+of Ribagorza, which had a Count to itself in the Middle Ages, and was
+the march between Aragon and Catalonia. From Venasque you can get back
+again at your ease next day, by one of the best known mule tracks in the
+Pyrenees, to the French valleys and to wealth again at Luchon.
+
+[Illustration: THE SOBRARBE]
+
+
+IV. THE TARBES VALLEYS AND LUCHON
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Three valleys, two profound, one shallow, depend upon and radiate from
+the town of Tarbes which stands in the plain below the mountains. Their
+rail system and their road system converge upon Tarbes, and it is from
+Tarbes that they should be explored.
+
+The two long valleys are the valley of Lourdes, down which flows the Gave
+de Pau and the long valley of Arreau or Val d’Aure (it is the longest
+enclosed valley of the Pyrenees). The short valley is the valley of
+Bigorre, wherein the Adour arises.
+
+For a man on foot these three valleys are of interest chiefly in their
+highest portions alone. The energy of French civilization has penetrated
+them everywhere with light railways and with roads, and has united them
+all three by a great lateral road running from Arreau to Luz over what
+used to be the difficult and ill-known port of Tourmalet; while it has
+thus done a great deal for those who only use the road, it has hurt the
+district from the point of view which I am taking in this division of my
+book.
+
+There is indeed one great hill which no development of roads can effect,
+and which is the chief interest of all these three valleys for the man
+on foot. It rises in the very centre of the district and is called the
+Pic du Midi de Begorre. This peak stands thrust forward from the main
+range, a matter of more than 10 miles from the watershed, and isolated
+upon every side save where the isthmus of the Tourmalet binds it to the
+general system not much more than 2000 feet below its summit. But the Pic
+du Midi de Begorre, fine as it is, does not afford so many opportunities
+to the man exploring the Pyrenees on foot as do other peaks. It is a
+bare mountain, all precipice upon the northern side, and steep every
+way. There is no camping ground save at the foot of it in the little
+wood above Abay. Moreover, there is a road right up it, an observatory
+upon the top, and arrangements for sleeping and for eating and drinking
+as well. No other of the great mountains of Europe have been put more
+thoroughly in harness. The chief use of it (for the purposes of this
+book) is that from its summit you will get a better general view of the
+eastern Pyrenees than from any other point reached with equal ease,
+and that you can see in one view, as you look southward, the Maladetta
+on your extreme left, the Pic du Midi d’Ossau on your extreme right,
+each about 30 to 40 miles away. It is also a point from which the sharp
+demarcation between the mountain and the plain, which characterizes the
+northern slope of the Pyrenees, is very clear; for this peak, jutting out
+as it does from the mass of the hills, dominates all the flat country
+beneath.
+
+The roads of these three valleys are somewhat overrun—even in their upper
+portions. That from the end of the light railway from Luz to Gavarnie,
+is, in the summer, the only really spoilt piece of the Pyrenees; that
+from Arreau up to Vielle Aure in the furthest valley is less frequented,
+but there is no particular reason for stopping in it or for camping
+in it, especially when one considers the waste spaces on either side,
+where one may be wholly remote and at peace. There is, however, in one
+branch of this valley, that is in the gulley which runs due south from
+Trainzaygues, a good camping ground of woods and stream. A road runs up
+it to the refuge of Riomajou at its summit, and from this two difficult
+cols can be reached by two branch paths which go over either shoulder
+of the Pic d’Ourdissettou, that on the right or west gets one down to
+Real and Bielsa; that on the left ultimately and with some difficulty to
+Gistain and El Plan. There is also an entry from the main valley into the
+Sobrarbe, going up the main valley through Aragnouet, and up the very
+steep pass called the Pass de Barroude; one also comes out by this way on
+to Real and Bielsa, but it is by the other fork of the Spanish valley.
+
+The pass called the Port de Bielsa proper marks what was once perhaps
+the main pass north and south over these hills. It leaves the valley at
+Leplan above Aragnouet and stands between the two passes just mentioned.
+These and all the difficult ports, springing from the three valleys of
+Tarbes and crossing the central part of the range, lead one into the
+Sobrarbe and the track described in the last division of this chapter.
+
+The valley of Arreau has an eastern fork following the Louron at the head
+of which are further high passes, all in the neighbourhood of 8000 feet,
+which lead one into the Posets group and the eastern end of Sobrarbe. Of
+these the most interesting is the port of Aiguestoites, which is that
+upon which one comes by error if one misses the Col de Gistain on the
+northern way from Bielsa to Venasque.
+
+The Cirques—the great semicircles of precipices—which have always been
+remarked as distinctive of the Pyrenees, are crowded in this region. The
+Cirque de Gavarnie is the most famous, and therefore, in our time at
+least, impossible for a man who really wants to wander. You cannot be
+alone there; but the Cirque of Troumouse is not hackneyed and should be
+seen once at least. You may reach it by taking the road up from Luz to
+Gavarnie, and following it as far as Jedre. Here the Gave branches, you
+go up the zigzag of the road, past the church of Jedre, and take the path
+which leaves the highway to the left and follows up the eastern Gave,
+or Gave de Heas on its left bank. The path crosses that stream 2 miles
+further on and follows up the right bank to the little hamlet of Heas
+(which gives the torrent its name). It continues getting less distinct
+past the chapel of Heas; you turn a corner of a rock and find yourself in
+this huge, bare, deserted circle of precipices with the Pic de Gerbats at
+the left end of it, the Pic of Gabediou at the east end, and in the midst
+the highest point, the Pic d’Arrouye, which just misses 10,000 feet.
+The path continued will take you up past some cabanes over the little
+glacier, and across that steep and very difficult ridge down into the
+Spanish valley of Pinède—which ends up, of course, in Bielsa.
+
+But for these ramifications of their higher ravines, the three valleys
+of Tarbes are the least suitable for a man travelling on foot; of the
+three, however, the Val d’Aure will afford the most variety and the most
+isolation.
+
+If, for any reason, one of these three valleys is chosen for a short
+holiday, Tarbes—where there is a good hotel, The Ambassadeurs—is the
+centre from which one should start and to which one should return; it
+faces right at the mountains, it is the most truly Pyrenean town of all
+the plain, and it is full of excellent entertainment. From Tarbes also
+start the three lines which take you up each valley, to Argelès, to
+Bagnères de Bigorre, and to Arreau.
+
+
+_Luchon_
+
+The valley of Luchon stands by itself as a separate division of the
+Pyrenees. It has character altogether its own, formed both by political
+accidents, which separate it from its twin valley of the Upper
+Garonne—the Val d’Aran—and by its physical conformation which thrusts
+the level floor of it up further into the hills than any other of the
+Pyrenean gorges. It is indeed made by nature to be one of the great
+international roads of Europe and to lead into Spain, for it resembles
+in many ways the trench running from Oloron southwards along which the
+main Roman road, and the main modern road find their way into Aragon.
+The valley of Luchon would undoubtedly have formed the platform for such
+a road had not two accidents interfered with that destiny: the first,
+the great height of the ridge at the end of this particular valley; the
+second, the lack of open country to the south.
+
+The Roman road from Oloron over the Somport finds a wide plain and an
+ancient city at Jaca, within a day’s journey of the central summit. But
+the valley of the Esera (which is the Spanish valley corresponding to
+that of Luchon) is a good three days’ travel in length before it gets one
+out of the hills, and the first town of the plains on the Spanish side
+(the modern symbol of whose importance is the presence of the railway)
+is Barbastro 60 miles in a straight line from the watershed, and not far
+short of 90 following the turns of the mule path and lower down the road
+which reaches it.
+
+But for these accidents the way through Luchon would undoubtedly be the
+great avenue from Toulouse to Saragossa, and even as it is the pass over
+the ridge here (called the Port de Venasque) is the most trodden and the
+clearest of all the passes, other than those followed by direct highways.
+
+The valley of Luchon is the very centre of the mountain system, for it
+lies just east of that division between the two halves of the mountains,
+the eastern and the western chains. It is a frontier also between two
+types of scenery and two kinds of travel. It is the last of the deep
+flat valleys running north and south, which are, so far eastward, the
+characteristic of the chain. Immediately beyond it, to the east, begins a
+combination of hills of which St. Girons is the capital, and into which
+still further east penetrate the much larger valleys of the Ariège and of
+the Tet.
+
+The Thermal Springs of Luchon, and a chance popularity which made it the
+wealthiest holiday place in all the mountains, have now fixed it as a
+sort of central spot which sums up all travel in the Pyrenees. For nearly
+a century it has had the character, which continually increases in it, of
+great luxury, and of a colony, as it were, of the main towns of Europe.
+But, for reasons which I mention when I come to speak of inns and hotels
+in these mountains, it is in some way saved from the odiousness which
+most cosmopolitan holiday places radiate around them like an evil smell.
+The influence of Paris is in some part responsible for better manners and
+greater dignity than such tourist places usually show.
+
+The little town is very old; it is probably the site of the Baths which
+were mentioned as the most famous of the Pyrenean waters as early as the
+first century, and which certainly stood in this country of Comminges.
+For Luchon is the modern centre of the Comminges, and the Comminges is
+first historical district of the Pyrenees west of the old Roman province.
+
+For a man travelling on foot in the Pyrenees the chief value of Luchon
+lies in its being the only rail-head which lies close against the highest
+peaks. Here one can have one’s letters sent and one’s luggage, and to
+this place one can always return from the wildest parts of the Sobrarbe,
+or of Catalonia, which lie on either hand just to the south-west and
+south-east. It is also the best place in the whole range in which to
+change English money.
+
+The valley, though it has great historical interest (and everybody who
+has the leisure should see St. Bertrand at the mouth of it), has, like
+those valleys to the west of it which have just been mentioned, little
+to arrest a man on foot, except in its last high reach. The ridge which
+runs north for 12 miles beyond Luchon and lies west of the railway, is
+high and densely wooded; but it is not good camping ground and it leads
+nowhere, while that to the east, less steep and not quite so densely
+wooded, has but one large field for camping, the forest of Marignac;
+and even in Marignac there is nothing but the wood to attract one. Once
+through the wood one is back again upon a high road and the valley of the
+Garonne.
+
+Above Luchon, however, there spread out a number of valleys which are
+worthy of exploration in themselves, and one of which is the main way
+over into Spain. For this last we must continue the high road (which
+follows up the Pique, the river that waters all the Luchon district)
+until one comes, at the end of the causeway, to the hotel that was
+formerly a hospice, and is still called by that name. From this point
+a steep path takes one 3000 feet right up to the main ridge and to the
+little notch in the rock which is called the Port de Venasque. The path,
+though not so clear, is equally easy on the other side, bringing one
+down into the valley of the Esera and to the town of Venasque in the
+Sobrarbe. The whole way from Luchon to Venasque, counting this steep
+ridge, is one day’s easy going. There is no way across the central range
+more simple or less difficult (though it is high), and it has very fine
+views; as one crosses the summit one has right before one culminating
+peaks of the Pyrenees, the group of the Maladetta.
+
+Just to the east of the Port de Venasque (which is about 8000 feet
+high—to be accurate, 7930) is the Pic de Sauvegarde, a path which
+is almost a road leads up to it; one pays a toll; it is a sort of
+Piccadilly. The one purpose of the climb is to see from the summit a very
+good all-round view of the high peaks, which crowd round this turning
+point in the chain.
+
+A less frequented valley, but one quite sufficiently frequented, is that
+of the Lys, which one turns into out of the main road by going off to the
+right; about 2½ miles after leaving Luchon, a carriage road, 4 miles in
+length, takes one up through the woods at Lys to an inn; thence forward
+in the lovely valley and the half circle of peaks above, there is country
+wild enough for every one, but no good camping ground.
+
+A further experiment for the man on foot, and one in which he will be
+more dependent upon himself and less in fear of invasion, is that of
+the Val Dastan, by which, and the high Port d’Oo, one can get down to
+Venasque. For this valley one goes up the new lateral road from Luchon as
+though one were going into the Val d’Aure and to Arreau. One may leave
+the road at any point after St. Aventin to follow the stream below, but
+it is best to go on to a village called Gari, which is somewhat more than
+5 miles from Luchon. At Gari is a road going south along a valley; you
+follow that valley still going southward, till the road comes to an end
+in the neighbourhood of a wood which bars the upper end of the vale. A
+path, however, continues the line of the road, makes its way through the
+wood, and at the upper end of it you come out upon a fine lake. There is
+an inn to the south of this lake, and if you will go on a little north
+of the inn along the shores of the lake you will find very good camping
+ground. Indeed, it is wise to camp over-night on this side of the range,
+for the climb up from Luchon is fatiguing, and the country of a sort
+inviting one to rest and look about one.
+
+Rejoining the path it passes between two small lakes, just after leaving
+the wood, and climbs up the torrent past the little tarn called the Lac
+Glacé, immediately above which is the Port d’Oo. This port is a very
+high one, it falls little short of 9000 feet, and it is not more than
+a depression in the ridge around. On the further side a steep scramble
+marked by no path, gets one down into the valley beneath the Posets, and
+this valley is the same as that which I have described as lying to the
+east of the Col de Gistain and leading to the Bridge of Cuberre, and
+so to Venasque. It is a long and difficult way round to that town from
+Luchon by the Port d’Oo, but it is the wildest and therefore the best
+excursion one can make in the circuit of these hills.
+
+I should mention before I leave this district that curious plain, Des
+Etangs “Of the Lakes,” where is the Trou du Toro, a small circular pond.
+
+The main source of the Garonne lies high up as befits the dignity of
+such a river in among the very noblest peaks of the Pyrenees; it springs
+from the eastern point of the Maladetta, flows down in a torrent to this
+plain “Of the Lakes,” plunges into the little pond, and there wholly
+disappears! It reappears 2000 feet down at the Goueil de Jeou, on the
+northern side of the mountains, having burrowed right under the main
+range, and so runs down to Las Bordas. Sceptics to whom all in these
+bewitched mountains is abhorrent, from the realities of Lourdes to the
+legends of Charlemagne, annoyed by this miraculous action on the part of
+the Garonne, poured heavy dyes into the Trou du Toro, and then went and
+watched anxiously at Goueil de Jeou to see the coloured stream emerge;
+but the Garonne was too dignified to oblige them, and the water came
+out limpid and pure; as for the dye, it has stuck somewhere underground
+in the hills, and is colouring rocks that will never be seen until the
+consummation of all things at the end of the world.
+
+[Illustration: THE TARBES VALLEYS & LUCHON]
+
+
+V. ANDORRA AND THE CATALAN VALLEYS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+One may consider together Andorra in the Spanish valley of the Segre, the
+upper valley of the Noguera Pallaresa and Val d’Aran, for the journey
+through Andorra down to Seo, thence up out of the valley of the Segre
+into that of the Noguera, and so over to the Upper Garonne, makes one
+round, in which one covers one whole district of the Pyrenees, all
+Catalan.
+
+There are two ways by which the curious country of Andorra can be reached
+from the north; both ultimately depend upon the valley of the Ariège.
+
+The first shortest and most difficult way is by the vale of the Aston,
+a tributary of the Ariège which comes down a lateral valley and falls
+in near the railway station of Cabanes as the line from Foix to Ax; the
+second and easier way is by climbing to the sources of the Ariège itself,
+the main river, and over the Embalire.
+
+As to the first—all the spreading rocky valleys which combine to feed
+the river Aston, form together a district of the very best for those who
+propose to explore but one corner of the Pyrenees during a short holiday.
+Even if such a traveller be unable or do not choose to force one of the
+entries into Andorra, he will have found on the Aston a country in which
+a man may camp and fish and climb anywhere, with a sense of liberty quite
+unknown in this kingdom. Here are half a dozen or more little lakes, deep
+forests, occasional cabanes, good shelter, good bits of rock for such as
+like the risk, and outlines and distances of the most astonishing kind,
+and no landlords. Of the many high valleys I have seen in the world,
+there is none less earthly than the last high reaches of the torrent
+which runs between the Pic de la Cabillere and the Pic de la Coumette,
+and which is the chief source of the Aston. The whole basin of this river
+includes six main streams, and, of course, many smaller torrents feeding
+these and the names of the peaks alone discover their desertion and the
+mixture of fear and attraction which they have had for the shepherds
+of these highland places. You may spend a week or a month or a whole
+summer in the neighbourhood and never come on this enchanted pocket which
+is bounded on the frontier by the high ridge running from the “silver
+fountain,” the Fontargente, with its high peak and chain of lakes.
+
+The Aston has at its sources, cutting them off from Spain, a ridge of
+8000 to 9000 feet, it is a ridge the passes of which are but slight
+notches between the higher rocks.
+
+The ways into Andorra across this ridge from the Upper Aston are as
+numerous as these notches are, and nearly every notch can be climbed with
+knowledge and patience, but the only parts where something of a track
+exists are the Fontargente on the east, and the Peyregrils on the west.
+It is easy enough to fail at either, and there is therefore merit and
+sport enough in succeeding at either.
+
+For the Peyregrils you must start from Cabanes and follow up the main
+stream of the Aston, by a clear path through the forest, taking with
+you the 1/100,000 map as a guide. A little after a point where a bridge
+is thrown over the river (called the Bridge of Coidenes), the two main
+streams of the Aston meet, one is seen flowing down from the south-east
+by the wooded gorge before one as one climbs, the other comes in cascades
+down a steep gully, pointing directly north and south. It is this gully
+which must be taken for the Peyregrils. One goes up over a steep rock
+still in the thick of the wood. On the far side of it one comes out into
+open grass country, and has one’s first sight of the main range. The path
+comes down again to the stream, having turned the cascade, crosses the
+stream and flows along its right or eastern bank between the water and
+a range of cliffs which are those of the Pic du Col de Gas. About a mile
+from this crossing of the stream, as one goes on southward with a little
+west in one’s direction, one comes to a side torrent falling in from the
+left; the path crosses this torrent, and still continues up the right
+bank of the main stream. It is a difficult point—for the path appears to
+bifurcate, and by taking the left-hand branch, as I did four years ago,
+one may lose oneself in the empty valley under the Cabillere and be cut
+off for two days as I was, or for ever, as I was not. It is by making
+these easy mistakes that men do get cut off, and you may be certain that
+people who are found dead in the mountains under small precipices, are
+not, as the newspapers say, killed by some accident, but by exhaustion.
+They have wandered in a mist, or have been lost in some other fashion,
+until privation so weakens them that they no longer have a foothold; and
+in general, the great danger of mountains is not a danger of falling, but
+of getting cut off from men. Here, as in many other difficulties of this
+kind, your compass will save you; for if you find you are going more and
+more to the east, you are on the wrong path. The right one goes south by
+west along the left bank of the stream. There is a broad jasse or pasture
+which one traverses in all its length, one crosses another torrent coming
+in from a rocky gorge upon the left, the torrent and the path together
+turn more and more westward until one’s general direction is due west,
+and at last one comes up against steep cliffs which are those of the
+Etang Blanc.
+
+Thence, the way is plain, for the stream receives no further affluents
+and there is therefore no ambiguity of direction. The path follows the
+stream round a corner of rock whence one can see a tarn called the
+Etang de Soulauet, lying immediately under the watershed, and from that
+tarn the traveller goes straight up for 500 yards or so over the crest,
+straight down the steep further side, and finds at the bottom of the
+valley the stream called Rialb: such is the passage called the Peyregrils.
+
+Once one is down on the banks of the Rialb, one has but to follow the
+trail which runs along the bank of that stream, cross it, reach the
+hamlet of Serrat, and so follow the broadening water to the little town
+of Ordino; four miles beyond is Andorra the Old. The whole distance from
+the pass to Andorra is somewhat over 12 miles, counting all the windings
+of the way. On this, as on so many crossings of the Pyrenees, the
+difficulty is wholly on the French side, once on the Spanish the broader
+valleys lead one without difficulty down one’s way.
+
+The other entry into Andorra from the valley of the Aston, that by the
+Fontargente, is managed thus:—
+
+When the Aston divides just after the bridge, one takes the south-eastern
+fork, one crosses the bridge and finds a clear path going up the right
+bank of the main stream of the Aston through a wood. Four miles on this
+path brings one out of the wood, and for another 4 miles it goes on still
+following the same side of the stream in a direction which is at first
+east of south, and at last curls round due south. There is a bridge or
+two crossing to the other side, but one must not take them. One must
+keep close to the eastern or right bank of the Aston all the way until
+one comes to a place difficult to recognize, and yet the recognition of
+which is immediately essential to success. It is a jasse rather narrow
+and small, lying between a rocky ridge upon the left or east and a line
+of cliffs upon the right or west. Here are a few cabanes, and even if one
+has missed the place on first coming to it, it can be recognized from
+the fact, that, at the further end of this jasse, the two sources of the
+Aston meet in almost one straight line, making with the main stream one
+has been following, a shape like the letter “T.”
+
+The path branches and takes either valley or arm of the “T”; it is that
+to the _left_ or east down which one must turn—the one to the right or
+west leads nowhere but to the impassable cliffs and precipices of the
+Passade and the Cabillere. The eastern or right-hand path then must be
+followed in a direction just south of east for exactly 1 mile, during
+all of which it keeps to the north of the stream. At the end of that
+mile it crosses the stream, turns gradually round a high lump of rocky
+hill, going first south, then in a few yards south-west until it comes,
+at about a mile from the place where it crossed, upon the large tarn or
+small lake of Fontargente, “The Silver Water.” The port lies in view just
+above the lake not 500 yards off. Once over it, it is the same story as
+the Peyregrils, a trail following running water which leads one through
+the upper villages to Canillo, the first town, to Encamps, the second
+one, and so down to Andorra the Old. The distance from the main range to
+Andorra by this trail is 2 or 3 miles greater than by the Peyregrils.
+
+These are the two difficult and mountain ways of making Andorra from the
+north.
+
+The easier and much the commoner way is to approach it from the upper
+waters of the Ariège.
+
+One takes the main road from Ax to Hospitalet up which there is a public
+carriage or “diligence”; it is as well to go on foot, for one will
+get to Hospitalet before the diligence if one starts at the dawn of a
+summer’s day, and it is important to get there early as there is no good
+sleeping place between the French side and the town of Andorra itself.
+At Hospitalet the main track for Andorra runs down in a few feet to the
+torrent of the Ariège, crosses it, and follows its left bank. It goes
+over the frontier which is here an artificial line, and though you are
+still on the French side of the range, you are politically in Andorra,
+upon this deserted grassy slope which forms the left bank of the Ariège.
+
+At the second torrent which comes down this slope into the river—or
+rather the second stream, for they are quite small—the telegraph wire,
+which has hitherto followed the path, will be seen going over to the
+right, up a somewhat steep side valley. This is at a point about 4
+miles from Hospitalet. You have but to follow that line if it is fine
+weather, and you will come right over the ridge and down on to the
+Spanish side of the Andorran hamlet, Saldeu. If it is misty on the
+heights you will almost certainly lose the line, and possibly your life
+as well. Nevertheless the crossing can be made even in bad weather by
+going somewhat further south to the point called the Port d’Embalire.
+To find this needs a certain care. Note with your compass the trend of
+the Ariège; it curves round more and more as you follow it, and when it
+begins to point _due south_ (which it does after a perceptible bend)
+you may note a fairly plain track coming down from the opposite side
+of the valley: it comes down and strikes the Ariège at a spot almost
+exactly 2 miles from the place where the line of the telegraph left the
+stream. Here opposite the road turn sharp up away from the Ariège (which
+is now but a tiny brook) and go _due west_ by your compass right up the
+mountain, which is here nothing but a steep grassy slope, and you will
+strike the Embalire.
+
+It is one of the few crossings which can be made in any weather, because
+you will find upon that slope, a little way up, the beginnings of a made
+road; that road was never completed. It has never been metalled, but
+it is culverted and graded, and is as good a guide as the best highway
+in the Pyrenees could be. Probably it never will be finished, for the
+Andorrans are opposed to an easy entry into their country; but so long
+as its platform remains, one can never lose one’s way upon the Port
+d’Embalire. The further side is a steep and easy descent over a sort
+of down, and one finds Saldeu by this longer route about 4 miles from
+the summit. Whether one has followed the telegraph line or come over by
+the Embalire, the two tracks join at Saldeu, and the rest of the way
+is identical with that which you will come to by Fontargente, that is,
+through Canillo and Encamps to Andorra the Old.
+
+Easy as the way is, however, it should be remembered that it is a long
+day from Ax, for counting every turning, it is not far short of 30 miles,
+and more than half of that is uphill. Ax stands at about 2000 to 2400
+feet (according to the part of the steep town one measures from) and the
+summit of the Embalire is almost exactly 8000 feet. There is no break in
+the rise from one to the other.
+
+The interest of Andorra lies in its survival, and the recognition it
+receives of being an Independent European State. All these enclosed
+valleys of the Pyrenees led a more or less independent life for
+centuries; from a decline of the Roman power until the union of Aragon
+and Castille on the Spanish side, and on the French side in some places,
+up to the Revolution itself, they boasted their own customs and could
+plead their own law.
+
+The violent quarrel between Madrid and Aragon, in which the independence
+of Aragon was fiercely destroyed, affected the greater part of the
+Spanish valleys, and killed their independence; but it did not attack the
+Catalan valleys—of which Andorra was the most secluded and remote, and
+therefore Andorra survives.
+
+One may study in Andorra what all these valleys were in the long period
+of local and natural growths between the very slow death of the Roman
+bureaucracy, and the rapid rise of the modern. The French, through the
+Prefect of the Ariège (as representing the Crown of France, which in its
+turn inherited from the county of Foix) claim a partial control over the
+Andorrans who pay to the Government in Paris £40 a year in fealty. The
+Spaniards have a hold on it through the Bishop of Urgel, who is not only
+their Ordinary but also their Civil Suzerain: he gets only £18 a year
+from the embattled farmers.
+
+The Andorrans have all the vices and virtues of democracy clearly
+apparent. They are very well-to-do, a little hard, avaricious, courteous,
+fond of smuggling, and jealous of interference. Also in Andorra itself
+one great shop supplies their external needs, and conducts all their
+international exchanges. Catalan, a provincial dialect in Spain, is here
+the national language. They are divided, as are all Catholics, into
+Clericals and Anti-Clericals, the Clericals making, I believe, a working
+majority, and there is not among them, so far as one can see, a poor man
+or an oppressed one.
+
+From Andorra the Old, a good open path leads through the narrow gates of
+the country, down on to the valley of the Segre, and so to Seo de Urgel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though it is but a few hours’ walk from Andorra to Urgel, it is as well
+to pass the remainder of the day and the night at Urgel, especially if
+it is the first Spanish town you have seen, as it is the first for many
+people who cross the mountains at this place. You will certainly find
+nothing more Spanish along the whole range. This lump of a town with
+its narrow oriental streets was the pivot of the Christian advance into
+Catalonia. The Carolingian armies came pouring through that easiest of
+the passes, the Cerdagne, enfranchised Urgel, first of all the Mozarabic
+Bishoprics, and may be said to have refounded its Christian existence.
+For some reason difficult to discover Urgel fossilized quite early in the
+Middle Ages. No line of travel, no road linked up the long valley of the
+Segre, the armies and the embassies of the French knew nothing of Lerida,
+and it is characteristic of Urgel to-day that even to-day there should be
+no great road beyond it up the valley.
+
+From Urgel your road back into France through the upper valley of the
+Noguera Pallaresa, and the Val d’Aran is difficult to discover in its
+earlier part, unmistakable in the high mountains; which is the reverse of
+the rule usual in other crossings of the hills.
+
+You must go down the high road which runs south of Urgel until you come,
+in something over a mile, to Ciudad, which is that hill-pile of white
+houses, once fortified, which rises over against the Cathedral city.
+
+There you must ask the way to Castellbo, which is two or three hours away
+up a torrent bed, and you must go up this torrent bed by way of a road.
+
+If you start early from Urgel you will be at Castellbo well before noon,
+and the hospitality of the place is so great that you will wish to stay
+there. There is only one drawback to eating at Castellbo which is that
+you have after it to make a passage of the mountains which, though here
+not very high, well wooded and fairly inhabitated, do not bring you to
+proper food and shelter until you have gone close on 20 miles and have
+reached Llavorsi in the further valley of the Noguera; and so, if you
+stop to eat your mid-day meal at Castellbo, it is quite on the cards
+that you will have to camp out in the hills and that you will not make
+Llavorsi until noon of the following day; for the col in between, though
+it is very easy, is higher above the sea than the Somport.
+
+From Castellbo you have but to ask for the village of St. Croz, which
+is perched upon a height just up the same valley, but from there to the
+port the way is difficult to find for the very reason that there are no
+_physical_ difficulties. It is all one long ridge of wooded grass like a
+down, with rather higher peaks to the right and to the left and with more
+than one indication of a path several directions. A good rule, however,
+for finding the exact place where you should cross, is to make for a spot
+due north-west from the village of St. Croz, and this spot is further
+distinguished by the fact that it is on the whole lowest upon the whole
+saddle. It is a mile and a quarter or a mile and a half from the village,
+and as you go to it over the easy grass you get a superb vision of the
+Sierra del Cadi barring your view of Catalonia and standing up against
+you much higher than ever it seemed from the floor of the Cerdagne. No
+hills in Europe look so marvellously high.
+
+As the saddle of this port, which is called the port of St. John, is so
+long and easy it might seem indifferent at what point one crossed it;
+it is on the contrary very important to get the _exact_ place and for
+this reason, that on the further or north-western side of it there is a
+profound ravine densely wooded, if one does not make the _exact_ spot one
+has no path through this wood. That means hours of delay and one may very
+well come out upon the right instead of the left bank of the ravine; in
+which case in order to find the trail for Llavorsi at the bottom of the
+valley one may have a precipitous descent into the ravine and a bad climb
+out of it on the other side. Look, therefore, carefully for the path
+which begins to be clearly marked the moment the saddle is crossed, and
+follow down it until you come to a steep rock which overhangs the main
+stream at the bottom of the valley. This main stream is the Magdalena and
+runs not quite 2000 feet below the summit of the port. The trail is very
+distinct when once one has reached the valley; small villages are passed;
+it climbs up on the left bank to avoid a precipitous place and comes down
+to the water again at a place where the Magdalena falls into the main
+stream of the Noguera.
+
+Here you must descend to the floor of the valley and take the road
+which is being made and which will in a few years form another great
+international highway up the valley of the Noguera. The road runs all
+the way on the left or eastern bank of the stream, which is broad and
+rapid and confined by very high steep hills upon either side. Three miles
+from the place where the path descended to the junction of the Magdalena
+and the Noguera, you will find another large river coming in. The road
+crosses by a wooden cantilever bridge where one pays a toll (I think of
+½d.), and once across one is in the unpleasing village of Llavorsi.
+
+The valley opens somewhat and is called Anéu, having on the left the
+exceedingly rugged and tangled chain of the Encantados, a wilderness
+of rocky peaks and lakes—and on the right a clear ridge which cuts off
+this country-side from the Val Cardos and the Val Farreira, both wild
+districts at whose summits is a bit of country as lonely as the Upper
+Aston.
+
+All the way from Llavorsi up this Anéu valley the new road runs. I
+have not visited it for four years, and by this time it must be nearly
+finished, at any rate it is perfectly straight going and in all between
+10 and 12 miles, with the exceedingly filthy village of Escaló about
+half-way.
+
+It is not easy to give advice about sleeping in this walk from Urgel to
+Esterri. The distance between the two towns in a straight line is less
+than thirty miles, but the perpetual turning of the path makes it quite
+forty by the time one has reached Esterri, and what with the casting
+about for the right crossing on the port and the height of that crossing,
+it is too much for anyone to try and do in one day. Even if one were to
+sleep at Castellbo it would not mend matters much, for Castellbo is but
+a sixth of the distance, if that, and I would not recommend sleeping at
+Llavorsi. I have said that if one ate at Castellbo in the morning, it
+would mean camping out in the woods below the port of St. John and this
+is perhaps the best plan after all: to leave Urgel on the morning of
+one day, to camp in the deep woods above the Magdalena and to sleep at
+Esterri, on the night of the second day. There is a good inn at Esterri,
+where everything is comfortable and clean, and the whole place is more
+civilized than any other town or village in the Pallars.
+
+The next day you will go over the Pass of Bonaigo into the Val d’Aran,
+unless you prefer the much less amusing walk by the new road up over
+the Port de Salau to St. Girons. It is less amusing because it gets you
+into France almost at once, whereas the walk into the Val d’Aran keeps
+you in Spain and shows you a very interesting geographical and political
+accident of the Pyrenees.
+
+The town of the Val d’Aran is called Viella, and it lies 20 miles west by
+north of Esterri, between the two there is no obstacle but a high grassy
+saddle called the Port of Bonaigo the summit of which is exactly 3283
+feet above the floor of the Noguera at Esterri, and the interest of which
+lies in this, that it stands right upon the junction of that “fault”
+which was mentioned in the first division of this book.
+
+The Bonaigo is the exact centre of the Pyrenean system. On your left as
+you cross it, to the south that is, is the Saburedo, which is the last
+peak of the western branch. To your right upon the north the hills lift
+up to the Pic de l’Homme, which is the terminal peak of the eastern
+branch, and the ridge uniting these two branches runs in a serpentine
+fashion north and south with the saddle of the Bonaigo for its lowest
+point.
+
+You will reach the summit, going easy from Esterri, in about three hours,
+and thence you will see, if the weather is clear, the distant snow of the
+Maladetta to the west, and in the vale at your feet, the first trickling
+of the Garonne. For by the twist the watershed here takes, you are
+crossing geographically from Spain into France, though the valley of the
+Garonne before you is still politically Spanish. The descent upon the Val
+d’Aran is somewhat steeper than the ascent from the Noguera, a path of
+sorts begins at the foot of it, and runs down the Garonne to the first
+hamlet, the name of which is Salardú. At Arties, a road begins, and 5
+miles further on you come to Viella and to rest.
+
+In Viella there is nothing but oddity to note: the oddity of a French
+valley governed by Spain. You are quite cut off, you will hear no news,
+and the only sign that you are on the north of the mountains will be the
+great and excellently engineered road leading down the Garonne from
+gorge to gorge and reaching at last the French frontier at a narrow
+gate where is the “King’s Bridge.” Some miles further on is the French
+railway-head at Marignac. An omnibus starts in the early morning from
+Viella at whatever hour it pleases and gets down to the French railway
+in time for the mid-day train, but whether you take it or walk down on
+foot, you had better stop at Bosost, not half-way down, and there take
+the whittle woodland road westward over the frontier by a very low gap
+called the Portillon and so saunter into Bagnères de Luchon, the noisy
+and wealthy capital of luxury. To come into Luchon suddenly after such a
+journey is as sharp a change as you can experience perhaps in all Europe.
+Do not forget before you reach Bosost to look up the gully which comes in
+from the left at a place called Las Bordas, some six or seven miles from
+Viella. This gully is that of the true Garonne, the fork of the river
+which we saw having such strange adventures rising on the wrong side of
+the main watershed of the mountains, burrowing right through them in a
+tunnel and coming out upon the northern side; surely the only river in
+the world which behaves in such a fashion.
+
+The walk which I have just described will have shown you most thoroughly
+all the wild north-western corner of Catalonia, and have taught you
+Andorra as well. Whether you take Cabanes for your starting place,
+entering Andorra by the difficult passes of the Aston, or whether you
+take Ax for your starting place and enter by the easy pass of Embalire,
+you will not make the whole round to Luchon in the best weather under six
+days, and indeed a man who has but a week in which to begin to learn the
+Pyrenees, might very well choose this little square of them for his first
+introduction.
+
+[Illustration: THE CATALAN VALLEYS & ANDORRA]
+
+
+VI. CERDAGNE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Cerdagne forms a district quite separate from the rest of the
+Pyrenees. Its scenery differs from that of the rest of the range,
+its facilities for travel, its politics, everything in the place is
+different; and though both valleys are Catalan, it is well not to include
+in the same summary a description of the Cerdagne and a description of
+the Roussillon.
+
+The Cerdagne is the only broad valley in the Pyrenees, and it is a broad
+valley held in by walls of high mountains. All the other trenches which
+nature has cut into the range, are, without exception, profound and
+narrow. They expand occasionally into enclosed circles of flat land, the
+floors of ancient lakes, with a circle of steep banks all around, first
+wooded, then rocky, and reaching almost to Heaven. But these solemn
+circuses of secluded land, held in by narrow gates at either end, and
+small compared with the rocks around them, have a totally different
+effect upon the mind from those produced by such a landscape as the
+Cerdagne. You here have a whole country-side as broad as a small English
+county might be, full of fields, and large enough to take abreast a whole
+series of market towns. This is the sort of plain, which, were it bounded
+by hills, rather low like our English downs, would seem a little country
+by itself: a place large enough to make up one of our European divisions,
+like the counties of England, or the minor provinces of France. A broad
+river valley, such as decides a score of places scattered over Western
+Europe, here binds many households all united historically and defines a
+corporate condition for a fixed community of men.
+
+This picture is framed in two great lines of hills roughly parallel to
+each other, and the effect when one comes upon it out of the last of the
+narrow valleys, may be compared to the effect upon a child’s mind when he
+first sees the sea.
+
+In order to perceive the full contrast of this exception in the Pyrenean
+group, it is best to approach it from the west; whether you are coming on
+foot over the foothills of the Carlitte groups down on to Mont Louis or
+Targasonne, or whether you are coming by the high road over the pass of
+Porté, there comes a point in your journey where, after so many gorges
+and narrow cliffs, the hills here suddenly cease at your feet and you see
+the whole sweep of the Cerdagne as broad as a field of corn; you will
+have seen nothing like it all your way from the first foot hills of the
+Basque and the shores of the Atlantic.
+
+On the eastern side, beyond the plain, you see the long ridge which
+is among the highest of the Pyrenees, and which stands steeply out of
+the flat. It stretches, as it were, indefinitely away into Spain and
+was called for centuries by the Mohammedans, and still is, the Sierra
+del Cadi. At its feet are a group of villages and towns, Saillagouse,
+Odeillo, Bourg Madame, Puigcerdá (with its curious little isolated
+hill), Angoustrine, Palau, Osseja, Nahija, Err, and Caldegas, and that
+fascinating territory Llivia, which stands enclosed, making a little
+island of Spanish territory in the midst of French.
+
+The structure of the Cerdagne explains its history. It is a slightly
+sloping shelf upon the Spanish side of the watershed, but the watershed
+here is not as it is everywhere else a steep ridge with rocks, it is
+a large imperceptible flat which, for the first few miles upon the
+northern side, slopes quite gently down towards the valley of the Tet,
+and on the south side slopes still more gently and easily away towards
+Spain. The Segre, the last and largest tributary of the Ebro, rises
+in this gentle plain in innumerable rivulets, which joins innumerable
+other rivulets at Llivia, and then receives the river of Val Carol, the
+river of Angoustrine, and the little river of Flavanara below Puigcerdá.
+There is in the whole extent of this plain no natural feature to form a
+frontier, and (as its upper waters form the only approach to the province
+of Roussillon) Mazarin, when the treaty of the Pyrenees submitted the
+Roussillon to the French Crown, claimed as a sort of right of way, the
+upper stretch of this wide plain.
+
+The negotiations were not difficult, the frontier was drawn just so as
+to give the French Government everywhere the road down the Val Carol
+and up by Mont Louis to Perpignan. It was not the frontier between two
+civilizations or languages, the few square miles of the French Cerdagne,
+which is geographically Spanish, are Spanish also, Catalan Spanish,
+in customs, hours, architecture, and even cooking. It is Spanish in
+everything save the functions of government; and here you see just what
+differences government can and cannot make in a country-side. Government,
+where it exists against the will of the governed, effects nothing;
+but here there is no such friction, and you may compare the contented
+Cerdagne, which takes its orders from Paris, with the contented Cerdagne
+that takes them from Barcelona and Madrid. The subtle effect of the
+contrast is sufficiently striking; it is seen in the type of roadway,
+the paving of courtyards, in clocks that keep time upon one side and not
+upon the other, and in a certain hardness, which French assurance breeds,
+and which the Spanish ease avoids. It is a good plan as one enters the
+Cerdagne to take the by-road which leads straight across the plain from
+Urgel to Saillagouse. This by-road, when you have pursued it for about a
+mile, enters the isolated Spanish district of Llivia, and when you reach
+that town you find yourself in Spain, although all the villages round
+you in a circle are French villages. You have the Spanish delay, the
+Spanish tenacity, and the Spanish disorder. On coming out of it again,
+and immediately over the stream on the first village, the influence of
+the distant prefecture and of a strong hand upon the local community is
+apparent.
+
+The Cerdagne has one bad drawback that, for all its beauty and wealth,
+its entertainment is bad. There is not, I think, one good inn in the
+whole of it, and at Saillagouse, where the exterior looks most promising,
+the people are so hard-hearted that there is no comfort to be found under
+their roofs. If you are thinking of food, the best place perhaps for your
+head-quarters is the little village of La Tour Carol. But if you are
+thinking of sights, your best head-quarters is the town of Puigcerdá,
+just beyond the Spanish frontier, 3 miles or so from Latour.
+
+Puigcerdá is the capital of the Cerdagne, and there the people gather as
+to a fair. It was the capital of the Cerdagne long before the people knew
+or cared whether they were governed from the north or from the south.
+One and a half miles away, over the river in French territory, the tiny
+hamlet of Hix marks the place where the old capital was before Puigcerdá
+was founded and ousted it in the early Middle Ages. From many points in
+Puigcerdá, from the terrace in front of the Town Hall, from the northern
+end of one of its streets, but especially from its church tower, you
+take in one view the whole of the Cerdagne. As one gazes upon that view,
+one should remember that this was the principal highway of organized
+Christendom against the Mohammedan, and through this went Charlemagne and
+his son.
+
+The Carolingian tradition is nowhere stronger, strong as it is throughout
+the Pyrenees, than in this fruitful plain. The very mountains perpetuate
+it with the name Carlitte, and the valley of Carol and the popular songs
+perpetuate it also. It was this broad floor, full of provisions and free
+from ambuscade that allowed Christendom to dominate Catalonia, and render
+free the country of Barcelona, first of all Spanish territory, from the
+weight of unchristian government. It is the Cerdagne, therefore, to
+which we owe the later segregation of the Catalonians from the rest of
+Spain, their forgetfulness of warfare, their active commercial unrest,
+their modern submission to Jews, their great wealth. The Cerdagne should
+possess a great road throughout, for it is all of one type and all of one
+valley. By some historical accident it is not yet (I believe) so served
+throughout. After Puigcerdá there is a good new road all the way to
+Urgel. Another from Puigcerdá turns out of the valley of the Segre and
+runs off south and east to Barcelona. Certainly Urgel—that town we spoke
+of in connexion with Andorra—every one travelling in this part should
+see: Seo, the “Bishopric,” the “See”; a sort of Bastion first thrown out
+against the Mohammedans by Charlemagne. It is more intensely Spanish
+perhaps than any other large town in these hills, and that because it
+has long been so thoroughly cut off from communication with the north.
+Here also you can find good hospitality. The people are kind, and local
+travellers are common. Urgel is, however, more easily approached from
+Andorra than from Puigcerdá. And upon that account I dealt with it in
+connexion with the little republic.
+
+[Illustration: THE CERDAGNE]
+
+
+VII. THE TET AND ARIÈGE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The valley of the Ariège is a basis for going either southward into
+Andorra by the tributary valley of the Aston or westward into Roussillon
+around the flanks of the Carlitte. Of the former journey I have spoken
+in connexion with Catalonia. The latter takes one into the valley of
+the Tet, and so to the Canigou which is the principal mountain of that
+valley. The high road up the Ariège and over the Puymorens Pass into
+the Cerdagne and so into the Roussillon does not concern us here. It
+is designed for travel upon wheels. For going on foot the district is
+concerned with the Carlitte and the Canigou.
+
+If one means to spend some time in the big group of the Carlitte, one’s
+head-quarters must be Porté, the little village just over the Puymorens
+Pass. It is from here that the ascent of the highest peak is made and
+from here the fishermen start for the lakes that surround that peak. If,
+then, one proposes to spend some days camping in the mountain and going
+nowhere in particular, it is from Porté that one must start, as the
+nearest point to the summits. On the other hand, nothing can be bought
+at Porté nor for miles around, and if one ascends the mountain from Ax,
+though the distance is greater, one is more in touch with provisions.
+
+The Carlitte group is remarkable for the number of lakes, some quite
+large, which are to be found in the hollows just under its highest
+ridges. On the north is the large Lake of Noguille with the two little
+tarns of Rou and Torte just above it on one side; on the other, two
+little tarns lie under the Pic d’Ariel. The main lake is 6000 feet above
+the sea, not far short of a mile long, 500 or 600 yards across, and very
+little visited. On the south of the highest ridge and to the east of the
+summit of the Carlitte, just above Porté, lies the still larger lake of
+Lamoux. A good mile and a half in length, but narrower than its twin upon
+the north. Besides these two is the little group of lakes at the source
+of the Tet, another group at the sources of the Ariège, and another of
+half a dozen and more just under the eastern cliffs of the Carlitte which
+feed the big marsh of the Puillouse.
+
+Unfortunately all this district, which is so wild and open for travel,
+and so full of good fishing, has but few camping grounds. The forest
+on the east of the Carlitte is one of the largest in the Pyrenees, and
+one may camp anywhere within it; but for a lake as well as wood one can
+find but four spots: one, the Camporeils; the other, the little pond
+just above Langles; the third, a whole group of lakes a mile south and a
+little west of the marsh of Puillouse. It is by these last that one will
+do well to camp if one is making one’s way over the mountain eastward to
+Mont Louis, for they are within 5 miles of that town, and just beyond it
+is the valley of the Tet. The best camping ground in the neighbourhood of
+Ax is the fourth spot, at the northern end of the lake of Noguille. Here
+the lake, the stream flowing from it, and the wood are all close together
+and as good a camping ground as any in these mountains can be chosen.
+The way to reach this is to leave Ax by the western road which branches
+off from the great national road and runs up the valley of the Oriège to
+Orgeix. Beyond this little village of Orgeix is another little village,
+Orleu, and beyond that again at the head of the high road and not quite
+5 miles from Ax is the point where you must turn off for the lake. It is
+not easy to find because the whole distance is very similar for miles. I
+will describe the way as best I can.
+
+After the road leaves Orleu you have upon the left very precipitous
+steeps, rising to a height of some 6000 feet (or more than 3000 above the
+dale) covered with a forest which comes down very nearly to the road. On
+the right is a stream, and beyond it another belt of wood, less steep,
+with bare and high rocks above. Somewhat over an English mile, from the
+Church of Orleu, a path leaves the road to the right and crosses the
+stream, taking its way upwards through the opposing wood; this path
+will lead you to the lake, but it is not the best way. The best way is
+to go on further, somewhat over half a mile to a group of huts called
+“The Forges.” Here you will see on the other side of the stream a valley
+running towards you from the mountain and coming from due south as you
+look up it. The valley, or rather ravine, is that of the torrent called
+Gnoles, and this is the gully you must follow. It falls into the Oriège
+just by the forges. You must go some yards beyond this junction of the
+streams and a path will be seen going right off at a right angle to the
+road and making for the gulley opposite. It crosses the Oriège at once,
+crosses the torrent almost immediately after, climbs up the steep on its
+left bank, crosses again on its right bank, and thence keeps on due south
+between the rocks and the stream, through the wood, until, at a point the
+height of which I cannot discover but well over 2000 feet above the road,
+it comes out suddenly upon the lake.
+
+Here is the best camping ground within a reasonable distance of
+provisions and succour, and yet quite remote enough for a hermit. Here
+with the aid of the 1/100,000 map, one may wander and take one’s luck in
+the whole of this district of high peaks, rocks, and tarns, which stretch
+every way for 8 or 10 miles around.
+
+If one’s object is to make one’s way into the valley of the Tet, instead
+of spending one’s time in the mountains, the direction is straight and
+the way apparently easy, but it contains one difficult passage.
+
+Your business is to make from Ax to the village of Formiguères, which is
+politically in the Roussillon, and lies south-east by a trifle east from
+Ax, and, as the crow flies, barely more than 15 miles away. You will,
+however, hardly get there under 20 miles of going, and it is unlikely
+that you will do it in one day.
+
+The first part of the road is plain enough. You follow up the valley of
+the Oriège, as though you were going to the lake of which I have spoken,
+but instead of crossing over at the forges and going south towards the
+lake, you go straight on up the valley. Your path is not always distinct,
+but your main direction is to stick to the Oriège as it gets smaller and
+smaller in the high valley, and to look out for a path which runs along
+that stream on its left or southern bank.
+
+For about 4 miles from the Forges you continue climbing up the high
+valley of the Oriège, which is wooded upon either slope, until you come
+to a place where the wood recedes upon either side (though there is wood
+in front of you), and the path crosses the torrent to the opposite or
+right bank. It is here that the difficulty of the way begins.
+
+The path, you will notice by your compass, is at this point going due
+south, for the Oriège has curled round in that direction. Five hundred
+yards in front of you is a wood for which it makes. Now, if you were
+to pursue the path through that wood you would go clean out of your
+way, and either get tangled up in the rocks that overhang the sources
+of the Oriège, or get down into the marshy sources of the Tet. Neither
+of these districts are what you want. When you get to the edge of the
+wood, which, as I say, is about 500 yards from the point where the path
+crosses the stream, you must turn sharp to your left and go due east up a
+little watercourse, which here runs down beside the trees. As you do this
+facing due east, and looking up this watercourse you will see before you
+a ridge like any other of the Pyrenees, with peaks upon it. This ridge
+is the watershed between the County of Foix and the Roussillon, and is
+to-day the frontier of the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, which is
+the modern representative of that ancient province. The ridge is plain
+enough, but to cross it is not so simple a task as it looks. You must not
+attempt to go across it by the depression which lies immediately before
+you between two peaks. It _can_ be done, but the chances are you will
+lose your way in the great forest upon the further side. The right way is
+to go on due eastward up the stream until you are right under the ridge,
+from which point you must bear to your left up the bank which encloses
+the gully upon that northern side. You will notice two peaks of rock at
+the point where this bank branches from the main ridge. You must so bear
+up that you leave them both to your right, and turning round the base of
+that one which lies furthest west of the two, you will see (when you are
+round the base and over the bank) a saddle just east of you and about 600
+or 700 feet below the rocky peaks in question. This is the _Porteille_;
+you will go across it, come into the dense wood on the other side, and
+there the path follows running water all the way throughout what soon
+becomes a profound gorge, until you reach open country and a few small
+buildings 3 miles further down; though the open country, it is true, is
+only a small stretch of meadow between the wood and the river (a stream
+called the Galbe). The way is clear between the wood and stream for 2
+miles more to the hamlet of Espousouille. There you must leave your path
+and take one which branches straight off to the right, goes down to the
+stream, crosses it, rises through the wood beyond, and in less than a
+mile from Espousouille, brings you into the considerable village of
+Formiguères.
+
+I have already said that you would not easily manage this crossing in a
+day, even in fine weather. The Porteille is over 7000 feet high, and you
+may quite possibly lose your way for an hour or two in the difficult bit,
+but luckily there is no difficulty about camping. There is good camping
+ground with wood and water in every part of the journey, except the last
+mile of the steep going over the ridge. And you have only to choose where
+you will pass the night.
+
+This is the shortest cut by far from the County of Foix into the
+Roussillon. If you are going down into the Cerdagne a great national
+road takes you from Formiguères to Mont Louis, and the distance is
+about 9 miles, but if you are going down into the valley of the Tet in
+order to climb in the Canigou you must make for Olette, for that cuts
+off a corner. Olette is just under 10 miles in a straight line from
+Formiguères, but the county road which joins them has to cross a pass and
+is full of windings, so that the whole distance, even if you take short
+cuts to cut off the long turns, is more like 14 miles. The pass, which
+is nearer 6000 than 7000 feet high, is 1200 feet above Formiguères,
+and stands just opposite that town in full view, the summit of it about
+2 miles away to the south-east, but there is no need to describe the
+road, as it is an ordinary carriageway from the one place to the other.
+At Olette you are on the Tet, about 5 miles from the old rail-head at
+Villefranche (the new rail-head is at Bourg Madame on the Frontier).
+
+[Illustration: THE ARIÈGE & TET VALLEYS]
+
+
+VIII. THE CANIGOU
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Canigou, whichever way one looks at it, is a separate district and
+must be separately approached and separately travelled in. It stands
+apart from the rest of the range, it has a different character, and
+travel in it is of a different sort from other Pyrenean travel. It is
+not only physically cut off from the rest of the Pyrenees, indeed, its
+physical isolation has been a good deal exaggerated by people who have
+looked up to it from the plain and have not carefully noted its plan; it
+is rather morally cut off by the way in which it dominates one particular
+province and one famous plain to the exclusion of every other peak; so
+that when you are going through the Roussillon, especially along the
+sea coast, the only thing you can think of is the Canigou, which seems
+to be as much the lonely spirit of the district, as Etna does of the
+sea east of Sicily, or as Vesuvius does of the Bay of Naples. It will
+perhaps sound surprising or unlikely to those of my readers who know the
+Pyrenees, when I say that the Canigou is not physically isolated from
+the chain, it is indeed less isolated in its way than is the Pic du Midi
+de Bigorre, or even the Pic du Midi d’Ossau, for it is connected with
+the south by a high ridge which one can hardly ever see at full length
+from the plain, and which is, I think, only clearly observable from
+the frontier heights south of Arles upon the Tech. How thorough is the
+connexion, however, what follows will show.
+
+The Canigou is somewhat over 9000 feet in height, to be accurate 9135,
+yet it is but the terminal point _and not the highest point_ in a long
+ridge which runs south-westward to the frontier at the Roque Couloum. It
+next forms that frontier for 15 or 20 miles, and is then continued past
+the Port de Col Toses into Spain, where it forms the magnificent wall of
+the Sierra del Cadi.
+
+A man without heart or vision would see in the Canigou nothing but the
+last northern point of that long range, but the political accident which
+makes the Roussillon French, the cross chain which springs from the Pic
+de Couloun and runs to the Mediterranean, and above all the aspect of
+the mountains from the civilized wealthy plain to the north and east
+(where the connecting ridge cannot be seen), and its false appearance of
+isolation when one observes it from the sea, all make of the Canigou one
+of the most individual mountains in Europe.
+
+There are, as I have said, many heights in its own ridge, further to the
+south and west, which surpass it. The Donyais is within a few feet of it,
+the Enfer or Gous and the Pic du Géant next door, above the valley of
+the Tet, are higher; the Puigmal just on the watershed is much higher.
+The summit of the Canigou is but 1500 or 1600 feet above the crest
+of the ridge in its own immediate neighbourhood, and even the lowest
+point in that ridge (the Col de Boucacers) is not 2000 feet below it.
+Nevertheless, it produces, as I have said, an effect of unity and of
+isolation, and there is not only the illusion of its outline as seen from
+the north and east, but also the fact that the mountain spreads out in a
+fan of ridges from its summit to the lowlands all around, and stands upon
+a broad expanded base, more or less circular in shape, spreading from the
+Tech upon the south to the Tet upon the east, north, and west.
+
+The Canigou is not a mountain that gives one any climbing to speak of,
+or that affords any problems or difficulties. There is even, nowadays, a
+carriage road most of the way up on the northern side, but it is the best
+place for camping and changing camp that you can find anywhere. All the
+flanks of it are covered with a series of dense woods; they form a belt
+2 or 3 miles deep (in places nearly 5) and running almost continuously
+round the whole mountain, a circuit of at least 30 miles. Your choice for
+halting and camping places in these woods is infinite, there is water
+everywhere and you are nowhere too far from provisions. If you will
+take the road from Villefranche up to Vernet you will, at that village,
+be near the steepest side of the mountain and a wood which everywhere
+affords excellent camping ground. By following up the path to Casteil
+and taking the track which leads south and east from that hamlet, you
+are at the inhabited point nearest to its summit, and you have wood and
+water up to the last mile in distance, or the last 2000 feet in height;
+but remember, if you wish to make for the summit by this trail, that you
+must always bear to the right as you walk, choosing always the right-hand
+trail when there is a diversion, and coming out on the south side of that
+ridge which has the summit at one end and the Peak de Quazémi at the
+other. On the open part of this steep bit there is a definitely marked
+path which follows the left bank of the stream until it is right under
+the last rocks of the Canigou and then makes straight up by zigzags. If
+you would go the easier way which everybody takes, you must start from
+Prades, which is the town of the mountain, and in which anyone will show
+you the house where the local agent of the French Alpine Club is ready
+with information.
+
+Your road goes through Taurinya (or if you start from Villefranche,
+through Fillols), and the new carriage road runs up the ridge between the
+two valleys—the valley of the Fillols and the valley of Taurinya—first
+over open country, then through wood until you come to quite the upper
+part of the Taurinya, where the road turns round the steep corner
+overhanging the sources of the torrent. This particular wood is called
+the wood of Balatag, a word that is not so hard to pronounce in Catalan
+as in French, for the Catalans add an “e” at the end of it.
+
+The road does not go to the actual summit, but comes out on to the
+shoulder of the mountains, an open space looking to the north,
+north-west and east, where stands the hotel which has been put up by the
+French Alpine Club. This hotel is not quite 2000 feet below the highest
+summit which lies exactly to the south of it. The other summit to the
+north-east, the ridge of which comes round behind the hotel, is the Pic
+Puigdarbet. You must allow five or six hours to get to the hotel without
+haste from the valley of the Tet, and the road is somewhat shorter if
+you start from Villefranche, than if you start from Prades, but of the
+two ways, much the more interesting for a man on foot is the old way by
+Casteil and the Brook Cady which I first described. Here you can camp
+half-way up the mountain without fear of disturbance from travellers,
+choosing, for preference, the end of the wood just under the summit, and
+so make that summit at dawn.
+
+Unless you are in a hurry to get on to Perpignan, one of the best ways of
+treating the Canigou is to go across it from the valley of the Tet into
+the valley of the Tech, and from Arles on the Tech to take the railway
+through Ceret and Elne to Perpignan.
+
+It is of course a long way round, but it shows you both sides of the
+mountain.
+
+You could hardly get right across the main ridge from the hotel; but you
+can take the path that goes round the northern flank of the mountain,
+that is, through the wood that clothes the buttresses of the Pic
+Bargebit, and that comes out in the valley of the Dalmanya, a torrent
+running down north-eastwards from the summit. If you are afraid of losing
+your way you can go down into the village of Dalmanya and up thence by
+a clear path from the church of the village to the iron mines under the
+Col de Cirere; from that col there is a very winding high road (of which
+of course you can cut off most of the turnings) which gets you down to
+Corsady and so to Arles. On the southern side of the mountain you can go
+down the path which follows the Brook of Cady, and do your best to note
+the Peak of the Thirteen Winds which is the peak precisely due south of
+the main summit and 3000 feet from it at the end of the long ridge. When
+you have made quite certain which is the Peak of the Thirteen Winds,
+cross the brook, and work up if you can to the saddle immediately
+south-west of it, and between it and the Pic de Routat, which is a trifle
+lower and rises a thousand yards to the south-west of the Peak of the
+Thirteen Winds.
+
+This col is called the Portaillet, and the valley on the further side
+is called “The Old or Abandoned Pass.” When you have got across you
+will know why. A wood covers its lower part, and a little brook called
+the Cambret runs through it, but there is no regular path, and it is a
+business to find the first huts, which are at an open space upon the
+stream between it and the wood, and quite 4000 feet below the col.
+
+The descent is exceedingly steep, and there I leave it.
+
+From these huts (which are called St. Duillem) is a good plain path down
+to the Tech, and to the little hamlet which has the same name as the
+river (Le Tech) whence the national high road takes one in 6 miles to
+Arles, the more usual crossing (which is not really a crossing of the
+mountains at all, but a crossing of the ridge to the south of it) is by
+the Pla de Guillem, so called because it does not go near Guillem, and
+this way is as plain as a pike-staff. You take the road from Villefranche
+to Fuilla, which is not quite 3 miles off, first up the Tet, then to the
+left southwards up a lateral valley, you follow that lateral valley and
+the high road up it from Fuilla to Py, rather more than 5 miles on, and
+southward all the way from Py a path goes south-west up the right bank
+of a torrent which comes in there. The track is quite clear and carries
+you up to the sources of the stream, and to the saddle in the final ridge
+which is called the Pla de Guillem. It is a steep climb of nearly 4000 in
+rather more than 4 miles. Py at the junction of the streams is just over
+3200 feet above the sea. The pass is about 7000.
+
+On the further side also the track is quite plain, pointing down due
+south-east through a little wood and then over the open country. It takes
+you down to Prats de Mollo, a jolly little town, the last on the great
+national road and the highest in the Tech valley. Above it the national
+road becomes the local road leading to the baths and waters.
+
+So late as the Revolutionary Wars Mollo was of importance and may
+be again, for the Spanish armies could come over (but not with guns)
+from the other Mollo, which lies beyond the frontier 7 or 8 miles off
+south-east, over the Col of Arras. Mollo is a little lower than Py, but
+the descent upon it is far less steep than was the ascent upon Py. From
+Mollo it is somewhat more than 10 miles to Arles by the national road
+down the valley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Canigou is so particular a thing that if a man has but little time
+before him, or if he already knows the other Pyrenees—he might do worse
+than go to Perpignan and spend a week upon that mountain. It should be
+remembered that you have a better chance of fine weather there than in
+any other part of the Pyrenees, and you will usually have dryer days upon
+the Tech side than upon the Tet side.
+
+With these eight divisions I have roughly covered the chain of the
+Pyrenees for those who may, like myself, think that all travel on
+these mountains should be on foot. It is, of course, but a very rough
+and general survey, but it would give one, all taken together, a
+comprehensive knowledge of the chain. My limits have necessarily excluded
+very many valleys, some of which are unknown to me, such as the valley
+of Isaba. Among those which I have not dealt with should be considered
+especially the Ribagorza, which is the boundary between the Aragonese
+and the Catalan tongues, and runs parallel to Pallars or the valley of
+Esterri, and can be reached from the valley with some difficulty by
+Espot and the high Portaron above it, or much more easily from Viella in
+the Val d’Aran, by the high Port de Viella, which leads straight into
+the Ribagorza and down to Bono. There are also entrances in and out of
+Andorra, of which I did not speak, notably the Porte Blanche, which you
+make from Porta in the Val Carol, a mile or two south of Porté. This
+way involves two cols, one very high one, the Porte Blanche, another
+lower one immediately after, the Port de Vallcivera. It is, however,
+the shortest way from a French high road to Andorra the Old. There is
+another way in and out of Andorra, very little used, by the Col de la
+Boella from Ordino to the Val Farrera. All the Basque valleys besides
+those I mention, and notably that of the Isaba, are places that should be
+known, and of the passages over the range, which I have not dealt with in
+detail, one, the road from St. Girons to Esterri by the Port de Salau,
+will soon be an international highway. It presents no difficulties and no
+very considerable interest. But if the traveller finds himself by some
+accident in St. Girons with but a day or two in which to see Spain, here
+is a very easy way of getting over into what is still one of the remotest
+parts of that country.
+
+[Illustration: THE CANIGOU]
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+INNS OF THE PYRENEES
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There is nothing more necessary to the knowledge of a district if one
+desires to enjoy travel in it, than to have some directions upon its
+inns. I cannot pretend in what follows to give any complete list of
+the inns which the traveller will find in the Pyrenees, but I will try
+to do what the guide-books do not do, and that is to indicate what an
+Englishman, especially one on foot, may expect in the different valleys.
+The foreign guide-books rarely do this well: the Scotch and English
+guide-books never; for the general phrases which they use about inns
+and hotels leave one as full of doubt and terror as though nothing had
+been said about them, and they always fail to speak good or evil of the
+_people_, the _cooking_, and _the wine_—which are the three main things
+one wants to hear about.
+
+First then, as to the difference between the Spanish and the French side.
+
+Though the Basques are one race upon either side of the frontier, and
+the Catalans also, yet a single rule governs the whole length of the
+chain, which is that French cooking and French hours are to be found to
+the north of the political frontier, and Spanish to the south. This is a
+matter in which the difference of Government has, in the course of some
+generations of travel, produced a very marked effect. The Val d’Aran,
+for instance, is geographically and racially French. Its river is the
+Upper Garonne, there is no obstacle between it and the French plain, but
+only one good descending road to unite them both; yet your experiences of
+an inn in the Val d’Aran will in general resemble your experiences of an
+inn beyond the mountains in the purely Spanish valley of the Noguera.
+
+Similarly the neighbourhood of Saillagouse and all the French Cerdagne
+is geographically and racially Spanish, the river running through it is
+the Upper Segre (a tributary of the Ebro), and one road with no obstacle
+at the frontier, unites the French to the Spanish portion of the valley,
+yet the hours, habits, cooking, and everything in the inns of the
+French Cerdagne are French, in those of the Spanish Cerdagne, Spanish;
+and generally you must be prepared, when you cross the frontier, for a
+different kind of hospitality.
+
+The French rule of an inn is probably well known to all who will read
+this. The coffee in the morning, the first meal at or a little before
+mid-day, the second at six or seven at the latest, and so forth. In Spain
+they will give you chocolate for your first meal. Your mid-day meal will
+be at the same hour as the French, but your last meal much later: eight
+is a usual hour. In France, if you ask for food at an odd time it will be
+prepared for you; in Spain also but only with incredible delays, and you
+find universally upon the southern side of the frontier, this difference
+from the French that the table d’hôte or common meal is prepared only for
+a fixed number of guests. Newcomers, even if they reach the place two
+hours before the hour of the supper, have it separately cooked for them,
+and will suffer a corresponding delay. Here is a national custom which
+nothing can change, and which is as old as the hills. It was even once
+universally the habit to have a separate little cooking pot for every
+guest, and in certain inns that habit is still continued. It is in the
+last degree inconvenient, and when one has pushed on to the end of some
+very long day, to shelter and food, it is exasperating. One sees the
+local people who have done nothing, eat a hearty meal; and one waits an
+hour or two hours before one is served with a crust. But you can no more
+change it than you can change any other national habit, and you must be
+prepared for it on the Spanish side wherever you go. All the details of
+the cooking are different too; notably these: that for some reason or
+other, the Spaniard is careless of his oil, or perhaps prefers oil to
+have a taste of carelessness about it: in places of rancidity. His wine
+is quite different from the wine of the French. It comes up to him from
+the hard plains of the Ebro; it has been kept in wine skins and tastes of
+them. As a rule drink water with, or better still after, Spanish wine.
+The French wine in these hills (save in the Roussillon) comes from the
+plains of the Garonne, and has been kept in wood. It has the taste with
+which we are familiar in this country; the Spanish wine has a roughness,
+a strength, and a memory of goat’s skin, with which, until he comes to
+Spain, no northern man can have any acquaintance at all.
+
+It must not be imagined that Spanish accommodation is cheaper than
+French; comfort for comfort, it is, if anything, a little dearer. But the
+Pyrenees are cheap everywhere, save in one or two watering-places. Nearly
+every inn upon either side, however small, can furnish you with a guide,
+but not every inn with mules, and still less can you depend upon a horse
+or a carriage, even in places which stand upon the few great highways. If
+you must hire mules, you will always be able to find one in the village
+where the inn stands, but, for some reason connected with their local
+economics, the people of the inn are sometimes actively opposed and often
+indifferent to your hiring one, and if they tell you that there is no
+mule to be had (which is their way of opposing you) you must then saunter
+out and bargain for one with some rival, but remember that you can always
+get one: all these mountains are covered with herds and droves of mules.
+Yet mules are expensive, from 1000 to 2000 francs to buy, or even more;
+from 30 to 50 francs per day to hire, with the man who accompanies you.
+Remember also, if you have a choice where to hire, that they are better
+by far upon the Spanish than upon the French side. As for horses and
+carriages, I will, when I speak of particular inns, mention the few
+places where I know they can be hired.
+
+A further difference between the French and Spanish side is that, on the
+whole, an inn upon the Spanish side is less likely to be clean. This does
+not mean that they are generally uncleanly, very far from it; the houses
+of the whole of the Basque country on either side are excellently kept,
+and this is generally true of Catalonia also, but the little hamlets, in
+the highest valleys which are doubtful upon both sides, are usually worse
+upon the southern. In every case, of course, you must ask the price of
+rooms, they expect it, and it is best to ask the price of meals as well.
+If you do not bargain in this manner, they think of you as of some one
+who is deliberately throwing money away and they very naturally hasten
+to pick it up. I remember one meal in the very unsatisfactory town or
+village of Llavorsi, which was as unsatisfactory as the place itself, and
+for which a violent Catalonian woman would have charged us the prices of
+Paris because we did not bargain beforehand, and this, note you, in a
+place where no one ever comes, which is on the road to nowhere, and which
+does not see tourists perhaps, or even travellers, once in six months.
+
+In every valley there is some one inn which, if you are wise, you will
+choose, and which it is worth one’s while modifying one’s plans to visit.
+I will set down those which I know, beginning as I have done throughout
+this book, at the western end of the chain, and following it to the east.
+
+In the Baztan, a Basque word for tail, for the valley resembles in shape
+the tail of a rat, though the other _Bas_tans in the Pyrenees, out of
+the Basque countries, derive their name from the Arabic word for garden,
+Elizondo should be your halting-place. Here there are two hotels, one
+old and one new, the old one in the very middle of the town on the high
+road, the new one a little to the north, just off the high road. This
+new hotel is kept by one Jarégui, and in the chief feature of all good
+hotels (I mean the courtesy and zeal of the management) it is far the
+best, not only in Elizondo, but in the whole valley. If you should wander
+on to Pamplona, I can give no advice, but it is a large town where a
+man may have pretty well what he wants according to the price he pays.
+My own experience of it is of lodging in small eating-houses, not in a
+regular hotel, but I understand that the Perla and the Europa are the
+two best hotels, and of these two, people, as one travels, single out
+the Europa. On the road from Pamplona to Roncesvalles, there is no good
+stopping-place. At Erro, as I have said above, there is but one inn and
+that a very bad one. Burguete is, however, a very pleasant village, and
+the Hotel des Postes is praised by those who have stopped there. Unless
+one is caught by night, or in some other way impeded, it is unwise to
+eat or to sleep at Val Carlos, the contrast between French and Spanish
+methods is nowhere more violent whether in the matter of cooking, or
+of delay, or of wine, or of any other thing, than at this corner of
+the frontier; but it is to be remembered that if you need a horse and
+carriage you can always have it at Val Carlos for going on into France,
+and at St. Jean Pied-de-Port you are in the best halting-place for the
+valley of the Nive and the whole Labourd, just as Elizondo is the best
+halting-place for the Baztan. St. Jean Pied-de-Port is large enough and
+frequented enough to have some choice of hotels. You had much better
+go to the best, which is the Central. The reason it will be worth your
+while to do this is, that though it is the best hotel in a town to which
+many rich people come, it is as cheap as it is good. It will always have
+a carriage for you if you want it, it has a garage, and it is the best
+centre from which to start upon any of the roads around; and if you
+should be coming from the north and going south there is a public service
+from this hotel through the pass as far as Pamplona.
+
+In the next valley, that of the Soule (the river of which is the Saison,
+and the chief town Mauléon) let Tardets be your head-quarters. It has one
+of the most delightful inns in all the mountains, remarkable among other
+things for having various names, like a Greek goddess. Sometimes it is
+called the “Voyageurs,” sometimes the “Hotel des Pyrenees,” and it is
+entered under the arcade of the north-west corner of the market square.
+There you may dine in a sort of glass room or terrace overlooking the
+river, and every one will treat you well. It is, I say, one of those
+places that would make one hesitate to go on further into the hills the
+same day, but if one does, one will find the unique inn at St. Engrace,
+which I have already mentioned, one of the best that the smaller villages
+have; it must always be remembered, of course, that these upland hamlets
+give one nothing but their own fare, and usually a bedroom that is
+reached through some other, but the beds here are good and the cooking
+plain. This is the first house in the village on the right as you come
+in, and as in Elizondo, Jarégui is the name. Remember that they have
+various sorts of wine, and ask for their best, for even their best costs
+very little, and their worst is not so good. In the valley between
+Tardets and St. Engrace, before you leave the main road, you pass by the
+hotel of Licq, “Hotel des Tourists.” Licq itself you leave to the right
+beyond the river, but this hotel is built upon the high road. Here is a
+good place for one meal, though there is no point in sleeping there, yet
+if one is caught by some accident, one will find it comfortable enough; a
+little bothersome in pressing one to take guides.
+
+The next valley, the Val d’Aspe, and its prolongation on the Spanish
+side, the Val d’Aragon, contain many inns, the more important of which
+should be known before one approaches them.
+
+In Oloron itself, there are two good hotels of which the Voyageurs
+is perhaps the best, and there is, of course, every opportunity, in
+such a town, of hiring horses and carriages. There is also, it must be
+remembered, a public service twice a day up the pass as far as Urdos, not
+expensive but very slow: no rail yet. It will be possible also at Oloron
+to hire a pair of horses and a carriage if one wants one for several days
+to go into Spain and back by way of the Val d’Assau.
+
+There is no occasion to stop, whatever be your mode of travel, between
+Oloron and Bédous, but should you take up your head-quarters at Bédous
+(which, it will be remembered, is in the midst of the enclosed plain
+which characterizes this valley), make the Hotel de la Paix your
+head-quarters. You will be best treated there, and it is the best centre
+for information upon the surrounding mountains. Accous is slightly
+larger than Bédous, but it is off the road and therefore less used to
+travellers; also it is less comfortable. So if you stop in this plain at
+all, stop at Bédous.
+
+Your next point will be Urdos, there is nothing of consequence between.
+
+Urdos, having been, for so many centuries between Roman civilization
+and our own, the end of the proper road over this chief pass and the
+jumping-off place for the mule tracks and for Spain, has many inns for
+its size—(it is no more than a hamlet)—but of these I will unhesitatingly
+recommend the _Voyageurs_, which is one of the last houses on the left of
+the village, having at the south end of it over the road a jolly little
+terrace where one dines. The drawback of Urdos is that one _may_ get
+bitten, and speaking of this the sovereign remedy is camphor, or rather
+I should say, the sovereign preventive, for all animals that bite hate
+the smell of camphor. But for that little drawback, Urdos is delightful
+and nothing is pleasanter in Urdos than the Hotel de Voyageurs, also if
+you go to this hotel you are following the line of least resistance, for
+it is in some mysterious way related to the man who drives the coach.
+Remember that Urdos is accustomed to every form of halt, and though it
+is difficult to buy things there, there is a barn for motors—and also, I
+believe, relays of horses for carriages.
+
+Your next village on this main international road is Canfranc in Spain.
+It is just over 14 miles off with nothing but a refuge and the pass of
+the Somport between. The hotel is the Hotel Sisas, from which a public
+coach starts for Jaca daily, still, I believe; the cooking is doubtful,
+the wine so-so, and the people are a little spoilt, but they are very
+ready with horses and used to hiring them, and you can always hire a
+carriage or get a relay for Jaca, which is 16 miles further down by a
+road with no steep hills, and for the most part nearly flat. At Jaca the
+hotel (which I have already spoken of) is the Hotel Mur; it is excellent
+in every way, clean, cheerful, and not too simple in its customs, with
+various wines, and a knowledge of more than the Castilian tongue. The
+mention of this leads me to add to what I said above that the language
+stops very suddenly at this central frontier, or at least south of it.
+There will be people who will understand Spanish almost anywhere in Béarn
+because the local dialects are Spanish in character, but the common
+French of Paris means nothing to the people of Aragon and Sobrarbe; you
+may be in quite a big place and find no one for a long time who will
+understand you, while in the small hotels and inns right up against the
+frontier, they do not follow a word of the language.
+
+Of the inns of Biescas I cannot speak from experience, nor of those of
+Panticosa, though they say that the only useful one in Biescas is the
+Hotel Chauces, while Panticosa has any number of places with such names
+as “Continental” and “Grand,” and masses of lodgings as well, among which
+I imagine the only choice is to take the best; nothing is really dear
+there, except in the month between the middle of July and the middle of
+August. Of Sallent, however, I can speak. There is but one inn in the
+place; it has many names but is best known by the name of the man who
+owns it, and his name is Bergua. It is an astonishing mixture. The owner
+is wealthy and good natured, but you do not hear the truth about things
+for it is coloured by self interest. The place is clean, but slow even
+beyond the ordinary of a Spanish inn. The cooking is neither one thing
+nor another, the wine is not bad. It is a place where you may spend one
+night, but not two. You will leave it without enthusiasm, and without
+regret.
+
+Next, following the itineraries I have given, comes Gabas, and here is
+as pleasant an inn as you will find in the whole world, it is called the
+Hotel des Pyrenees, and of the several hotels it is the dearest. The
+family of Baylou keep it and have inherited this soil for generations.
+It is an ancestor of theirs that planted the delightful Mail outside and
+set up the charming little fountain there. They are used in this house to
+every sort of gentlemanly habit, they pay no attention to the clothes in
+which one comes, and they understand all those who love to wander in the
+hills. Everything is clean and good about the place, they will give one
+well-cooked food in many courses at any hour. There is but one criticism
+to make and that is in the matter of horses and carriages; these are
+dear, and the good and the bad cost the same money, for there is here a
+monopoly of the valley, and if you do not take their vehicle, you must
+walk to the rail-head, 8 miles lower down. Also if for some reason you
+must drive or get a relay of horses, the longer notice you give the
+better, for there are few animals to be had.
+
+Further down the valley is Eaux Chaudes, a dreary place, incredible from
+the fact that it was here that much of the Heptameron was written! If
+a man must stop there, let him; of the sad gloomy barracks, take the
+largest and the dearest, which is the Hotel de France. Laruns, at the
+foot of the valley, where again you are unlikely to stop, but where you
+may be caught, has the Hotel des Touristes, where also horses and a
+carriage may be hired, and whence the omnibus goes to Eaux Chaudes and to
+Eaux Bonnes. This last place, like Panticosa, is a place one can make no
+choice in, it is crowded with the rich, and where the rich have spoilt
+things, the only rule I know is to plunge and take the dearest—which
+is the Hotel des Princes—if you will not do that you must choose for
+yourself.
+
+The next valley, that of the Gave de Pau, has in it four towns, Lourdes,
+Argelès, Cauterets, and Luz. Lourdes, like all cosmopolitan towns, is
+detestable in its accommodation, and to make it the more detestable there
+is that admixture of the supernatural which is invariably accompanied by
+detestable earthly adjuncts. Were it not so the world would be perfect:
+but it is so, and honestly one cannot say that any one hotel at Lourdes
+is better than another, only here again if one is compelled to stop
+for a night, one cannot do better than the best which is nominally the
+Angleterre. Avoid the hotels that have Holy names to them, they are
+usually frauds. If you go to Lourdes as a pilgrim, prefer the religious
+houses (which take in travellers). If the Angleterre is too dear for you,
+the Hotel de Toulouse is not to be despised; it should take you in at 25
+to 35 francs a day. Argelès, up the valley, is a very different place,
+it is a little hurt by the neighbourhood of Lourdes, and by the stream
+of travellers who pour up and down its main road to Cauterets and to
+the sights of Gavarnie. Nevertheless it remains a French country town,
+and the fairly dignified capital of a district. The Hotel de France is
+excellent and, by the way (a thing always to be mentioned when one is
+speaking of hotels in the Pyrenees), it is ready at any time to furnish
+horses, and has, of course, a garage. At Luz stand two hotels facing each
+other on either side of the road, I cannot remember the names, or rather
+I cannot remember which is which, but anyhow take the one on the right of
+the road as you look up the valley, or as you come up from the station,
+that is, the one upon the western side. They are polite, and that makes
+all the difference in one’s relations with people whom one does not often
+meet.
+
+Gavarnie, overrun as it is (and it is hideously overrun), has a very
+tolerable hotel, clean, and not too dear. The reason is that the people
+who come to the place usually go away on the same day, and that therefore
+there is some anxiety to please those who stop. Another inn, up under
+the mountain, is not so much to be recommended. Of Cauterets everything
+can be said—and much more—that was said of Eaux Bonnes, you are at the
+mercy of a place which the rich choose to have ruined, and apart from
+their vulgarity you will have that noise which accompanies them in all
+their doings, this sort of place in the Pyrenees is luckily not common,
+and when it is tolerable is tolerable in proportion as it is national.
+Cauterets is almost as international as Lourdes, and for anyone using
+the Pyrenees as I use them in this book, it would be madness to stop
+there. Bagnères-de-Bigorre is better, though it is something in the same
+line. It is better because it has something of a past and a history, and
+is, like Argelès, the chief town of its district. The Hotel de Paris
+is the best, but it is very expensive, and I believe, though I do not
+know, that the Hotel des Vignes in the Rue de Tarbes is good among the
+moderate places. But the rule holds here, as everywhere, that where rich
+people, especially cosmopolitans, colonials, nomads, and the rest, come
+into a little place, they destroy most things except the things that
+they themselves desire. And the things that they themselves desire are
+execrable to the rest of mankind.
+
+Arreau, in the next valley, merits a more particular attention. It is
+thoroughly French, and here you will find side by side with the expensive
+places (for even Arreau has its Hotel d’Angleterre which, however, to
+tell the truth, is not ruinous) a most delightful little place called the
+Hotel du Midi, where sensible people go. I am speaking on the testimony
+of others, but on good testimony. It is a place smelt out by the
+infallible nose of the French professional class. It has a garage, and
+will tell you where to get carriages, though I believe it has nothing but
+an omnibus of its own. It is—or was—really cheap and good. But for some
+odd reason this excellent house charges you extra for your coffee.
+
+Right high up this valley is Vielle where there is one hotel, the Hotel
+Mendielle, this is the one you must ask for if you find yourself caught
+here, and it is just the place at which one might be caught if one got
+into the wrong valley from a col in the Sobrarbe, or, if, in coming up
+the Gave, one had not made way enough by night; I know nothing for or
+against this hotel, and I believe it to be the only one. The little
+village of Aragnouet, which is at the very end of the road under the last
+precipices, has an inn of the quality of which I know nothing.
+
+The next valley is that of Bagnères-de-Luchon. Now it might be imagined,
+seeing what rich places are in the way of hotels, that Bagnères-de-Luchon
+(being by far the richest place in the Pyrenees) would be hopelessly the
+worst, and that, as nothing good could be said about Cauterets, and as
+there was precious little choice in Eaux Bonnes, Luchon would be a place
+to despair of in the matter of hotels, but on the contrary it is a place
+to discuss.
+
+Even if Luchon were as detestable as the Riviera, one would have to
+come to it because it is the knot and reservoir of all mountain travel.
+The valley strikes so deep into the hills, brings the railway so near
+their summits, and is so exactly situated at the “fault” spoken of
+so frequently in this book (the break in the Pyrenean line where the
+landscapes and peoples of the chain meet) that it is difficult not to
+pass through Luchon at one time or another during any length of days
+passed in these hills. Even if you make a vow to clear Luchon, you may
+find yourself caught in any one of twenty surrounding barbarisms with a
+bad foot or no money, and compelled to set a course for this harbour.
+Moreover Luchon is by no means the vulgar place its riches ought to
+make it. The fashion for it was first made by reasonable people, many
+Spaniards come and help to give the place its tone, and perhaps the very
+extremity of evil corrects itself, and Luchon, being so crammed with
+wealthy people, knows its own vices better than places just a little
+less rich, and it is therefore more tolerable. At any rate the problem
+of sleeping at Luchon is easily solved in July and August because all
+prices are pretty much the same, and you cannot depend upon the printed
+prices at all. For pension it is otherwise. There are fixed prices and
+they are not exorbitant for such a place. A very clean, decent, rich
+hotel is the Hotel d’Angleterre, where, if you stop some days, they will
+charge you, I believe, about 40 francs a day. There is a place for poorer
+people called the Hotel de l’Europe; all its prices are cheaper, but it
+has this drawback that you get nothing national. It is clean and there
+is a roof over your head, but you get neither French comfort nor French
+discomfort, and you are paying a little less for things a great deal
+worse, notably in the matter of food. The bold who fear nothing will go
+and stop at the village little inn called the Golden Lion, which is near
+the old church and existed before wealthy Luchon was born or thought
+of. Here the bold will consort with Muleteers and the populace in some
+discomfort. One of the best uses to which one can put Luchon is to eat in
+it, and for sleeping to go outside and camp in the woods: and the best
+place for the passer-by to eat is the Café Arnative on the main street;
+its cooking is very good indeed, and the wine really remarkable; it is
+such good wine that one wonders why they give it away, and every year as
+one returns to the place one fears it may have ceased, but it continues.
+Speak to the manager in English for he knows and loves that tongue, or
+in Spanish or in French. In the use of the hotels and restaurants of
+Luchon, however—always excepting the Golden Lion—remember that they are
+snobbish about clothes, and that even two days in the hills puts you
+well below the standard which they can tolerate. I confess that when I
+have had to use Luchon, I have depended upon clothes which were waiting
+for me at the station; and it is not difficult to use Luchon as a sort
+of half-way house in this matter, leading the right life in the western
+mountains, coming down to Luchon to find one’s luggage, dressing up,
+plunging into worldly pleasure at Luchon, sending one’s luggage off again
+to Ax or Perpignan, and then taking to the eastern hills for another bout
+of poverty.
+
+In the Val d’Aran, next to the valley of Luchon, there is but one place
+where one is likely to stay, and that is in the town of Viella, which
+is the capital; for the Val d’Aran is a small place, and there is no
+advantage in stopping anywhere else. The Posada Deo is that which I know
+best and is good but of course Spanish; the cooking is a sort of mixture
+of Spanish and French, but the time you have to wait for it and in the
+manner in which it is given you is wholly Spanish. The wine also (oddly
+enough!) is Spanish. It ought, on the Garonne, to be of the Garonne, but
+the customs interfere.
+
+The Catalan valley, south and east of the Val d’Aran, the valley of
+Esterri, has, in that town, a good little hotel, the Hotel Pepe. The
+people are thoroughly Catalan in their love of money and therefore you
+must bargain. Whatever you do, do not stop at any of the other places
+in the valley, it is even better to go through a storm than to risk
+Llavorsi, or worse still Escaló, but on the far side of the hill and of
+the port called St. John of the Elms there is a most delicious inn, with
+an old innkeeper of the very best, at Castellbo.
+
+To return to the French side; if you go by train to St. Girons you may
+likely enough change at Boussens, the station has not (or had not) any
+buffet, but there was (and I hope is) an hotel opposite it where people
+travelling by train ate; the cooking here is the best in the whole of the
+Pyrenees, which is saying a good deal. At St. Girons itself there is not
+only good cooking, but the wine which Arthur Young admired, and which was
+well worthy of his admiration. Do not go to the best hotel (which is the
+hotel of the Princes and of the Alpine Club), but to the next cheapest
+which is called the Hotel de France; at least I have found this last to
+be excellent and cheaper for its quality of food and drink and repose
+than any other in all this chain. These things change quickly, what was
+true so short a time ago may not be true now; but so, at least, I found
+it.
+
+In the valley of the Ariège it is always well to make Ax your
+sleeping-place, for Ax, though there are waters and though the baths make
+the prosperity of the place, is a very pleasant little town and the right
+beginning for the mountains, whether you are going by the main road into
+the Roussillon, or up the Ariège in the Carlitte group, or again over
+the main range into Andorra. At Ax there are two rival hotels, the Hotel
+de France, and the Hotel Sicre. The latter is a little cheaper though
+both are cheap, and while I know the second one best I should recommend
+the first; it will take you in as cheaply as any, and seems the more
+carefully kept; both have garages. The Hotel Sicre suffers somewhat from
+being directly attached to its Thermal Baths. If you are going to explore
+the wild country of the Upper Aston, you must start from Cabanes lower
+down on the railway. There is no need to sleep there. The valley above
+it has some of the best camping places in the Pyrenees. But it is worth
+knowing the name of the hotel, which is “Du Midi.” The whole place is, of
+course, quite small and cheap.
+
+On the high road into Roussillon choose Porté, primitive as it is, and
+avoid _Hospitalet_ (on the hither side of the pass of Puymorens) like the
+plague. Hospitalet and the village just before it, Merens, are for some
+reason or other quite spoilt; I fancy tourists come up so far as these
+two without going over the pass which they find too much trouble, and
+that their coming and going has spoilt the two places: at any rate they
+are detestable. They overcharge you and treat you with contempt at the
+same time.
+
+Porté, though it is but a few miles further on, is quite different. Here
+is one rude inn, as cheap as the grace of God, and kept by the most
+honest people in the world; Michet by name. It is thoroughly Spanish in
+character (for remember that Porté, though politically in France, is on
+the Spanish side of the main range, and that the pass just above is on
+the watershed); the animals live on the ground floor, the human beings
+just above them. You will never regret to have slept at Porté.
+
+As you go on into the plain of the Cerdagne you will find a good inn
+at La Tour Carol: not exactly enthusiastic in their greeting of the
+traveller, but polite. It is quite a little place of only half a thousand
+inhabitants, and you cannot expect much from it, but it is better than
+Saillagousse where they are most unwilling.
+
+Up the road to France from Saillagousse, at Mont Louis, is a hotel of
+which I can speak but little because my own experience of it was late on
+a holiday night when everything was very full, but it is substantial, it
+is cheap and I have heard it praised. It is called the Hotel de France,
+and it is a starting-point for the omnibus down to the rail-head at
+Villefranche in the valley above which rise the flanks of the Canigou.
+
+On the Canigou itself, standing upon a platform a few hundred feet below
+the summit facing the Mediterranean and one of the greatest views in this
+world, there is now an inn which you must not despise though it does
+happen to be somewhat tourist. It is only open for the end of June, July,
+August, and September, though one can sleep there at other times of the
+year if one asks at Prades for the housekeeper; he comes down to that
+town through the winter and is known there.
+
+In Perpignan (by the way) go to the chief hotel, for the hotels of that
+plain can be very vile when they try. This hotel is called “The Grand”
+and it stands on the quay of the smaller river just within the old
+fortifications. There is a delightful little restaurant in Perpignan
+called the Golden Lion, it is well to order what one wants some hours
+beforehand, and to take their own recommendation about wine. Perpignan is
+so twirled and knotted a town that I can give no directions for finding
+that Golden Lion, where it lies in its little back alley called the Rue
+des Cardeurs, save to tell you that it is but 200 yards from your hotel,
+and that the Rue des Cardeurs is the second on the _left_ as you walk
+away from the main front of the cathedral; or again, the _first_ on the
+left after you have crossed the Place Gambetta. Anyhow, Perpignan is a
+small place and anyone will show you where this eating-house is, and it
+is a good one. Down the Cerdagne in Spain, at Seo de Urgel, there are two
+or three hotels, and one of the second class called the Posada Universal
+or Universal Inn which merits its name; you will do well to stop there
+for it has a pleasant balcony overlooking the valley, with vines trained
+about it; and the people look after you.
+
+As to the inns of Andorra your best plan is to stop in the capital, that
+is, in _Andorra The Old_ itself, where the Posada is called the Posada
+_Calounes_, and is quite a little and simple place. The entry into
+Andorra, however, is not always easy. If you make it from the north, mist
+may delay you, even on the grassy Embalire Pass, and may keep you for
+hours on the higher crossings of the range, even when it does not defeat
+you altogether. You may therefore have no choice but to stop at one of
+the little villages; but it is a poor fate, for they are full of bugs and
+fleas and appalling cooking, though the people are kindly enough. The inn
+at Encamps is the only one with which I am myself acquainted among these
+smaller places; there also it is vile.
+
+I have omitted so far to speak of the inns in the Sobrarbe. That of
+Venasque is the largest and most used to travellers. Like all Spanish
+inns the life of the people is upstairs and the life of the animals
+below. It is clean and seems to be continually full of people, for there
+is quite a traffic to and from this mountain town. The inn has no name in
+particular that I know of, but you cannot miss it. Guide books call it
+“Des Touristes,” but I never heard anyone in Venasque give it that name.
+You have but to ask for the Posada, however, and anyone will show it you.
+It is in the first street on the left out of the main street as you come
+into the town. As to the cost of it, it is neither cheap nor dear; but
+(as I have said is common to the Spanish inns) it is a little on the
+side of dearness. A friend of mine with three companions and two mules
+found himself let in for over £3 for one night’s hospitality; on the
+other hand, I myself, some years after, with two companions, passed two
+nights and the day between with everything that we wanted to eat, smoke,
+and drink, and we came out for under £2. The mules perhaps consume.
+
+In all Sobrarbe there are but the inns of Bielsa and Torla (I mean in all
+the upper valleys which I have described) that can be approached without
+fear, and in Bielsa, as in Venasque and in Torla, the little place has
+but one. At Bielsa it is near the bridge and is kept by Pedro Perlos; I
+have not slept in it but I believe it to be clean and good. El Plan has a
+Posada called the Posada of the Sun (_del Sol_), but it is not praised;
+nay, it is detested by those who speak from experience. The inn that
+stands or stood at the lower part of the Val d’Arazas is said to be good;
+that at Torla is not so much an inn as an old chief’s house or manor
+called that of “Viu,” for that is the name of the family that owns it.
+They treat travellers very well.
+
+This is all that I know of the inns of the Pyrenees.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE APPROACHES TO THE PYRENEES
+
+
+A traveller from England, on considering his approach to the Pyrenees,
+must first appreciate the road heads or starting-places whence his
+travels to the Pyrenees may be made, and it is convenient to regard
+that one to which access can be had by rail. These points are eleven
+in number—St. Jean Pied-de-Port, Mauléon, Oloron, Laruns, Argelès,
+Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Arreau, Bagnères-de-Luchon, St. Girons, Foix, and
+Villefranche, which last is the highest point to which the rail will take
+one from Perpignan.
+
+One can get nearer the main range by light railways in certain places.
+Thus from Mauléon a steam tramway will take one some miles nearer the
+hills, to Tardets. From Lourdes the train goes up the valley several
+miles, and light railways go to Cauterets and Luz, and from Foix there
+is a considerable reach of rail, as far as Ax-les-Thermes, all up the
+valley of the Ariège, from which lateral valleys on every side enter the
+high mountains. Nevertheless, if one knows how to approach these eleven
+stations, and something of the hours of arriving at them, the slight
+extensions in the three cases named can easily be looked up, and there is
+no need to burden these pages with them.
+
+Of these eleven, the first four, St. Jean Pied-de-Port, Mauléon,
+Oloron, and Laruns, belong to the western section of the range, and are
+approached from Bordeaux. Another four, Arreau, Bagnères-de-Luchon, St.
+Girons, and Foix belong to the central and eastern section of the range,
+and are approached by way of Toulouse, while the two intermediate ones,
+Lourdes (and its extension up the valley) and Bagnères-de-Bigorre, may,
+according to the convenience of trains, be approached with equal facility
+from either direction.
+
+There remains Villefranche, the chief station under the Canigou, and the
+centre for the extreme eastern end of the range. The approach to this
+short and distant part of the Pyrenees is through Perpignan.
+
+By whichever road one approaches the Pyrenees, and from whatever town
+at their base one proposes to make the ascent of them, one leaves Paris
+by the Orleans line, choosing for preference the great new station on
+the Quai-d’Orsay, though if one is driving across Paris with no time
+to spare, it is better to catch the train at the Austerlitz station
+a mile or two further down the line where all the expresses stop, as
+the departure from that station is ten minutes later than from the
+Quai-d’Orsay. But the Austerlitz station is old-fashioned; all the
+conveniences of travel are gathered at the more recent terminus, and if
+one has any time to spare it is always from the Quai-d’Orsay that one
+should start.
+
+Arrived whether at Bordeaux or at Toulouse, one changes from the Orleans
+system to the Midi. This is not an absolutely accurate way of putting it,
+because, as a fact, the Orleans only enjoys running powers to Toulouse,
+along the main express line, but this is roughly the best way of putting
+it to make the reader understand the way in which the systems join.
+
+With these connexions, the first journey is made to Bordeaux, to Toulouse
+(or, in the exceptional case of the extreme east end of the Pyrenees,
+to Perpignan), and the journey forward from each of these towns is
+calculated upon another time table, and is often taken on a different
+train.
+
+To reach St. Jean, one goes on from Bordeaux to Bayonne and changes
+there. To reach Mauléon, one goes on from Bordeaux to Puyoo and changes
+there; to reach Oloron or Laruns, one goes on from Bordeaux to Pau and
+changes there.
+
+Roughly speaking, those who want to take the journey easily, without
+night travel, will find it necessary to sleep in Paris, to sleep again
+at Bordeaux (or somewhere further down the line, as at Bayonne or at
+Pau) and only on the third day to proceed to the towns from which they
+will begin to climb, whether that town be St. Jean, Mauléon, Oloron, or
+Laruns. For this purpose they must take the morning train which leaves
+Paris (Quai-d’Orsay) at an hour which changes but approximates eight to
+half-past, and gets to Bordeaux well before dinner. It is then possible
+to go on the same evening to Bayonne, and, if one goes first class, to
+get on the same night also to Puyoo or to Pau, but in all cases arrival
+at the foot of the mountains will not be possible until the next morning.
+
+Those who are content to suffer night travel will find an excellent and
+convenient train leaving Paris in the evening, reaching Bordeaux in the
+early morning, and putting them at any one of the mountain towns at, or a
+little after, noon. Thus, a person leaving London upon Saturday morning,
+will, if he travels only by day, reach any one of the western approaches
+to the Pyrenees on the mid-day of Monday, but if he will consent to a
+journey by night, he will save exactly twenty-four hours and arrive at
+noon (or in the early afternoon) of Sunday. The gain of twenty-four
+hours, by an apparent sacrifice of only twelve, is due to the nature of
+the connexions between the small mountain lines and the main lines. His
+return tickets, going in the cheapest manner, second class from London to
+the mountains and back will vary according to the mountain town chosen,
+from a little under £10 to £12, of which the French second class return
+fare from Paris is about or a little over £4 and the rest second return
+London to Paris and incidental expenses.
+
+The approach to the intermediary towns of Lourdes and
+Bagnères-de-Bigorre, is of the same sort and is usually better done
+through Bordeaux than through Toulouse, but one gets in a little later.
+Unless one takes the early night train from Paris just after eight one
+does not reach Lourdes until the late afternoon, nor Bagnères-de-Bigorre
+until night.
+
+The approach through Toulouse involves a longer train journey, and is
+made both by a night and a day train, as in the case of Bordeaux, and
+from the same station as I have said above. You can lunch on the day
+train, but you cannot dine upon it. Sleeping at Toulouse, one goes on
+next day by a morning train, starting a little after nine, and going
+through Tarbes, will get to Lourdes at about half-past one, or to
+Bagnères-de-Bigorre a few minutes earlier. Similarly, starting from
+Toulouse by the same morning train, one can get to Bagnères-de-Luchon
+just after noon, or to St. Girons at a little before one. It will be seen
+that these arrivals towards the centre of the chain are much at the same
+time as by the western approaches through Bordeaux. One gets in towards
+the middle of the third day in either case.
+
+Moreover, going through Toulouse resembles the journey through Bordeaux;
+if one undertakes to travel by night, one saves time in much the same
+manner, save that the night train is earlier. One must leave Paris about
+half-past eight in the evening, reach Toulouse at much the same hour
+the next morning, and one will find oneself at the foot of the Pyrenees
+about mid-day of the day after leaving London, changing at Toulouse for
+the morning train to Lourdes, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Luchon, St. Girons or
+Foix, respectively. There is, however, an exception to this apparently
+general rule that the shortest journey to the Pyrenees, even if one
+travels by night, must take well over the twenty-four hours.
+
+As to the approach from Perpignan, this is useful for that little corner
+of the range which overlooks the Roussillon which is less than one-tenth
+of the total length. Only one important height is to be found here, the
+Canigou. The railway journey is very long. If one goes by day, it is
+imperative that one should break it somewhere. It would be more accurate
+to say that one can make it by day only if one breaks it somewhere, and
+if one makes it by night, one must leave Paris in the evening in order
+to get to Perpignan for lunch, or at half-past eight to get in at two.
+It is no way to approach the Pyrenees, unless one happens to be taking a
+journey down France for other purposes which will lead him towards the
+districts of Narbonne and Perpignan. It must be noted that since the war
+there is an excellent cross-country train from Bordeaux and Toulouse to
+Narbonne, where change for Perpignan.
+
+No other approach to the Pyrenees save these by railway from the north
+will be of use to most travellers from England.
+
+The new, good and fast day train from Toulouse is now at eleven in the
+morning.
+
+The approaches from the south, in the rare case of a traveller who may
+take the Pyrenees on the way back from Spain, are all difficult with the
+exception of the line from Saragossa to Jaca. A main line leads of course
+from the capital to Saragossa, there one must cross the Ebro to the
+station upon the northern bank. The train to Jaca goes by Huesca and it
+takes all day, but it is worth doing in order to get within a day’s walk
+of the main range.
+
+From every other centre, except from Pamplona, the Pyrenees are
+hopelessly distant. Seo and the Catalan valleys depend upon Barbastro as
+does the valley of the Cinca in Aragon, but it is a most tedious journey
+in stuffy omnibuses followed by an equally tedious day and a half or two
+days upon a mule before you find yourself in the high Pyrenees. Pamplona
+is, roughly speaking, one day’s walk from the heart of the mountains, and
+no other town, excepting Jaca, upon the railway on the Spanish side is
+worth considering as a rail-head.
+
+It should be noted that there is during the summer months a motor car
+service between Pamplona and Jaca, which goes along the valley of the
+Aragon and covers the distance in the better part of a day.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  A
+
+  Accous or Bédous, plain of, 159-160
+
+  Agra, river, mentioned, 20;
+    valley of, 147
+
+  Aiguestoites, Port de, 181
+
+  Albigenses, crusade against, its meaning and results, 49
+
+  Alfonso el Batallador, 54
+
+  Alpargatas, 122
+
+  Alps, contrasted with Pyrenees, 25-26
+
+  Andorra, history and character of, 192-193
+
+  — forms with Catalan valleys a district of Pyrenees, 187-198
+
+  — how reached from Ariège, 187-193
+
+  — posada of, 232
+
+  Anicle, Col d’, 171-172
+
+  Anie, Pic d’, its position on first axis of Pyrenees, 6
+
+  — boundary of the Basques, 38, 154
+
+  Aphours, brook of, 150
+
+  Aragnouet, 181
+
+  Aragon, river, mentioned, 20
+
+  — valley of, easy connexion of, with valley of Gallego, 158;
+    described, 161
+
+  — kingdom, named after river, 20;
+    and Béarn, their position on the range, 37
+
+  Aran, Val d’, _see_ “Val”
+
+  Arazas, valley of, 169-170;
+    Inn there, 233
+
+  Ariège, sources of, 191
+
+  — valley of, position of on axis of Pyrenees, 8;
+    forms old county of Foix, 15;
+    in connexion with that of the Tet, 204-209
+
+  Ariel, Pic d’, 205
+
+  Arles, on Tech, 213-214
+
+  Arras, Col d’, 215
+
+  Arreau, hotels at, 227
+
+  Arrouye, Pic d’, 182
+
+  Aspe, Val d’, 158
+
+  Aston, upper, adventure of author upon, 108-112
+
+  — river, advantages of district of, 187-188
+
+  Ax, way from, to valley of Tet, 206-208;
+    hotels and baths of, 230
+
+
+  B
+
+  Bagnères-de-Bigorre, hotels at, 226;
+    de Luchon, _see_ “Luchon”
+
+  Baigorry, valley of, 145-146
+
+  Balatag, wood of, on Canigou, 212
+
+  Bambilette, port, 152
+
+  Bargebit, Pic de, on Canigou, 213
+
+  Barrosa, stream of, 174
+
+  Barroude, pass of, 181
+
+  Basque, place names found throughout Spain and Pyrenees, 38-39
+
+  — Valleys, a district of the Pyrenees, 145-154
+
+  Basques, their position on the range, 37;
+    Pic d’Anie, boundary, 38
+
+  — no Roman record of, 45-46
+
+  Bathing, dangerous when fatigued, 143
+
+  Batallador, surname of Alfonso, 54
+
+  Bayonne, road from, to Pamplona described, 96-99
+
+  Béarn and Aragon, their position on the range, 37
+
+  Béarn, Roman name of, 44;
+    with Navarre and Roussillon, last exceptions to French sovereignty
+        north of Pyrenees, 49
+
+  Bédous, Hotel de la Poste at, 160
+
+  Bédous, hotel of, 222
+
+  — or Accous, plan of, 159-160
+
+  Belhay, Port de, 152
+
+  Belver, head of Urgel road, 203
+
+  _Benarnensium Civitas_, modern Béarn, 44
+
+  Bicycling in Pyrenees, 104-105
+
+  Bielsa, Port de, 181
+
+  — second stage in way from Panticosa to Venasque, 170;
+    described, 171;
+    inn of, 233
+
+  Biescas, mentioned as example of a town in a Spanish valley, 19
+
+  Bigerriones, original name of inhabitants of Bigorre, 44
+
+  Bigorre, originally land of “Bigerriones,” 44;
+    Pic du Midi de, _see_ “Pic”
+
+  Blankets, 122-123
+
+  Boella, Col de, 215
+
+  Bonaigo, Pass of, nature of, 28, 31, 197
+
+  Bota, _see_ “Gourd”
+
+  Boucacers, Col de, 211
+
+  Boucharo, French name for Bujaruelo, 169
+
+  Boussens, amazing cooking at, 230
+
+  Bread, proper rations of, 125-126
+
+  Brèche de Roland, 173
+
+  Bujaruelo (Boucharo) in Sobrarbe, 169
+
+  Burguete, hotel at, 221
+
+
+  C
+
+  Cabanes, use of, as shelter, 123
+
+  — village and station of, starting-point for passes of Peyregrils
+        and Fontargente, 188
+
+  Cabillere, Pic de, 188
+
+  Cacouette, gorge of, alluded to, 16, 152
+
+  Cadi, Sierra del, mentioned, 20;
+    aspect from St. Croz, 196;
+    aspect of, from Cerdagne, 200
+
+  Cady, brook of, 213
+
+  Cambret, brook of, 214
+
+  Camphor, sovereign against bugs, 223
+
+  Camping, rules for, 128-133
+
+  Canal Roya, example of difficulty of finding a col, 110-113
+
+  — valley of, and col, 158
+
+  — entrance to, 161-162
+
+  Canfranc, 161;
+    poor hotel of, 223
+
+  Canigou, hotel near summit of, 231;
+    district of, 210-216;
+    peaks of, ways up to, 211-215
+
+  Canillo, village of, 191
+
+  Carlitte, group of mountains, 204
+
+  Casteil, hamlet on way up Canigou, 212
+
+  Castellbo, first stage in way from Urgel to Esterri, 194;
+    delicious inn of, 229
+
+  Catalans, their position on the range, 36
+
+  Catalonia, origins of, 54
+
+  Cauterets, hotels of, 226
+
+  Cerberus, Cape, eastern limit of second axis of Pyrenees, 4
+
+  Cerdagne, political anomaly of, 57-58;
+    described, 199-203;
+    why annexed by Mazarin, 201
+
+  Chaitza, stream of, 151
+
+  Christians, reconquest of Spanish slope by, 50-54
+
+  Cinca, valley of, with Broto and Esera make up Sobrarbe, 167
+
+  Cinqueta, affluent of the Cinca, 167
+
+  Cirere, Col de, 213
+
+  Climate of Pyrenees, 33-35
+
+  Coidenes, bridge of, 188
+
+  Col, or pass, _see_ under particular names
+
+  Comminges, modern name of district of Convenæ, 43-45
+
+  Compass, variation of, in Pyrenees, 60;
+    necessary in equipment, 127-128
+
+  Consevanni, modern Conserans, 44-45
+
+  Conserans, Roman “Consevanni,” 44-45
+
+  Convenæ, 43-44
+
+  Coumette, Pic de la, 188
+
+  Cruz, Col de la, 174
+
+  Cuberre, bridge of, 176
+
+
+  D
+
+  Dalmanya, torrent of, 213;
+    village of, 213
+
+  Dastan, Val, 185
+
+  Distance, best reckoned in mountains by time, 76-78
+
+  “Double Col,” most dangerous example of ambiguity in a pass, 137-140
+
+  Driving in Pyrenees, 105
+
+
+  E
+
+  Eaux Bonnes, chief hotel of, 225
+
+  — Chaudes, 164
+
+  — hotel of, 225
+
+  Elizondo, 147-148
+
+  — hotels of, 220
+
+  _Elloronensium Civitas_, modern Oloron, 44
+
+  Elne, 42
+
+  El Plan, posada of, 233
+
+  Embalire, pass of, 31;
+    easiest entry into Andorra, 191-193
+
+  Encamps, village of, 191;
+    inn of, 231
+
+  Equipment, description of necessary, 115-124
+
+  Erro, 148
+
+  — inn at, 221
+
+  Escaló, village of, 196
+
+  Escolier, Pic d’, 150
+
+  Escuain, Col de, 171
+
+  Espousouille, hamlet of, 208
+
+  Esterri, hotel of, 229
+
+  — mentioned as example of a town in a Spanish valley, 18;
+    described, 197;
+    way to, from Urge, 194-198
+
+  Europe, grouping of peoples unchanged in, during recorded history, 1-2
+
+
+  F
+
+  Fillols, on way up Canigou from Villefranche, 212
+
+  Foix, county of, identical with valley of Ariège, 15
+
+  Fontargente, tarn of, 191
+
+  — pass of, into Andorra, 190-191
+
+  Forata, Peña, 165
+
+  Formiguères, village of, on way from Ax to Tet valley, 206
+
+  French measurements, English equivalents, 74-77
+
+  — slope of Pyrenees, formation of, 10-12;
+    names and character of valleys on, 10-15;
+    multiplicity of roads on, 79-82
+
+  Frontier, political, its present connexion with watershed, 54-58
+
+
+  G
+
+  Gabas, 164
+
+  — excellent hotel of, 224
+
+  Gabediou, Pic de, 182
+
+  Galbe, stream of, 208
+
+  Gallego, valley of, position of, on axis of Pyrenees, 7
+
+  — valley of, 166
+
+  — valley of, easy connexion of, with valley of Aragon, 158
+
+  Gari, valley of, 185
+
+  Garonne, curious source of, 186
+
+  Gas, Pic du Col de, 189
+
+  Gascon, name of, supposed to be Basque, 39
+
+  Gaulis, Col de, 170
+
+  Gavarnie, example of a high-valley village, 21;
+    town of, 226
+
+  — Port de, 31
+
+  — Cirque de, 181
+
+  Gerbats, Pic de, 182
+
+  Gistain, Col de, 175-176
+
+  Glacé, lake, 186
+
+  Glaciers, absence of, 33
+
+  Gnoles, torrent of, 206
+
+  Gourd, or bota, description of, 117-120
+
+
+  H
+
+  Hayra, forest of, 146
+
+  Heas, stream and village of, 181-182
+
+  Heights and distances, French, way of turning into English feet and
+        miles, 74-77
+
+  Helena, original name of Elne, 42
+
+  Henry IV and Mazarin complete French sovereignty north of Pyrenees, 49
+
+  Hix, 202
+
+  Hospitalet, of Ariège, 191;
+    of Luchon, 184
+
+  Huesca, Sancho’s attempt on, 53;
+    road to, 99, 103
+
+
+  I
+
+  Illiberis, old name for Elne, 42
+
+  Inns, of the Pyrenees, 217-233;
+    Spanish and French, contrasted, 218-233
+
+  Iraty, Spanish valley, head-waters in France, 56
+
+  Isaba, 153
+
+  Ispeguy, pass of, between Baigorry and Baztan, 146
+
+
+  J
+
+  Jaca, mentioned as example of town in Spanish valley, 18;
+    one of three mountain bishoprics on Spanish slope, 46;
+    counted as French during Mahommedan occupation, 48;
+    early independence of, 53;
+    excellent hotel of, 223
+
+  “Jasses,” nature of these flats, 15-16
+
+  “Jeous,” local name, 26
+
+
+  K
+
+  Kilometre, estimate of, by time, 141-142
+
+  Knapsack, _see_ “Pack”
+
+
+  L
+
+  Labourd, valley of, 145
+
+  Lakes, character of, in Pyrenees, 32;
+    of Maladetta, Encantados, etc., 32
+
+  Lakes of the Carlitte, 204
+
+  Lamoux, lake of, 205
+
+  Larrasoaña, 148
+
+  Larrau, 151
+
+  Laruns, 164;
+    hotel of, 225
+
+  La Tour Carol, 202;
+    inn of, 231
+
+  Laurhibar, village of, 149;
+    stream and village of, 149-150
+
+  Lecumberry, 149
+
+  Le Tech, hamlet of, 214
+
+  L’Homme, Pic de, western limit of second axis of Pyrenees, 4
+
+  Licq, 151
+
+  Llavorsi, village of, 196
+
+  Llivia, 200-201
+
+  Lourdes, hotels of, 225
+
+  Luchon, valley of, with valleys of Tarbes, makes separate district in
+        Pyrenees, 179-186
+
+  — hot springs of, 183
+
+  — way to Venasque from, by Port d’Oo, 185-186
+
+  — valley and district of, 182-186;
+    road to, from Val d’Aran, 197-198;
+    wealth and hotels of, 228-229
+
+  Lys, valley of, 185
+
+
+  M
+
+  Magdalena, river of, 195
+
+  Maggi, provision of, 125;
+    method of using, 127
+
+  Maladetta, view of, from Port de Venasque, 185
+
+  Maps, for the range, 59-78
+
+  Marignac, forest of, 184
+
+  Mauléon, capital of the Soule, 149
+
+  Mazarin annexes Roussillon to France, 49
+
+  — annexes Cerdagne, 56-58
+
+  Mediterranean, civilization of, in connexion with Pyrenees, 42-43
+
+  Merens, example of a high-valley village, 17-18
+
+  Metres and kilometres, way of reducing to feet and miles, 74-76
+
+  Midi, Pic du, d’Ossau, 160;
+    de Bigorre, 180
+
+  Moines, Col des, 157-161
+
+  Mollo, _see_ “Prats”
+
+  Monsech, Sierra of, distance of, from main range, 9, 20
+
+  Mont Louis, pass of, mentioned, 30;
+    hotel of, 231
+
+  Motoring in Pyrenees, by the “lower road,” 84-87;
+    by the “upper road,” 86-93;
+    across the range, 93-99;
+    from Pamplona to Jaca, 99;
+    to Saragossa, 99
+
+  Mountain, ranges of, often regarded too simply, 2-3
+
+  Mules, not always obtainable in inns, 219
+
+
+  N
+
+  Names, fantastic, of Pyrenees mountains, 24
+
+  Napoleon III, makes Somport road from Urdos, 161
+
+  Navarre with Béarn and Roussillon, the last exceptions to French
+        sovereignty north of Pyrenees, 49
+
+  Navas de Tolosa, battle of, 54
+
+  Nive, French river, rises in Spain, 56
+
+  Noguera Pallaresa, 196
+
+  Noguille, lake of, 204
+
+  Novempopulania, Roman district north of Pyrenees, 41-45
+
+
+  O
+
+  Olette, town of, 208
+
+  Oloron, Roman name of, 44;
+    main road from, to Saragossa, described, 93-96;
+    hotels at, 222
+
+  Oo, Port d’, 222
+
+  Ordino, town of, 190
+
+  Orgeix, 205
+
+  Oriège, valley of, 205
+
+  Orleu, 205
+
+  Oroel, Peña d’, 161
+
+  Ossau, Val d’, 164;
+    Pic du Midi de, _see_ “Pic”
+
+  Otxogorrigagne, Mount, 152
+
+  Ourdayte, or “Urdayte,” Port d’, 31, 152
+
+  Ourdissettou, Pic d’, 181
+
+
+  P
+
+  Pack, type of, in equipment, 121-122
+
+  Pallars, name of Esterri valley, 196
+
+  Pamplona, Roman bishopric on Spanish slope, 46;
+    road to, from Bayonne described, 96-99;
+    hotels of, 221
+
+  Pannikin, description of, 115-116
+
+  Panticosa, way to Venasque from, through Sobrarbe, 167-178;
+    numerous hotels of, 224
+
+  Passes over Pyrenees, nature of, 27-32
+
+  Path, importance of faint indications, so called, in Pyrenees, 113-115
+
+  Pau, Gave de, valley of, position of, on axis of Pyrenees, 6
+
+  Pelayo, heads the Reconquista, 51
+
+  Peña, Sierra de la, mentioned, 19
+
+  Perpignan, hotel and restaurant of, 231
+
+  Peyregrils, pass of, into Andorra, 188-190
+
+  Pic du Midi d’Ossau, 160;
+    approach from Gabas, 164
+
+  — de Bigorre, 180
+
+  Pinède, cliffs of, 172
+
+  Pique, river of, in Luchon valley, 184
+
+  Pla de Guillem, pass of, in Canigou, 214
+
+  Place names, Basque, in Spain and Pyrenees, 38-39
+
+  Plan, El, village of, 177-178
+
+  “Plans,” larger form of Jasses, 15-16
+
+  Port Vendres, 42
+
+  Portaillet, Col of, on shoulder of Canigou, 214
+
+  Porte Blanche, pass of, into Andorra, 215
+
+  Porté, 204;
+    inn of, 231
+
+  Porteille, notch between county of Foix and Roussillon, 208
+
+  “Ports,” or passes, over Pyrenees, nature of, 26-30
+
+  Posets, Pic de, 174
+
+  Pourtalet, pass of, mentioned, 30;
+    modern road over, 163-164
+
+  Prades, town of, way up Canigou from, 212
+
+  Prats de Mollo, 214
+
+  Puigcerdá, 202
+
+  Puigdarbet, peak of, on Canigou, 213
+
+  Puillouse, marsh of, 205
+
+  Puymorens, Col de, limit of the Catalans, 37
+
+  — pass of, 204
+
+  Py, on Canigou, 214
+
+  Pyrenees, physical nature of, 1-35;
+    double axis of, 3-8;
+    length of chain, 4;
+    original formation of, 8;
+    contrast of northern and southern slope of, 9;
+    climate of, 33-35;
+    political character of, 36, etc.;
+    form the bastion against Islam, 47
+
+  — Treaty of, 49
+
+
+  Q
+
+  Quazémi peak of, on Canigou, 212
+
+
+  R
+
+  Railways, start far from main range on Spanish side, 21
+
+  Rain, distribution of, in Pyrenees, 33-35
+
+  Ranges, mountain, _see_ “Mountain”;
+    secondary, perpendicular to main range on northern, parallel to it
+        on southern slope, 9, 19
+
+  Reconquista, 50-54
+
+  Rialb, stream of, 189
+
+  Rivers, shape of their course on Spanish slope, 20
+
+  Roman advance on Spanish slope, 45-47
+
+  Romans, make watershed of Pyrenees a boundary, 40-41;
+    their advance north of Pyrenees, 41-45
+
+  Roncesvalles, pass of, mentioned, 30;
+    high road through, 97;
+    road to, from Pamplona, 148
+
+  Roque Couloum, mountain, 211
+
+  Roscino, gives name to Roussillon, 42
+
+  Rou, tarn of, 204
+
+  Roussillon, formed round valley of Tet, 15;
+    with Navarre and Béarn, last exception to French sovereignty north
+        of Pyrenees, 49
+
+
+  S
+
+  Sabouredo, Pic de, eastern limits of first axis of Pyrenees, 4
+
+  Sahun, Col de, 178
+
+  Saillagousse, 202;
+    a place to avoid, 231
+
+  St. Bertrand de Comminges, origin of, 45
+
+  St. Croz, village of, 194
+
+  St. Duillem, huts of, 214
+
+  Ste. Engrace, 151-153
+
+  — Port de, position of, on axis of Pyrenees, 6;
+    passage of, 152-153
+
+  — inn at, 222
+
+  St. Etienne, in Baigorry, 146-147
+
+  St. Girons, hotel of, 230
+
+  St. Jean le Vieux, site of Roman town, 148
+
+  St. Jean Pied de Port, 148;
+    road from, to Soule, 148-151;
+    hotels at, 221
+
+  St. Jerome, his story of Convenæ, 45
+
+  St. John, Port of, 195-196
+
+  St. Lizier, originally Glycerius, 44
+
+  Salau, pass of, distance of, from plains, 9, 20, 197
+
+  — Port of, mentioned, 30
+
+  Saldeu, pass and hamlet of, 191
+
+  Salinas de Sin, 177
+
+  Sallent, way to, from, Urdos, 161-163
+
+  Sallent, character of inn of, 224
+
+  — Port Vieux de, 163
+
+  Salpichon, value of, 125
+
+  Sancho, killed before Huesca, 53
+
+  Sandales, _see_ “Alpargatas”
+
+  Sarabillo, 177
+
+  Saragossa, the main road over Pyrenees to, 99, 103
+
+  Sauvegarde, Pic de, 185
+
+  Schrader, his map of central Pyrenees, 61, 73-74
+
+  Secondary ranges, perpendicular to main range on northern side,
+        parallel to it on the southern, 10, 19
+
+  Sentina, torrent of, 177
+
+  Serrat, village of, 190
+
+  Snow, perennial, absence of in Pyrenees, 25
+
+  Sobrarbe, name of Eastern Aragon, 20, 23;
+    district in Pyrenees, 167-178
+
+  Socks, folly of wearing, 116
+
+  Somport, pass so called, position of, on axis of Pyrenees, 6;
+    nature of, 28, 30;
+    main road over, from Oloron to Saragossa, described, 92-95
+
+  Soulauet, tarn of, 189
+
+  Soule, district in Basque valleys, 148-154
+
+  — road from St. Jean de Port to, 148-151
+
+  Souscousse, woods of, 154
+
+  Sousquéou, valley of, 164-165
+
+  Spanish government, contrast of, with French, in Cerdagne, 201
+
+  Spanish slope of Pyrenees, formation of, 10;
+    type of valleys in, 18-24;
+    Roman conquest of, 45-47;
+    reconquest of, by Christians, 50-54;
+    absence of roads on, 84;
+    unmapped, 66;
+    partially given in French maps, 67
+
+  Spates, rare in Pyrenean streams, 32
+
+  Spirits of wine, necessity of, 126-127
+
+  Streams, Pyrenean, spates rare in, 32
+
+
+  T
+
+  Tarbelli, Roman name for people of Dax, 44
+
+  Tarbes, originally Turba, 44;
+    valleys of, and Luchon, district in Pyrenees, 179-186;
+    hotel at, 182
+
+  Tardets, central town of the Soule, 150-151;
+    admirable hotel at, 221-222
+
+  Taurinya, on way up Canigou from Prades, 212
+
+  Tech, valley of, 211
+
+  Tent, folly of carrying one, 124
+
+  Tet, valley of, forms core of Roussillon, 15
+
+  — valley of, with that of Ariège, makes a district in Pyrenees,
+        204-209
+
+  Thirteen Winds, peak of, on Canigou, 214
+
+  Tigra, forest of, 153
+
+  Time, distance in mountains best reckoned by, 77-78
+
+  Torla, with Bielsa and Venasque, chief centres of Sobrarbe, 167;
+    first stage in way from Panticosa to Venasque, 169;
+    curious inn at, 233
+
+  Toro, Trou de, 186
+
+  Torte, tarn of, 204
+
+  Towns, nature of Pyrenean, 17
+
+  Trainzaygues, 180
+
+  Treaty of Pyrenees, 49
+
+  Troumouse, Cirque, 181-182
+
+  Turba, old name of Tarbes, 44
+
+  Turmo, Cabane of, 176
+
+
+  U
+
+  Urdayte, or “Ourdayte,” port of, _see_ “Ourdayte”
+
+  Urdos, example of a high-valley village, 17;
+    travel through, 160
+
+  Urgel (Seo de), Roman bishopric on Spanish slope, 46;
+    bishopric of, counted as French during Mahommedan occupation, 48;
+    appearance of, 193-194;
+    way from, to Esterri and Val d’Aran, 194-198;
+    hotel at, 232
+
+  Urtioga, Mount, western limit of Pyrenees, 4;
+    in Basque valleys, 145
+
+
+  V
+
+  Val d’Aran, political anomaly of, 56-57;
+    way to, from Urgel through Esterri, 194-198
+
+  Val Carlos, 148;
+    accommodation at, 221
+
+  Vallcivera, Port de, 215
+
+  Valleys, nature of, on French slope, 15-18;
+    eight, on western French slope, 12-15;
+    two (Ariège and Tet) on eastern French slope, 14-15;
+    on Spanish slope, nature of, 18-24
+
+  — the Four, district of Pyrenees, 155-166;
+    strategical importance of, 155-156
+
+  Valley, “wrong,” _see_ “Wrong valley”
+
+  Venasque, mentioned as example of a town in a Spanish valley, 18;
+    way to, from Panticosa, through Sobrarbe, 168-178;
+    alternative southern way to, from Bielsa, 177-178;
+    way to, from Luchon by Port d’Oo, 185-186;
+    posada of, 232
+
+  — Port de, mentioned, 31, 184-185
+
+  Vernet, on way up Canigou, 212
+
+  Viella, in Val d’Aran, 197;
+    road from, to Luchon, 198;
+    hotels of, 229
+
+  Vielle, hotel at, 227
+
+  Villefranche, town of, rail-head in Tet valley, 209
+
+  Vultures, Peak of the, 153
+
+
+  W
+
+  Watershed, forms political boundary during periods of high
+        civilization, 40-41
+
+  Weather, peculiar difficulty of main ridge in doubtful, 31
+
+  Wine, Spanish, taste of, 219
+
+  Wood, rarely found near lake in Pyrenees, 32;
+    effect of, on streams, 33
+
+  “Wrong valley,” types of danger of getting into, 133-140
+
+                _Printed by Jarrold & Sons, Ltd., Norwich_
+
+
+
+
+METHUEN’S GENERAL LITERATURE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A SELECTION OF MESSRS. METHUEN’S PUBLICATIONS
+
+This Catalogue contains only a selection of the more important books
+published by Messrs. Methuen. A complete catalogue of their publications
+may be obtained on application.
+
+
+PART I. GENERAL LITERATURE
+
+=Ashby (Thomas)=
+
+    SOME ITALIAN FESTIVALS. With 24 Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 7s.
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+
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+
+    THE LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _Twentieth Edition. In one
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+
+=Barker (Ernest)=
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+    NATIONAL CHARACTER. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._ GREEK POLITICAL
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+
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+
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+    each._
+
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+
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75369 ***
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+  </head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75369 ***</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a>[i]</span></p>
+
+<h1>THE PYRENEES</h1>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a>[ii]</span></p>
+
+<div class="front-matter">
+
+<p class="center">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</p>
+
+<ul class="allsmcap">
+<li>PARIS</li>
+<li>MARIE ANTOINETTE</li>
+<li>EMMANUEL BURDEN, MERCHANT</li>
+<li>A CHANGE IN THE CABINET</li>
+<li>HILLS AND THE SEA</li>
+<li>ON NOTHING AND KINDRED SUBJECTS</li>
+<li>ON EVERYTHING</li>
+<li>ON SOMETHING</li>
+<li>FIRST AND LAST</li>
+<li>THIS AND THAT AND THE OTHER</li>
+<li>ON</li>
+<li>A PICKED COMPANY</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="frontispiece" style="max-width: 29.6875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE GATE OF THE ROUSILLON</p>
+  <p><i>H. Belloc, del.</i></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger">THE PYRENEES</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br>
+H. BELLOC</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">WITH NUMEROUS SKETCHES</span><br>
+BY THE AUTHOR<br>
+<span class="smaller">AND TWENTY-TWO MAPS</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">FOURTH EDITION<br>
+WITH A NEW PREFACE</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter titlepage illowp64" style="max-width: 9.375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/methuen.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="center">METHUEN &amp; CO. LTD.<br>
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br>
+LONDON</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv"></a>[iv]</span></p>
+
+<table class="smaller">
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>First Published (Demy 8vo)</i></td>
+    <td class="tdc"><i>June 3rd 1909</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>Second Edition</i></td>
+    <td class="tdc"><i>June&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1916</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>Third Edition (Crown 8vo)</i></td>
+    <td class="tdc"><i>April&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1923</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>Fourth Edition (Crown 8vo)</i></td>
+    <td class="tdc"><i>1928</i></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter front-matter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">TO<br>
+<span class="larger">GILBERT MOORHEAD</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent allsmcap">IN PIOUS MEMORY OF PAMPLONA, ELIZONDO,
+THE CANON WHO SHOT QUAILS WITH A
+WALKING-STICK, THE IGNORANT HIERARCH,
+THE CHOCOLATE OF THE AGED WOMAN,
+THE ONE-EYED HORSE OF THE PEÑA
+BLANCA, THE MIRACULOUS BRIDGE, AND
+THE UNHOLY VISION OF ST. GIRONS.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>The only object of this book is to provide, for those
+who desire to do as I have done in the Pyrenees, a
+general knowledge of the mountains in which they
+propose to travel.</p>
+
+<p>I have paid particular attention to make clear those
+things which I myself only learned slowly during several
+journeys and after much reading, and which I would like to
+have been told before I first set out. I could not pretend
+within the limits of this book, or with such an object in view,
+to write anything in the nature of a Guide, and indeed there
+are plenty of books of that sort from which one can learn most
+that is necessary to ordinary travel upon the frontier of
+France and Spain; but I proposed when I began these few
+pages to set down what a man might not find in such books:
+as—what he should expect in certain inns, by what track he
+might best see certain districts, what difficulties he was to
+expect upon the crest of the mountains, how long a time crossings
+apparently short might take him, what the least kit was
+which he could carry into the hills, how he had best camp and
+find his way and the rest, what maps were at his disposal,
+the advantages of each map, its defects, and so forth. The
+little of general matter which I have admitted into my pages—a
+dissertation upon the physical nature of the chain, and a
+shorter division upon its political character—I have strictly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii"></a>[viii]</span>
+limited to what I thought necessary to that general understanding
+of a mountain without which travel upon it would
+be a poor pleasure indeed.</p>
+
+<p>If I have admitted such petty details as the times of trains,
+and the cost of a journey from London, it is because I have
+found those petty details to be of the first importance to
+myself, as indeed they must be to all those who have but little
+leisure. I have in everything attempted to set down only
+that which would be really useful to a man on foot or driving
+in that country, and only that which he could not easily
+obtain in other books. Thus I have carefully set down
+directions as minute as possible for finding particular crossings
+and camping grounds, for the finding of which the
+ordinary Guide Book is of no service. My chief regret is that
+the book will necessarily be too bulky to carry in the pocket;
+for it is meant to be not so much a lively as an accurate
+companion to the general exploration of those high hills
+which have given me so much delight.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ix"></a>[ix]</span></p>
+
+<h3>PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION</h3>
+
+<p>This third edition of my book on the Pyrenees
+necessarily suffers somewhat from the fact that it is
+published after the interval of the Great War.</p>
+
+<p>The book in its original form was written in the course of
+1908-09, and contained a number of particular details on
+prices, etc., which the war has completely changed. These
+I have had to revise <i>only approximately</i>, for the value of the
+franc still fluctuates violently. But the present conditions
+of currency in Europe are not permanent. In other matters
+the book is as applicable to the present condition of the
+Pyrenees as it was to that thirteen or fourteen years ago.
+The road system is the same, and though one or two of the
+inns may have changed hands, the account of these I give
+holds in the main. There have been no new maps issued,
+either, since the date on which the book was written. I have
+not added anything on the present system of passports, because
+that also presumably will be out of date in a short
+time; but I may mention that at the moment of writing
+these lines (September, 1922), it is advisable to have one’s
+passport <i>viséd</i> to Spain before visiting the mountains. Even
+if the reader has no intention of crossing the frontier he may
+be compelled to do so under stress of weather, or he may
+easily do so by error in the confusion of the higher valleys,
+and in the first Spanish town he comes to his passport is sure
+to be demanded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_x"></a>[x]</span></p>
+
+<p>The train service differs little now from what it was before
+the war. The night and day services and the average number
+of hours required for approaching the mountains from Paris
+or London, are again much what they were fourteen years ago.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xi"></a>[xi]</span></p>
+
+<h3>PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION</h3>
+
+<p>I write this Preface to the Fourth Edition after five
+years.</p>
+
+<p>My last note upon this book was written, as the reader
+will see, for the Third Edition, in September, 1922. These
+lines are written in November, 1927.</p>
+
+<p>When I wrote my Preface to the Third Edition, Europe,
+its currencies, and the rest, were still under the heavy disturbances
+of the Great War. But things are now more
+settled, notably currencies. Also a few more years of peace
+have given both French and Spaniards the opportunity for
+building new roads, and for extending the railway system.</p>
+
+<p>In the notes I am about to add here I ought to make it
+clear that I am writing principally by information rather than
+by direct personal experience, and anyone who finds that
+some point ought to be corrected or something added, and
+who will communicate with the publishers, or with myself
+care of the publishers, will be doing the future readers of this
+book a great service. I am sure to be making some mistakes,
+and the less there are in any future edition the better.</p>
+
+<p>I humbly beg the reader to remember that the book was
+written in the old days of peace, “before ever the sons of
+Achaia came to the land.” It was also written when I was
+a young man and could go over any number of miles on foot
+in any weather and over pretty well anything—even the
+worst steeps of the Canal Roya, though I have no claim to
+climbing. To-day I can do none of these things, and have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xii"></a>[xii]</span>
+to go by hearsay. I propose to divide what I have to say
+into (1) general remarks, (2) additions to the road system,
+(3) the (comparatively slight) changes in the railroad system
+(including the change in the value of money and present
+prices of tickets), (4) changes in inns (here I shall have to be
+very tentative, for I have to go mainly by reports), and (5)
+maps.</p>
+
+<h4>(1) <span class="smcap">General</span></h4>
+
+<p>The political situation has so developed that it is no longer
+advisable, as I formerly said, but <i>necessary</i> to have one’s
+passport <i>viséd</i> for Spain before starting for the Pyrenees,
+even if one has no intention of crossing the frontier. For,
+as I said when the book was written, there are occasions
+when the traveller on foot in the mountains may cross the
+frontier unwittingly, and have to deal with the authorities
+on the farther side. To this must be added the consideration
+that a stricter central government in Spain, coupled
+with occasional plots against it, has made the frontier
+authorities particularly vigilant. They may take from a
+traveller anything which looks like an offensive weapon—an
+acquaintance of mine was deprived, for instance, of a
+very large stick, and he might have fared worse with a very
+large knife. It is well to remember that when you enter
+Spain by this frontier you are coming in by its most remote,
+least peopled, and most difficult area, and that one must have
+nothing to explain if one can help it. I mean, of course,
+when you enter over the main range; for the two main
+roads and railways at either end of the chain by the sea-coasts
+of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean are common
+international highways.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiii"></a>[xiii]</span></p>
+
+<p>Another point to remember, which is a small one but now
+and then, though very rarely, important to the traveller, is that
+the variation in the compass has changed since this book was
+written. It was written twenty years ago, and was published
+nearly nineteen years ago, and since then the variation of
+the compass has lessened (for this part of the world) by
+something like three degrees. The traveller must further
+remember that (though it is not very strictly enforced) there
+is a new law in France both for travellers proposing to reside
+a certain time in the country and (this is strictly enforced)
+a daily tax for travellers using foreign motor-cars in the
+country; while all the Spanish corresponding regulations
+have been tightened up. The wise thing to do, therefore,
+if you mean to spend more than a fortnight in these hills
+on either side of the border, is to inform yourself thoroughly
+upon arrival of what is required of you. You can do it in
+France easily enough; but as on the Spanish side the main
+towns are a long way from the range, you will do well, if you
+intend to spend any number of days to the south of the
+frontier, to find out at the Spanish Consulate in London
+or at your nearest large town what formalities may be
+needed.</p>
+
+<p>On the effect of the change in prices I deal elsewhere. But
+there are two things to be remembered here, with one of
+which most people are familiar, but the other of which most
+people have not as yet appreciated. The first is that on the
+French as on the Spanish side, but much more on the
+French side than on the Spanish, the old unit of currency
+does not mean, in gold, what it meant when this book was
+written.</p>
+
+<p>In France it means <i>in gold</i> only <i>one-fifth</i> at the present
+apparently stabilized rate of what it meant when I first put<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiv"></a>[xiv]</span>
+these pages together. We are on a gold basis in England.
+A franc used, before the war, to be nearly 10<i>d.</i> It is to-day
+almost exactly 2<i>d.</i> On the Spanish side the peseta fluctuates
+somewhat, but at the moment of writing it is well below
+thirty (twenty-eight odd), which means that the peseta,
+once nominally equal to the franc, is between 8<i>d.</i> and 9<i>d.</i>,
+or rather more than four times the present value of the
+franc.</p>
+
+<p>But the second point, which is much less generally appreciated,
+is even more important to retain. <i>Prices in gold
+have changed.</i> There are all sorts of views as to the real
+amount of the change; but I think we are not very far wrong
+in basing any calculation of expense upon a basis of doubling.
+At any rate, if you do that you will not be disappointed.
+The gold franc or gold peseta buys in 1927 more than half as
+much, but not much more than half as much, as it did before
+the war. In other words, the franc to-day is not in practice
+half of a fifth, that is, one-tenth, of what it was before the
+war, nor is the peseta in practice as little as fourpence halfpenny
+compared with prices before the war. You get more
+for your money than such a rough rule of thumb would
+warrant. But remember that you are getting things cheaper
+than the strict gold basis would allow. For instance, I know
+of one particular inn on the French side of the frontier, high
+up in the valleys (it is a very good one and a typical one),
+where they charge for food, including wine, and lodging,
+fifty to sixty francs a day. You would not have got the
+same thing for five or six francs in 1914; but you would
+have got it for seven or eight. My object in emphasizing
+this is to prevent the traveller from thinking that under
+modern conditions he is being bled. It is rather the other
+way. He is getting things somewhat cheaper still in these<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xv"></a>[xv]</span>
+mountains than world prices would warrant. He must
+expect to pay on the very different scale I have indicated.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, let me add in connexion with prices that, for a
+variety of reasons which it would take too long to go into,
+he must expect a very distinct rise in general expenses as
+measured in English exchange when he passes from French
+into Spanish territory. He must allow for something like
+an increase of a third, and perhaps in the larger towns of a
+half of what he pays on the French side.</p>
+
+<p>Further, when he is looking for anything like luxury, even
+in the humblest sense of that term, he must be prepared to
+pay (e.g. for foreign wines, or for well-appointed travel by
+car) nearly double on the Spanish side what he would have
+to pay on the French.</p>
+
+<p>The traveller should remember that there has been a very
+great expansion of good roads on the Spanish side compared
+with what there was when this book was written, and with
+that has gone an almost universal system of motor-buses,
+which have quite changed travel on the southern side of the
+range. He will do well always to ask before trying to go by
+the slow and few trains what the motor-bus services are.
+Thus, in the old days when this book was written, a man had
+either to go on foot or by slow horse vehicles across Roncesvalles
+to Pamplona. To-day there is a first-rate service of
+rapid motor-buses, and he will find that to be the case pretty
+well everywhere between the Mediterranean end and the
+Atlantic.</p>
+
+<h4>(2) <span class="smcap">Roads</span></h4>
+
+<p>In the matter of new roads a great deal has been done
+since this book was written. First and most important, one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xvi"></a>[xvi]</span>
+can go by a good road now over the Bonaigua. I regret it,
+but so it is. The road does not, indeed, follow the old track
+of adventure from the Noguera to the Upper Garonne. It
+goes somewhat to the north of it. But it constitutes, what
+did not before exist, a proper crossing supplementary to the
+two roads of Sallent and Jaca. It leads down through the
+hitherto impassable centre of the range to Lerida, and makes
+of the Val d’Aran, which used to be a most secluded pocket,
+a thoroughfare.</p>
+
+<p>Next, there is now a road which a motor car can follow
+from Seo de Urgel to Andorra the Old. In my time no wheeled
+vehicle had entered Andorra. They used to boast also that
+no man had ever been put to death there by process of law.
+I hope that progress has not changed that.</p>
+
+<p>Next note that there is a road for motors now through
+Bourg Madame, through Puigcerdá to Seo, and so down into
+Spain, and further a first-class road from Puigcerdá to
+Barcelona over the Pass by Ripoll, which I think did not
+exist when I was a younger man. The main road from
+Burguete to Pamplona, cutting off the great corner at Aoiz
+and passing through Erro and Larrasoaña, has long been completed;
+it is now served by a good service of motor-buses.</p>
+
+<p>Of secondary roads that up the valley of Salazar reaches
+as far north as Izalzu; that up the valley of Roncal as far as
+Uztarroz. So if you are crossing the Basque ridge anywhere
+between St. Jean Pied de Port and Tardets you will find the
+beginning of a road on the southern side at either of these
+points.</p>
+
+<p>On the French side there are few important changes. I
+am afraid that the very difficult road overhanging the
+precipices between Argelès and Larunz has not been made
+less difficult. It is well called Mount Ugly. If you care<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xvii"></a>[xvii]</span>
+for the experience, it is exciting enough. Nothing, I fear,
+could make this road easy without a high parapet at its
+worst stretch; and that might be a danger of a new kind,
+by giving the driver too much confidence.</p>
+
+<p>There is some secondary extension of the road beyond
+Gavarnie up to the frontier. I see it marked: I have not
+myself tried it. You can get up from Tardets nowadays
+by a road both to Ste. Engrace and Larrau, and there is
+something of a road up the Arette from Aramitz. For the
+rest, I believe there is on the French side no change, but
+developments were proposed some little time ago, and if
+there have been any quite recent changes which any of my
+readers can acquaint me with they will oblige me by mentioning
+them for a further edition.</p>
+
+<h4>(3) <span class="smcap">Railroads</span></h4>
+
+<p>The railroad system is, for the practical purposes of travel,
+what it was when I wrote the book so many years ago. But
+we are on the eve of very important changes. One cannot
+yet travel by train under the Pass of the Somport and so
+directly to Saragossa from Toulouse or Bordeaux. But the
+tunnel has long been completed, the rails are being laid—indeed,
+perhaps at the moment of writing they may be
+already in position. I cannot find out from the authorities
+when they think the first train will go through. Perhaps they
+do not know themselves. It is amusing to hear that the
+tunnel is now continually used by foot-passengers, who are
+escorted in a gang and who (so I am assured) have their
+passports examined in the bowels of the earth, some thousands
+of feet below the summit of the main ridge.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xviii"></a>[xviii]</span></p>
+
+<p>The railway from Ax over the Hospitalet is in a more
+backward state—hardly more than surveyed—and I know
+not when it is designed to open. On the other hand, the
+through railway by the Cerdagne is now virtually completed;
+there are only a few hundred yards to be finished; one
+still has to go in a vehicle or walk from Puigcerdá station to
+Bourg Madame, a matter of a mile or so; but whenever
+the authorities choose one can have through traffic through
+this very fine piece of scenery round from Perpignan to
+Ripoll and Barcelona.</p>
+
+<p>I append what may be of use, though of course it is a
+changeable thing, a note on the main trains for approaching
+the Pyrenees as the time-table now stands, with the prices
+under the new currency and their equivalents in English
+money; this time-table changes of course, and inquiry must
+always be made, but the main trains (e.g. the Sud Express)
+are much the same year after year.</p>
+
+<p>The three main lines of approach to the Pyrenees remain
+what they were when this book was written, the western
+one by Bordeaux, the central one by Toulouse, the eastern
+one by Lyons, Nîmes, and Perpignan. Of these the first
+is the most rapid; and of the two routes to Bordeaux—the
+State Line and the Orleans Line—the latter is the quicker.
+The day train leaves at 8.8 in the morning from the Quai
+d’Orsay, and gets you to Pau, which is the jumping-off place
+for the Western Pyrenees, at 10.45 at night. The distance is
+a little over five hundred miles; the cost, with the franc
+apparently stabilized at 124 at the time of writing, is just
+over 250 francs second class, just over 370 francs first class,
+and not quite 165 third class, that is, about £1 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to
+£1 8<i>s.</i> English third class from Paris, about £2 2<i>s.</i> second
+class, and about £3 2<i>s.</i> first class. If you are making a very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xix"></a>[xix]</span>
+short stay in the Pyrenees it may pay you to take a return
+ticket, the duration of which varies on the French lines with
+the length of your journey. In this case it would give you
+about ten days, counting the day on which you leave Paris.
+There are all sorts of arrangements on the French lines for
+round trip tickets, family tickets, etc., at reduced prices,
+but on these one must get information specially from an
+agency or the French tourist office in London or the main
+stations in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Going first class and paying a supplementary price of
+about £1 4<i>s.</i> to £1 5<i>s.</i> and changing at Dax, into an ordinary
+first class, one can go from Paris by the Sud Express leaving
+the Quai d’Orsay at 10 a.m. and get to Pau at 8.30 in the
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>If you are making for the extreme west of the range at
+St. Jean Pied de Port, the same trains get you, the one to
+Bayonne, where you must sleep, at 9.45 at night, and the
+other, the Sud Express, without changing, at 7.45 p.m.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning there is a train on at 8, and another at 11.30,
+for St. Jean, the first getting in at 9.45, the other at 1.15.
+The distance from Bayonne to Paris is about 485 miles, and
+the cost therefore, rather less to Pau, being 350 francs
+(about) first class, 235 or 236 second class, and 154 third
+class.</p>
+
+<p>The night trains by this line are the 7.10 (which has no
+third class), which gets you to Pau at 7.20 the next morning;
+there is a luxury train with supplementary payments for
+sleeping berth which gets you there no earlier, but has the
+advantage of giving you time to dine in Paris. It does not
+start till 8.40; however, it costs nearly £2 more than the
+first class fare to Pau. Another night train with third
+classes in it starts at 9.50, gets you to Bordeaux at 7 in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xx"></a>[xx]</span>
+morning (where you have nearly half an hour for coffee) and
+to Pau for lunch just after noon.</p>
+
+<p>The Central Line leading to Toulouse is a very slow one
+because it has to go over the central mountains of France.
+You start from the Quai d’Orsay also at 10.20 in the morning,
+and you do not get to Toulouse till just on 10.30 at night.
+The fares are 142 francs third class, 218 second class, and
+324 first class.</p>
+
+<p>The two night trains are, one at 7.50, the other at 9.15—the
+latter with sleepers if required; the first gets into
+Toulouse at 8.30 the next morning, the other at 9.15.</p>
+
+<p>From Toulouse you have a choice of three ways: to the
+Central Pyrenees, to the Valley of the Ariège and Ax, which
+is to the west, and to Narbonne and so to Perpignan on the
+Mediterranean at the extreme east of the range.</p>
+
+<p>The first is a distance of about 100 miles to Tarbes, or
+another 12 miles on to Lourdes.</p>
+
+<p>The second, about 75 miles, but with only one fast train
+a day, a morning one, at 9, getting you to Ax at 11.40, in
+time for lunch; while the third one is the main through line
+with plenty of trains, but a distance of 125 miles. On the
+other hand, it has the fastest trains. For instance, you can
+leave Toulouse at 9.30 and be in Perpignan by 1.30.</p>
+
+<p>As for the line by Lyons, it is a long way round and not
+to be taken unless you want to see anything on the way.
+On the other hand, it has the best service of fast trains.
+The best morning train is the 9 o’clock from P.L.M. station
+in Paris, which gets you to Avignon at 7.45 in the evening,
+and there you must sleep, going on next morning to Perpignan.
+You usually have to change at Tarascon. It is the better
+part of two days, for save in the case of one train, there is
+another change at Narbonne. There is no need to dwell on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxi"></a>[xxi]</span>
+this line, as no one would take it for the Pyrenees unless they
+were visiting other places on the way, such as Nîmes or
+Narbonne. The cost also is about thirty per cent greater
+than by the more direct line.</p>
+
+<h4>(4) <span class="smcap">Inns</span></h4>
+
+<p>The little I have to say on the changes in the inns since
+the first edition of this book was published must be very
+tentative, as I have to depend upon reports of others, save
+for a certain amount of recent travel at the two ends of the
+range. Most of the old recommendations still stand. Gabas
+is what it always was, and the Golden Lion of Perpignan as
+admirable as it has been for these thirty years and more.
+The inn at Burguete and that of Val Carlos have been somewhat
+modernized since the new motor-bus service began,
+but they are still excellent. An inn I did not mention in the
+first edition on the Spanish side of the range, in Catalonia,
+is that of Ribas Prattes, standing over the torrent, and one
+where I, at least, have always been very comfortable. Since
+the opening of the new road and railway over the Sierra del
+Cadi it has become unfortunately rather famous, and it is
+not cheap; but the people treat you charmingly, and that is
+a great thing.</p>
+
+<p>At Bourg Madame I have quite recently found myself very
+comfortable at Salvat. I am told that the principal inn at
+Andorra is rather more sophisticated since the motor road
+has been built to the town, but is still as good as it was in
+the old days. Of course the cooking and everything else
+is Catalan; and I am talking from hearsay, as I have not
+been to Andorra for many years.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxii"></a>[xxii]</span></p>
+
+<p>As you stop at Bayonne on your way you will find good
+meals at the Grand Brasserie facing the end of the bridge,
+while the hotel for sleeping is the Capagorry; at least that
+is my favourite, though there is also the rather more expensive
+Grand Hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly all the places on which I have made inquiries seem
+to have maintained the old service intact. You still have
+the Mur in Jaca, and the more primitive but hospitable inn
+of Canfranc; and the little inn at Urdos, where I stopped
+some years ago, is passable enough, though I still recommend
+as a base the Hotel de la Poste lower down the valley at
+Bédous. By the way, if you do stop at Urdos, beware of
+the drinking water which for some reason is not very safe—or
+was not.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving these very brief notes I should like to
+emphasize again for travellers the change in prices. On the
+whole, they are lower, reckoning the real purchasing value of
+money, than they were in the old days.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, the place I know best, and where I have stopped
+most often, is charging now as a regular <i>pension</i> per day in
+francs including wine, and counting in francs, six times
+what it charged before the war. Now the nominal value of
+the franc in gold is only a fifth of what it was before the war,
+and the purchasing power of gold is very nearly half, so a
+multiple of six means that you are getting your board and
+lodging really cheaper than you did in 1913; but I know it is
+difficult to persuade people of this, just as it is difficult to
+persuade people in England that railway fares and postage
+at home are really less than they were before the war. At
+any rate, those who may have had experience of the Pyrenees
+before the war may roughly multiply by six for the present
+price, at least in modest places; and in some cases by less.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxiii"></a>[xxiii]</span>
+Of course in the very large hotels in places like Bagnères you
+may be charged anything. But they are places which I
+never go to and on which I therefore can give no advice.</p>
+
+<p>It remains, by the way, as true as ever that on the French
+side of the range you must always ask the price of your room
+before taking it, and on the Spanish side be quite clear as to
+whether the price quoted is for the room and all the day’s
+meals including wine (as is the national custom) or for only
+a part. On both sides of the frontier service is usually
+included in the bill nowadays at 10 per cent on the total, and
+it is foolish to pay anything more.</p>
+
+<h4>(5) <span class="smcap">Maps</span></h4>
+
+<p>The war interfered with map-making in France so much
+that recovery is only beginning, and the revision of the main
+surveys is still in arrears. What I have said, however, in
+this book still stands for the most part.</p>
+
+<p>I append a list of the maps recommended, with their prices,
+to be obtained from Messrs Sifton, Praed &amp; Co., The Map
+House, 67, St. James’s Street, S.W. 1.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to this list I would make the following
+comment:</p>
+
+<p>(1) This is the standard French ordnance map, the one
+most necessary for the pedestrian, especially if he is dealing
+only with a limited area.</p>
+
+<p>(2) This is the map for motoring and road work.</p>
+
+<p>(3) This is the map for climbers, but unfortunately the
+first three sheets have been allowed to go out of print. I
+hear that there is some hope of a reprint being made, and
+on my next visit to the publishers I will urge them to advance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxiv"></a>[xxiv]</span>
+it. The map was made years ago for Messrs. Barrere, and
+is very useful on account of its numerous contours.</p>
+
+<p>(4) is to be reckoned with (3).</p>
+
+<p>(5) This is the general map for a conspectus of the whole
+range.</p>
+
+<p>(6) I have not seen this map, but it can be obtained from
+the firm mentioned above. It is I believe detailed and
+exceedingly useful, but as yet only applies to this small
+section of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>(7) The Michelin map is a motoring map, but contains a
+great deal of useful information, and is very accurate as to
+motoring roads.</p>
+
+<p>(8) The Taride is a much rougher map, with general
+indications; not so accurate as the Michelin, but useful for
+long tours.</p>
+
+<p>With this said I append the list.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p class="hanging">(1) 1/100,000 France, covering the Pyrenees in 27 sheets.
+Price 1<i>s.</i> per sheet unmounted; mounted on cloth
+to fold for the pocket, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> per sheet.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">(2) 1/200,000 France. 7 sheets. Price, 2<i>s.</i> each unmounted;
+mounted on cloth to fold, 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> each.
+Sheet 69 mounted on cloth to fold, 4<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">(3) Schrader’s map of the Pyrenees Centrales par F.
+Schrader. Sheets 4, 5, 6 only available. The three
+northern sheets 1, 2, 3 are out of print.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">(4) Schrader’s map “Massif de Gavarnie et du Mont
+Perdu,” Scale 1/2000. Paper, folded in cover. Price,
+2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">(5) Touring Club de France. Scale 1/400,000. Two
+sheets cover the whole of the Pyrenees. Mounted on
+cloth to fold for the pocket, 5<i>s.</i> each.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">(6) Mapa Militar de Espana. Sheet 86 and part of 62.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxv"></a>[xxv]</span>
+Seo de Urgel. This is the only sheet published so far
+of the Pyrenees. Price, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> unmounted; mounted
+on cloth to fold, 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">(7) Carte Routière Michelin. Scale 1/200,000. Two
+sheets cover the whole of the Pyrenees on the French
+side. Mounted to fold, 4<i>s.</i> each.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">(8) Taride Road Maps. Scale 4 miles to 1 inch. Two
+sheets cover the whole of the Pyrenees. Paper, folded
+in cover, 2<i>s.</i> each. Mounted on cloth to fold, 5<i>s.</i> each.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxvi"></a>[xxvi]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr smaller">CHAP.</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+    <td colspan="2">THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE PYRENEES</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#I">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+    <td colspan="2">THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE PYRENEES</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#II">36</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+    <td colspan="2">MAPS</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#III">59</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+    <td colspan="2">THE ROAD SYSTEM OF THE PYRENEES</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#IV">79</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+    <td colspan="2">TRAVEL ON FOOT IN THE PYRENEES</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#V">106</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+    <td colspan="2">THE SEPARATE DISTRICTS OF THE PYRENEES</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">i.</td>
+    <td>The Basque Valleys</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_I">145</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">ii.</td>
+    <td>The Four Valleys (Béarn and Aragon)</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_II">155</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">iii.</td>
+    <td>Sobrarbe</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_III">167</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">iv.</td>
+    <td>The Tarbes Valleys and Luchon</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_IV">179</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">v.</td>
+    <td>Andorra and the Catalan Valleys</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_V">187</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">vi.</td>
+    <td>Cerdagne</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_VI">199</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">vii.</td>
+    <td>The Tet and Ariège</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_VII">204</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">viii.</td>
+    <td>The Canigou</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI_VIII">210</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+    <td colspan="2">INNS OF THE PYRENEES</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VII">217</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+    <td colspan="2">THE APPROACHES TO THE PYRENEES</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VIII">234</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td colspan="2">INDEX</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INDEX">239</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxvii"></a>[xxvii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIST_OF_MAPS">LIST OF MAPS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg smaller">FACING PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>GENERAL SKETCH MAP OF THE PYRENEES</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map01">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE BASQUE VALLEYS</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map02">154</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE FOUR VALLEYS</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map03">166</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE PASSAGE OVER THE COL DE LA CRUZ AND THE COL DE GISTAIN</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map04">174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE SOBRARBE</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map05">178</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE TARBES VALLEYS AND LUCHON</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map06">186</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE CATALAN VALLEYS AND ANDORRA</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map07">198</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE CERDAGNE</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map08">202</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE ARIÈGE AND TET VALLEYS</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map09">208</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>THE CANIGOU</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#map10">216</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr class="pad-top">
+    <td>THE GATE OF THE ROUSSILLON</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="map01" style="max-width: 87.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map01.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>GENERAL SKETCH MAP OF THE PYRENEES</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
+
+<h1>THE PYRENEES</h1>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I<br>
+<span class="smaller">THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE PYRENEES</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowp100" id="illus01" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus01.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>To use for travel or for pleasure
+a great mountain system, the
+first thing necessary is to understand
+its structure and its plan; to this
+understanding must next be added an
+understanding of its appearance, climate, soil, and, as it
+were, habits, all of which lend it a character peculiar to itself.</p>
+
+<p>These two approaches to the comprehension of a mountain
+system may be called the approaches to its physical nature;
+and when one has the elements of that nature clearly seized,
+one is the better able to comprehend the human incidents
+attached to it.</p>
+
+<p>From an appreciation of this physical basis one must next
+proceed to a general view of the history of the district—if it
+has a history—and of the modern political character resulting
+from it. At the root of this will be found the original groups
+or communities which have remained unchanged in Western
+Europe throughout all recorded time. These groups are sometimes
+distinguishable by language, more often by character.
+Changes of philosophy profoundly affect them; changes of
+economic circumstance, though affecting them far less, do
+something to render the problem of their continuity complex:
+but upon an acquaintance with the living men concerned,
+it is always possible to distinguish where the boundaries of a
+country-side are set; and the permanence of such limits in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span>
+European life is the chief lesson a deep knowledge of any
+district conveys.</p>
+
+<p>The recorded history of the inhabitants lends to these hills
+their only full meaning for the human being that visits them
+to-day; nor does anyone know, nor half know, any country-side
+of Europe unless he possesses not only its physical appearance
+and its present habitation, but the elements of its past.</p>
+
+<p>These things established, one can turn to the details of
+travel and explain the communications, the difficulties, and the
+opportunities attaching to various lines of travel. In the case
+of a mountain range, the greater part of this last will, of course,
+for modern Englishmen, consist in some account of wilder
+travel upon foot, and the sense of exploration and of discovery
+which the district affords.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the lines to be followed in this book, and, first, I
+will begin by laying down the plan and contours of the
+Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">The first impression reached by modern and educated men
+when they consider a mountain system is one over-simple.
+This over-simplicity is the necessary result of our present
+forms of elementary education, and has been well put by some
+financial vulgarian or other (with the intention of praise)
+when he called it “Thinking in Maps,” or, “Thinking Imperially”;
+for the maps in a man’s head when he first approaches
+a new range are the maps of the schoolroom.</p>
+
+<p>Thus one sees the Sierra Nevada in California as one line,
+the Cascade Range as another parallel to it. The Alps and
+the Himalayas alike arrange themselves into simple curves,
+arcs of a circle with a great river for the cord. The Atlas is a
+straight line cutting off the northern projection of Africa, the
+Apennines are a straight line running down the centre of Italy.
+Such are the first geographic elements present in the mind.</p>
+
+<p>The next impression, however, the impression gathered in
+actual travel, or in a detailed study, is one of mere confusion,
+a confusion the more hopeless on account of the false simplicity
+of the original premise. Deductions from that premise are
+perpetually at variance with the observed facts of travel or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span>
+of study, the exceptions become so numerous as to swamp the
+rule, and an original misconception upon the main character
+of the chain prevents a new and more accurate synthesis of
+its general aspect. Thus, the conception of the Cascade Range
+upon the Pacific Coast of the United States as parallel and
+separate from the Sierras, confuses one’s view of all the district
+round Shasta, and of all the watersheds south of the Mohave
+where the two systems merge; or again, one who has only
+thought of the Alps as a mere arc of a circle misconceives,
+and is bewildered by the nature, the appearance, and the
+whole history of the great re-entrant angles of the Val
+d’Aosta with its Gallic influences; the anomaly of the Adige
+Valley will not permit him to explain its political fortunes,
+and the outlying arms which have preserved the independence
+of Swiss institutions upon the southern slope will not fall into
+his view of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>This confusion, I say, is not due so much to the multitude
+of detail as to the permanent effect of an original strong and
+over-simple conception remaining in the mind as it continues
+to accumulate increasing but sporadic knowledge of a particular
+district; and it is a confusion in which those who
+have formed such an erroneous conception commonly remain.</p>
+
+<p>In order to avoid such confusion and to allow one’s increasing
+knowledge a frame wherein to fit, it is essential to grasp
+in one scheme the few elementary lines which underlie a
+mountain system, and such a scheme will be a trifle more complex
+than the too simple scheme usually presented, but once
+one has it one can appreciate the place of every irregularity
+in the structure of the whole chain of hills.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of the Pyrenees the common error of too great
+simplicity may be easily stated. These mountains are
+regarded as a wall separating France from Spain, and running
+direct from sea to sea. Such an aspect of the range will more
+and more confuse the traveller and reader the more he studies
+the actual shape of the valleys. Another picture should
+occupy the mind, and it will presently be seen that with this
+picture permanently fixed as a framework for the whole
+system, an increased knowledge of its details does but expand<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
+the sense of unity originally conveyed. The Pyrenees must
+not be regarded as a sharp heaped ridge forming a single
+watershed between the plains of Gaul and those of Northern
+Spain, and running east and west from the Atlantic to the
+Mediterranean. They form a system, the watershed of which
+does not exactly stretch from one sea to the other. The axis
+of it does not consist of one line; the general direction is not
+due east. The axis of the Pyrenean chain is built up of two
+main lines, of approximately equal length: the one running
+south of east from a point at some distance from the Atlantic,
+the other north of west from a point right on the shores of the
+Mediterranean. These two lines do not meet. They miss by
+over eight miles, and the gap between them is joined by a low
+saddle.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-a" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-a.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan A.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The first of these lines starts from a point (Mount Urtioga)
+25 miles south of the corner made by the Bay of Biscay at
+Irun, and some 15 miles west of its meridian; it runs
+about 9° 15′ south of east to the peak called Sabouredo, the
+last of the Maladetta group, the direct distance from which to
+Mount Urtioga is precisely 200 kilometres, or 124 miles. The
+second runs from Cape Cerberus on the Mediterranean to a
+peak called the Pic-de-l’homme, which stands a trifle over 12
+kilometres, or 7¾ miles, north of the Sabouredo; its direction
+is 9° 25′ north of west, and the total length of this second line
+is just over 190 kilometres, or 117 miles.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-b" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-b.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan B.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span></p>
+
+<p>The simplest scheme, then, in which we can regard the
+Pyrenees, is as a system of not quite parallel lines of equal
+length, running one towards the other, but missing by not
+quite 8 miles; the gap or “fault” joined by a zigzag saddle
+on the watershed. The westernmost of these lines splits into
+several branches before it reaches the Atlantic, so that the
+true western end of the chain lies well to the south and east
+of that ocean (at Mount Urtioga); the other starts from, and
+forms a projection in, the Mediterranean. The full distance
+as the crow flies from Mount Urtioga to Cape Cerberus upon
+the Mediterranean is 390 kilometres, that is 241 miles. And
+there is but 10 kilometres, or 6½ miles, difference in length
+between the two halves of the chain.</p>
+
+<p>If <span class="allsmcap">U</span> be the point called Mount Urtioga, <span class="allsmcap">S</span> the Sabouredo,
+<span class="allsmcap">L</span> the Pic-de-l’homme, and <span class="allsmcap">C</span> Cape Cerberus, these two lines
+and the gap between them will lie precisely as in this plan.</p>
+
+<p>With this main guide by which to judge the structure of
+the chain, all details will be found to fit in, and the two first
+variations which we must superimpose upon so general a view,
+are to be found in the “step” or “corner” formed by the
+watershed round the Pic d’Anie. The southward turn of
+the range is here not gradual but sharp, and the Somport,
+the pass at the head of the Val d’Aspe, lies almost a day’s going
+below the Port St. Engrace, which is the Pass near the Pic
+d’Anie. Next, one should note the two re-entrant angles,
+one to the north of the chain, one to the south, which distinguish
+the Spanish valley of the Gallego and the French valley
+of the Gave de Pau respectively. These features modify the
+simplicity of the first or western branch of the chain; one
+exceptional feature only modifies the second or Eastern
+branch, and this is the deep re-entrant wedge of the Ariège
+valley upon the French side. We may therefore regard the
+elements of the watershed somewhat according to the sketch
+plan B on the preceding page.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-c" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-c.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan C.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span></p>
+
+<p>The details of the watershed when they are given in full are
+of course indefinitely more numerous and complicated, and
+it may be of advantage for those who would understand the
+structure of the Pyrenees to glance also at the plan opposite
+where the dotted line represents the exact trace of the watershed,
+the dark lines the simple structure described above.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65" id="plan-d" style="max-width: 32.8125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-d.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan D.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The watershed then should be regarded as the chief feature
+in the range, and as the backbone of the whole system.
+Geologically, it is not the foundation of the range. Geologically,
+the range was piled up by the junction of a number of
+short separate ranges, each of which ran with a sharper south-eastern
+dip (about 30°) than does the present long line of
+saddles which has joined them and forms the existing
+watershed, and probably the process of the formation of
+the Pyrenees was upon the model sketched in the following
+diagram.</p>
+
+<p>But for the purpose of understanding the Pyrenees as they
+now are, it is the existing watershed which we must consider,
+and that runs as I have said.</p>
+
+<p>Next, the rule should be laid down that the Pyrenees must
+be separately considered on their northern and upon their
+southern slopes. It will be seen later that the physical and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>
+historical contrast between the two sides of the mountains
+is sometimes acute and sometimes slight, but the contrast
+between the general contour upon either side is such as to
+make it impossible to unite both in one similar system.</p>
+
+<p>The Northern slope of the Pyrenees is narrow and precipitous.
+The plains are for the greater part of its length clearly
+separated from the mountains; the easy country in some
+places (at St. Girons, for instance, and in the Flats between
+Lourdes and Tarbes) is not 20 miles as the crow flies from the
+highest peaks.</p>
+
+<p>On the Spanish side, on the contrary, the mountainous
+district will run from two to three times that distance. Its
+extreme width between the open country at the foot of the
+Sierra Monsech and the Salau Pass is over 60 miles, and it is
+nowhere less than two days’ good journey on foot from the
+summits to the plains.</p>
+
+<p>This differentiation between the northern and the southern
+slopes is not merely one of width, it is due to profound differences
+in the contours which make the Spanish side of the
+system a different type of mountain group from the French.
+For, on the French side the Pyrenees consist in a series of
+great ribs or buttresses running up from the plains perpendicularly
+to the main heights of the range, and it is between these
+ribs or buttresses that the separate and highly distinct valleys
+which are the characteristic habitations of the French Basques
+and Béarnais lie. On the Spanish side the main structure is
+in folds <i>parallel</i> to the watershed; the lateral valleys descending
+from the watershed run southward for but a very short
+distance, they come, within a few miles, upon high east-and-west
+ridges which sometimes rival the main range itself in
+height and which succeed each other like waves down to the
+plains of the Ebro. The contrast in structure north and south
+of the watershed may be expressed in the formula of this
+plan. A man looking at the Pyrenees from the French towns
+at their base sees in one complete view a belt of steep rising
+slopes, and a long fairly even line of summits against the sky.
+A man looking at the range from the Spanish plains can only
+in a few rare places so much as catch sight of the main range.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>
+In far the greater number of such views he will have before
+him a high ridge which masques the country beyond. If,
+then, the reader or the traveller regards the French slope as
+being essentially a series of profound valleys parallel to each
+other and running north and south, he will have grasped the
+main aspect of this side of the range. If he will regard the
+Spanish slope as a series of parallel outliers which begin quite
+close to the watershed, and which, though falling at last into
+the plains of the Ebro, are, even the most southern of them, of
+considerable height, he will have grasped the structure of the
+Pyrenees upon the side which looks towards the sun.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="plan-e" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-e.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan E.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>To these two main aspects the reader must again admit
+considerable modifications, the first of which concerns the
+French side.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-f" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-f.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan F.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span></p>
+
+<p>This Northern slope and its valleys, of which the sketch
+map over page indicates the general arrangement, may be
+divided into two sections: the first a western section, the
+second an eastern one, and these two are separated at <span class="allsmcap">A-B</span> by
+a division roughly corresponding to the “fault” between the
+two axes, which, as we have seen, determine the lie of the
+range.</p>
+
+<p>From the first, or western axis, descend with a regular parallelism,
+eight valleys. Each valley bifurcates in its higher
+part into two main ravines, and a whole system of minor
+streams, spread over an indefinite number of tortuous dales
+and gullies, attach to each valley.</p>
+
+<p>There is a mark or limit for each of these western French
+valleys, which is the spot where it debouches upon the open
+country. Thus the Gave d’Ossau falls into the Gave d’Aspe
+at Oloron; nevertheless the two valleys must be regarded as
+separate, because the meeting of the two streams takes place
+in the open plain. On the other hand the valley of Baigorry,
+and the neighbouring valley of St. Jean, though containing
+two large separate streams, must be treated as one system,
+because these streams meet at Eyharee near Ossés, and the
+open plain is not reached before a point some miles further
+down beyond Canbo.</p>
+
+<p>The test, though it may sound arbitrary upon paper, is
+quite easily appreciated in the landscape, and the separate
+valleys are more clearly marked, perhaps, than those of any
+other European mountain chain.</p>
+
+<p>These eight valleys (<a href="#plan-g">see plan G over page</a>), going from west
+to east, are first that of the Nive (the bifurcations of which
+give St. Jean and the Baigorry), next that of the Gave-de-Mauléon
+(Larrau and Ste. Engrace), and both of these are
+Basque; next comes the valley of the Gave d’Aspe (with the
+bifurcation of Lourdios and Urdos), up which went the main
+Roman road into Spain and which is the first of the Béarnese
+valleys; next is the Val d’Ossau (with the bifurcation of
+Gabas and the lac d’Arrius), next the valley of the Gave de
+Pau (with the bifurcations of Cauterets and Gavarnie), next
+the valley of Bigorre, a short valley bifurcating in two minor
+streams at its head. Next, or seventh, comes the Val d’Aure,
+with Vielle upon its western bifurcation and Bordères upon
+its eastern; and lastly the bifurcated valley of the Garonne,
+whose level and deep floor comes nearest of all to the main
+chain, and holds on the west Luchon, on a branch called the
+Pique, on the east Viella in the Val d’Aran.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp37" id="plan-g" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-g.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan G.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-h" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-h.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan H.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Once past this point, the structure of the hills along the
+eastern run of the broken Pyrenean axis changes. The
+mountains here are penetrated by only two valleys, but each
+is much longer and more important than any of the eight just
+mentioned, and these two great valleys run, not parallel to
+each other, nor north and south as do the eight western ones,
+but at a steep slant: the one (that of the Ariège) goes westward,
+and the other (that of the Tet) eastward. Save for
+these two main valleys no regular features can be discovered
+in the eastern portion; all is here a labyrinth of dividing and
+subdividing lateral ridges, and the only thing giving unity to
+the group is this system of two great trenches which run up
+towards each other, the one from the Plain of Toulouse, the
+other from that of Perpignan, to meet on the high land of the
+Carlitte group. Strictly speaking, the western valley is not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span>
+wholly that of the Ariège, but those of the Ariège and Oriège
+combined, and it is further remarkable that no regular passage
+exists from the one depression to the other, but by a curious
+topographical accident, which will be described later in the
+book, the crossing from the Ariège to the Tet has to be made
+by going over on to the south side of the range, and then back
+again on to the north side.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of these two main valleys upon the eastern
+half of the northern slope of the Pyrenees is sufficiently evident
+from the historical fact that each determines a great historical
+district: the one, that of the Ariège, was the country of <i>Foix</i>,
+the other, that of the Tet, was the <i>Rousillon</i>. And while the
+eight small western valleys running parallel to each other
+separate local customs and dialect alone, the ridge of the
+Ariège and the Tet may almost be said to have separated two
+nationalities, and owed ultimate allegiance for a thousand
+years, the one to a Gallic, the other to an Iberian lord.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the valley of the Tet and eastward of the Canigou
+runs the little fag end of the range, which falls into the sea
+at Cape Cerberus, and is called the “Alberes.” Here there is
+but little distinction between the northern and the southern
+side, the general shape of a sharp ridge is maintained throughout,
+but the height lowers more and more as the sea is
+approached. These hills are everywhere passable; the
+ancient road into Spain which crosses them, should count,
+geographically and historically, rather as a road crossing
+round the Pyrenees at their sea end, than as a road crossing
+the chain.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">A Pyrenean valley upon the French side always presents
+the same main characteristic, and this is true not only of the
+main valleys, but of the innumerable lateral valleys which
+ramify from the main valleys in all directions.</p>
+
+<p>The characteristic of these French Pyrenean valleys is that
+they are sharply divided by very narrow gorges into two or
+more level basins. These level basins in the smaller valleys
+and on the high levels where there is pasturage and no habitation
+are called “Jasses”; the large and low ones are called<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>
+“Plains” or “Plans”; but they are the same in their essential
+feature, which is a level floor more or less wide, bounded by
+the steep hills upon either side, and ending and beginning with
+a rocky gate through which the valley stream cascades. The
+whole formation suggests the former existence of great and
+small lakes, which burst their way through the gorges at some
+remote time (as in plan I below).</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-i" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-i.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan I.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>These gorges are very rarely of any length, a point in which
+the Pyrenees differ from the Alps. Here and there, especially
+in the limestone formations, you do get long and difficult
+passages. One, the Cacouette in the Western Pyrenees, in
+the upper waters of the Gave-de-Mauléon, is not only very profound
+but absolutely impassable, like the Black Cañon of
+Colorado, but it does not lead from one part of a valley to
+another. It occupies the whole of the upper valley; and in
+general, you will not find a Pyrenean stream running, as do the
+Alpine streams, for some miles between precipices.</p>
+
+<p>Each main valley has a clearly marked mouth where it
+debouches upon the plain; by this I do not mean that perfectly
+flat land comes up to and meets the hills in every case;
+on the contrary, at the mouth of most of these valleys are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>
+moraines left by old glaciers, but I mean that the character
+and aspect of the hills visibly and immediately changes, and
+that each of the valleys has a distinct final “gate” where it
+meets the lowlands, just as a river will meet the sea at a definite
+mouth. Now each of these openings has its characteristic
+town. Mauléon, for instance, is at the mouth of the last Basque
+valley, Oloron at the mouth of the Val d’Aspe, Lourdes at the
+mouth of the valley of Argelès, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Further, these towns at the mouths of the valleys have
+invariably chosen for their site, whether they be prehistoric
+or mediæval, some rock on which to build a citadel; and in
+every case a castle is still to be found holding that rock.
+Lourdes, Foix, Mauléon are excellent examples of this.</p>
+
+<p>Higher up the valley, the first plain above the mouth will,
+as a rule, contain the first mountain town. Thus Argelès
+lies above Lourdes, Bédous and Accous above Oloron, Laruns
+in the first flat of the Val d’Ossau, etc.</p>
+
+<p>According to the length of the valley and the number and
+size of the Jasses, there may be one or more such towns
+enclosed by the mountain sides; thus in the valley of Lourdes
+we have Argelès, and above it Luz; in the valley of Soule we
+have Tardets above Mauléon, and higher still we have Licq.
+But all the valleys, whether they contain one or more of these
+upland towns, have, just under the last watershed, a hamlet or
+village usually giving its name to the Port or Col—that is
+<i>the Pass into Spain</i>—above it, and the reason of this is
+evident enough; habitations were necessary as a place of
+departure and arrival for the crossing of the mountains. Of
+such are Gavarnie, Urdos, Morens, and the rest. These high
+villages have least history, least wealth, and until recently
+had the worst communications. For much the greater part
+of the year they are lost in snow, and there was an interval
+between the making of the great roads and the beginning of
+modern tourist travel when they were in peril of destruction.
+The new great roads drew away wealth and visitors from all
+but a very few, and but for the beginning of modern mountaineering
+they had hopelessly decayed. Even so famous
+a place as Gavarnie, the best known of all the valley heads,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>
+was dying in the middle of the century. There are days now
+when it is at the other extreme: fine days in August when, for
+the crowd of rich people, you might be at Tring or at some
+reception of the late Whittaker Wright’s. Even to-day, one
+or two of them, however clean or kindly, are odd in the way
+of poverty. I have known one where they had no butter
+and never had had any butter, and another where I was
+charged 8<i>d.</i> instead of 5<i>d.</i> for a bed because it was the season.</p>
+
+<p>The typical Spanish valley differs, in the centre of the Chain
+at least, from the typical French valley. With the exception
+of Andorra (which reminds one in all features of the French
+side; for it has the same enclosed plain, the same steps and
+rocky gorges between, the same Jasses, and the same arrangement
+of towns and villages) the greater part of the valleys,
+whether Catalan or Aragonese, are not only broader and their
+streams larger than on the French side, but their arrangement
+also is different, most of them lack wide pasturages, nearly all
+of them lack enclosed plains, and there has been no motive
+to penetrate them since the building of the new roads, for
+travel upon this road is rare. The Spanish valley, therefore,
+often many days’ walking in length, never direct, and
+forming a sort of little province to itself, will have towns and
+villages scattered in it, haphazard and thinly. Very often
+a considerable town will be found at the very end of the
+valley, as Esterri in that of the Noguera Pallaresa, or Venasque
+in that of the Esera. The lateral communications from one
+Spanish valley to the next are usually more difficult than those
+between the French valleys; for many months they are
+impossible, and there is no such general arrangement of towns
+on the plain holding the approaches to the valleys as in France,
+for the reason that the whole plan of the mountains on the
+Spanish side is far more troubled and irregular.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the first town of the Aragon is Jaca; but Jaca is
+right in the mountains, and nothing at the outlet of the hills
+50 or 60 miles down the valley makes a head town for Jaca.
+Jaca is a bishopric on its own. On the Gallego there is nothing
+but a succession of villages of which Sallent right up at the
+head of the valley is among the largest: it is almost a little<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>
+town and so is Biescas close by. The Cinca and the Esera
+have indeed a town upon the plains at Barbastro, but the
+Noguera Ribagorzana has none, nor has its sister the Noguera
+Pallaresa, while the Segre has its bishopric and chief town
+right up in the highest hills at Urgel, and there is nothing to
+compare with that town until you get to Balaguer.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">The southern side of the watershed differs greatly in general
+structure from the northern, and must be separately recorded.</p>
+
+<p>There are indeed certain accidental similarities. The
+enclosed valley of Andorra to the south recalls the enclosed
+valley of Bédous or Accous to the north, and the very high
+first miles of the torrents, just under the main range, do not
+differ much whether they are found on the north or on the
+south side of the mountain. But the general plan and contour
+of the range presents a great contrast on either side. The
+main feature of the southern slope is, as I have said, a series
+of parallel ranges pushing out like ramparts in front of the
+main heights. If you follow a French valley (on the western
+part of the Pyrenees at least) you will find it running fairly
+north and south to the point where it debouches upon the
+plain some 20, or 25 miles at most, from the watershed.</p>
+
+<p>A Spanish valley will at first appear to have the same
+character, but just when you think you are in sight of the
+plains (for instance, just after leaving Canfranc upon the banks
+of the Upper Aragon) you see—beyond the first lines of flat
+country, and barring the view like a great wall—another high
+range: in this case the Sierra de la Peña, the ridge of rock
+which takes its name from the “Peña-de-Oroel,” a mountain
+with its eastern end just above Jaca. Beyond this again you
+have the San Domingo ridge, and to the east of it, another
+running also east and west, the Sierra de Guara.</p>
+
+<p>Pamplona again is situated at the mouth of a true Pyrenean
+valley (that of the Arga), not very different from the valleys
+to the north. It stands also on a plain, but immediately in
+front of it runs another range of hills, and if you climb these,
+you find yet another, strictly parallel and straight, standing
+before you and masking the approach to the Ebro. This<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>
+formation in parallel outliers continues as far east as the
+Segre valley, that is for full three-quarters of the length of the
+Spanish Pyrenees, and in a sense it continues even further
+east than the river Segre; for the Sierra del Cadi, though it
+joins on to the main ridge at one point, is essentially an outlier
+in slope and formation. This parallel formation sometimes
+comes quite close to the central range, as, for instance, in the
+Colorado peaks close to Sallent and Panticosa, and the long
+ridge to the south of Vielsa and El Plan. Indeed the
+characteristics of Sobrarbe, as this country-side is called,
+consist in these long parallel ridges.</p>
+
+<p>One result of this formation is, as I have said above, that
+the river valleys do not run straight, as they do to the north
+of the range, but are thrust round at right angles when they
+come up against these ridges. Sometimes they will eat their
+way through a ridge, as do the two Nogueras, and the Arga
+itself south of Pamplona; but the greater part of the rivers
+on the Spanish side suffer the diversion of which I speak, and
+none more than the river Aragon, which gives its name to the
+whole central kingdom; for the Aragon, after having run
+south and straight for a few miles, like any northern river,
+suddenly turns westward, and runs under the foot to Sierra
+de la Peña for two days’ march. According to its first direction,
+it should fall into the Ebro somewhere near Saragossa;
+as a fact it does not come in until far above Tudela.</p>
+
+<p>Another result of the formation is that the mountain
+tangle stretches much further on the Spanish side than it
+does upon the French. If you stand upon the Pass of Salau
+where the French have made, and the Spanish are making,
+a high road, you have before you to the north, at a distance of
+less than 10 miles, the railway and a fairly open valley.
+Fifteen miles at the most, as the crow flies, you have the main
+line and the true lowlands at St. Girons. But if you turn and
+look out in the opposite direction over the valley of Esterri
+and the higher Noguera Pallaresa, you are looking over 60
+miles of mountain land. From the high ridge, which is your
+standpoint, to the summit of El-Monsech, which is the final
+rampart of the hills beyond the plains of Lerida, is more<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>
+than 50 miles, and the slopes of that rampart take you nearly
+another 10.</p>
+
+<p>A further consequence of this formation is that communications
+are very difficult to the south of the Pyrenees. The
+traveller naturally ascribes the lack of communications to
+the character of Spanish government. It is not wholly due to
+a moral, but partly to a material cause. The main Spanish
+railway from Saragossa to Barcelona may be compared to the
+main French railway from Toulouse to Bayonne, but the
+Spanish side everywhere suffers from its great wide stretch
+of wild mountain land. Toulouse itself is little more than
+50 miles from the crest of the mountains. Saragossa is half
+as much again. The Spanish Pyrenees push out civilization,
+as it were, far from them. Lerida, a large town of the plains,
+is quite 60 miles from the watershed in a straight line. Pau
+or Tarbes are less than 30. The difficulty and expense
+with which the civilization of the plains, and the things belonging
+to it, must reach the remote upper Spanish valleys largely
+account for the curiously high degree of their isolation from the
+world. Many thousands of men are born and die in those high
+valleys, without ever seeing a wheeled vehicle, and without
+knowing the gravest news of the outer world for two or three
+days after the towns have known it.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy in such a system to establish general divisions.
+We saw that this was simple enough upon the French side:
+eight main valleys to the west of the “fault,” and two large
+sloping ones on the eastern limb. In the Spanish Pyrenees,
+the nearest thing one can get to a classification is <i>first</i> to group
+together the Basque valleys of Navarre, the streams of which
+all flow down to meet at last near Lumbier and fall into the
+Aragon a few miles further south. <i>Next</i> to take the group of
+valleys along the mouths of which stands the great Sierra de
+la Peña, of which the chief is the ravine of the Upper Aragon.
+These dales, which have at their extremities the huge masses
+of the Garganta and the Pic d’Anie, form the original stuff
+of Aragon. These few square miles were the seat from whence
+that race proceeded which fought its way down to the Ebro,
+and to the sources of the Tagus, and which can claim the Cid<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span>
+Campeador for its historic type. <i>Next</i> comes the group of
+valleys beginning with the Gallego and ending with that of
+Venasque, which forms the eastern limb of Aragon, and has
+borne for many centuries the title of “Sobrarbe.” <i>Next</i> to
+consider the two Nogueras as the Western, the Cerdagne and
+Andorra as the Eastern Catalonian land.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-j" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-j.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan J.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>It should be noted that the fine tenacity of Spain in general,
+and of these hills in particular, has preserved with exactitude
+the ancient and natural divisions of the land. The long
+unbroken ridge which encloses the Basque valleys is also the
+frontier of Navarre. The unity of Aragon survives in the
+present administrative division of Jaca. The eastern valleys
+are still called the “Sobrarbe,” and the “fault,” or break
+between the two main lines of the Pyrenees, still forms an
+historical and racial break to the South as to the North of the
+chain. Beyond it eastward begins the Catalan language, and
+the next group to consider are the great Catalan valleys of the
+two Nogueras and of the Segre. The two Nogueras ultimately
+fall into the Segre, but in the mountain regions the three form
+three large parallel valleys, each with a character and nourishment
+of its own and all Catalan. Of these three, the Segre
+is the most striking; its upper waters are the centre of the
+flat valley of the Cerdagne, the only natural passage from the
+North into Spain, and one of its earliest tributaries nourishes
+the Republic of Andorra.</p>
+
+<p>East of the Segre valley, and of the Sierra del Cadi which
+bounds it, no classification is possible. It is a labyrinth of
+little valleys. A flat welter of hills running down everywhere
+to the sea, and narrowing at the extreme end into Cape
+Cerberus: these last crests, as I have said, take the name of
+“Alberes.”</p>
+
+<p>This contrast in structure between the northern and the
+southern side of the range runs through many other aspects of
+the hills beyond structure alone. We have seen that it affects
+the type of civilization, leaving the deep but short French
+valleys far more open to the culture and influences of the
+plains than were the Spanish just over the watershed. There
+is much more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span></p>
+
+<p>The fall of the light is in itself a contrast. The slopes of the
+Spanish mountains, and especially of the high mountains,
+look right at the blazing sun. They are more bare of wood,
+much, than are the French slopes. They are more burnt.
+Water is less plentiful. Insects are more numerous, and there
+is less cultivation; but one cannot say that there is, as a rule,
+a scantier population. Small villages and hamlets are rarer
+in the remote gorges, but small towns a little lower down are
+common, and apart from the population economically dependent
+upon summer tourists in France, it might be doubted
+whether the Spanish side were not as well garnished as the
+French; one might venture to imagine that in the Dark, and
+early Middle, Ages, when the full effect of the natural condition
+of the mountains could be felt, the population of either
+side was sensibly the same.</p>
+
+<p>The highest peaks are upon the Spanish side, but it does not
+show splendid isolated masses of rock like the two Pics-du-Midi,
+or lonely masses like the Canigou. On the other hand,
+the general character of the rocks is more savage and more
+fantastic, and it is upon the south side of the range that one
+most feels creeping over one that sentiment of unreality or of
+a spell, which so many travellers in the Pyrenees have been
+curious to note. The local names express it upon every side.
+There are “The Mouth of Hell,” “The Accursed Mountain,”
+“The Lost Mountain,” “The Peak of Hell,” “The Enchanted
+Hills” or “Encantados,” and hundreds of other legendary
+titles that express, as well as do the mountain tunes, the sense
+of an unquiet mystery.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">The Spanish side is again remarkable for true rivers running
+in considerable valleys everywhere east of Navarre. Though
+the rainfall is less upon the southern side than upon the
+northern, yet, because the catchment areas are broader, the
+streams running at the bottom of the Spanish valleys are
+larger and more important. A glance at the map will show
+upon the French side a whole series of parallel river valleys
+running down from the summit into the plains to join the
+Adour or the Gironde. Armagnac and Béarn are crowded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span>
+with them. A man going eastward from Bayonne to Pau,
+from Pau to Tarbes, from Tarbes to Toulouse, will cross more
+than forty streams all spreading out like a fan from the central
+axis of the Lannemezan Plain; a man going eastward below
+the Spanish foot hills from Melida, let us say through Huesca
+to Lerida, will find but half a dozen of such water crossings.
+Again, you have between the Soule and the Labourd, between
+the Val d’Aspe and the Val d’Ossau, between the Val d’Aure
+and the Garonne, distances of 8, 10, or at the most 12 miles,
+but the distance between neighbouring Spanish valleys (if
+we except the near approach of the Gallego and the Aragon),
+is always much greater. Between the Noguera and the Segre,
+for instance, there is at the nearest point, 20 miles; between
+the two Nogueras, another 20; between the last of these two
+rivers and the Esera, quite 20 more. The whole Spanish side
+with the exception of Navarre is thus built up of considerable
+valleys, comparable to those of the Tet and the Ariège alone
+upon the northern slope.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">The details of Pyrenean structure will concern a man travelling
+on foot more than do these general lines, though the whole
+aspect of the range must be grasped before one can understand
+its details. The separate peaks and valleys, the intimate
+structure of the range is remarkable everywhere for its
+abruptness. It is this physical feature in the Pyrenees,
+coupled with the absence of snow, which gives them the highly
+individual character they bear.</p>
+
+<p>Fantastic outlines are not to be discovered in these hills so
+frequently as in the Dolomites, nor are wholly isolated hills
+common, though such few as exist are very striking, but for
+day after day a man wandering in the Pyrenees sees cliffs
+more regularly high, a greater succession of rocks more precipitous,
+and a more permanent succession of connected summits
+above him than in any other European range.</p>
+
+<p>The absence of snow is a further sharp characteristic in
+the range. The essential feature of an Alpine landscape is
+the snow; and it is not only the essential feature of that
+landscape to the eye, it is the condition which controls the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>
+lives of those who inhabit, and of those who visit, the valleys.
+You can still wander a trifle in Switzerland. Even to-day
+I have come to villages where foreigners were still thought
+comic, and an ignorance of the German tongue was still
+thought amazing. But though you can wander, your wandering
+is strictly limited. Above a certain line you can go forward
+only with technical knowledge and in a special way.
+You are upon ice or snow. All climbing in the Alps depends
+upon this, and most of travel as well. A man may pass many
+days for instance in the upper valley of the Rhone, and then
+pass many days more in the upper valley of the Aar, but to go
+from one to the other he must take one of two strictly defined
+paths, unless he is willing to undertake special work requiring
+technical knowledge and particular aids. The hills between
+the two valleys are not a field for his exploration; they are a
+great mass of impassable and unapproachable land, all
+frozen, and diversified only by very narrow valleys inhabitable
+nowhere but at their base. No one could lose himself for
+many days upon the Wetterhorn, the Jungfrau, or the Finsteraarhorn;
+you can approach these mountains for the glory
+of the thing, but they are not a country-side. Now in the
+Pyrenees almost all the surface of the mountains, say 250
+miles by 60, is at your disposal. It is this and a local custom
+of live and let live which make the pleasure of them inexhaustible;
+and which, combined with certain protective methods
+of their own, make it certain that the Pyrenees will never be
+overcome or changed by men. They are too large.</p>
+
+<p>This surface of some 15,000 square miles is diversified in a
+manner fairly continuous throughout the chain. The valley
+floors are given up to cultivation in their lower part, their
+upper parts consist of damp close pastures, and between the
+two types of level are to be found, as we shall presently see,
+sharp gates of rock through which the river saws its way in a
+gorge. Above the valley floor, and at the end of it, where the
+stream springs out below the watershed (such springs bubbling
+up suddenly through the porous rock are called Jeous), steep
+banks of two, three and four thousand feet, broken almost
+invariably here and there into precipices, forbid the way;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>
+and these, in perhaps half their extent, are covered with
+enormous woods of beech below (mixed often with oak) and
+of pine above.</p>
+
+<p>When you have climbed up these slopes through the forest
+or over the naked rock, you come, in the last heights, either
+to large grassy spaces, which often sweep right over the
+summit of a lateral ridge, and sometimes extend over both
+sides, even, of the main watershed (as between the Val d’Aran
+and Esterri) or else—more commonly—upon a jumble of
+jagged rocks and smooth, perpendicular or overhanging slabs,
+which defend the final secrets of the range.</p>
+
+<p>The succession of these features is nearly universal. The
+only places where they are modified are the two lower ends of
+the range. There the rocks sink, the hills are rounded, the
+precipices disappear in the last Basque valleys, while the
+Alberes at the other extremity of the chain against the
+Mediterranean are at last mere toothed rocks. All between
+(with the exception of the Cerdagne, which is a country to
+itself) is built up in successive bands of valley floor, steep
+forest, or steep rock, broken with limestone precipices, and
+finally on the highest ridge sweeps of grass or jagged edges of
+stone.</p>
+
+<p>It is this character in the last ridge of the Pyrenees that
+determines the nature of a passage over them, and since a
+passage from valley to valley is the chief business of the day
+when one is exploring the range, I will next describe these
+crossings, for the method of them is very different from that
+of other mountains, and has largely determined the history
+and customs of their inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>In other high mountains you will either find snow above a
+certain level and covering for most of the year most of
+the passes, some of the passes for all the year, or, as you
+go further south, you will commonly find many gaps
+which long years of weathering have reduced to easy
+slopes, or you will find great differences in slope between
+the one and the other side of the range; as, for
+instance, the difference between the long valleys that lead
+up eastward into the Californian Sierras, and the sharp escarpment<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>
+which falls eastward upon the desert side of those heights.
+In all other ranges that I have seen or read of, save the Pyrenees,
+there is at least great diversity in the opportunities of
+crossing, whether natural or artificial. There is great diversity,
+as a rule, in the natural crossings; some are quite easy
+ascents and descents on either side (as the Brenner Pass over
+the Alps); some, though difficult, are notably lower than the
+average height of the range (as the Mont Genèvre from the
+Durance into Piedmont); some, these more rare, are deep
+gorges cleft right through the range (as the Danube gorge
+through the Carpathians).</p>
+
+<p>Now it is characteristic of the Pyrenees that in the main part
+of their length no such diversities appear, save that there are
+two kinds of summit surfaces on the high cols, rock and grass:
+the grass the rarer.</p>
+
+<p>If anyone looks closely at the Somport, especially noting
+the line which the old track took before the modern road was
+made, he will agree that it is a pass which, though steep, had
+no “edge” to it, so to speak. The grass would take any kind
+of traffic. The same is true of course of the Cerdagne, the
+only broad valley across the Pyrenees. But the Somport is
+well to the west end of the range; the Cerdagne is well to the
+east end. All the main part between could take no vehicle,
+and has crossings of a kind which I shall presently describe:
+sharp, the escalade difficult, the first descent upon the far
+side, or the last ascent upon the near side, steep.</p>
+
+<p>There is perhaps an exception to be found in the case of the
+Bonaigo, but this pass also presents difficulties to wheels
+upon its western side, and in the lower valley at the gorge.</p>
+
+<p>In general the crossings of the Pyrenees everywhere display
+certain characters rare or absent in other ranges, which are
+<i>first</i> that they are very numerous (a feature due to the absence
+of snow), <i>secondly</i>, that they are very high, <i>thirdly</i>, that they
+hardly ever involve any true climbing, and <i>fourthly</i>, that they
+nearly always involve some considerable care on the part of
+the wayfarer and are somewhere dangerous either upon the
+northern or the southern side.</p>
+
+<p>This can be well illustrated by a particular example in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span>
+few miles between the Pic D’Anéu and the Canal Roya. Here
+there is a range no part of which descends much below 2100
+metres nor rises much above 2300. There are two distinct
+saddles where a man can cross on foot, and neither is appreciably
+lower than the peaks of the range, which are but lumps
+of rock a little higher than the grassy ridges from which they
+spring. Any man knowing the country and with a fairly
+good head could trust himself to half a dozen places westward
+of the two which I have mentioned (which are called the Col
+D’Anéu and the Port of Peyreget). Nevertheless the easiest
+of them, the Port de Puymaret, easy as it is upon the French
+side, gives some pause upon the Spanish. The traveller finds
+himself, once over the crest, within a few yards of a rocky
+edge, beyond which there is apparently nothing but air, and,
+thousands of feet beyond, the precipices of the Negras. If he
+will approach that rocky edge he will see that everything
+below it is easily negotiable, and when he has once reached
+the floor of the Spanish valley beneath he will perhaps wonder
+why it seemed so difficult from above. In truth it is not really
+difficult at all, but the scramble looks dangerous, and it is
+one which most men, other than regular climbers, would
+think twice about when they first saw it from above. If all
+this is true of the Peyreget, it is still more true of the other
+crossings in its neighbourhood to the right and to the left.</p>
+
+<p>Were the Pyrenees surmountable at comparatively few
+passages, these would have been so thought out and perhaps
+improved as to make them regular and well-known passes,
+which the traveller could easily deal with. It is the very
+number of the crossings which add to their difficulties. The
+people who live upon either side are indifferent in their choice
+among so many difficult passages, and with the exception of
+one or two quite modern made roads with which I shall presently
+deal, there are some hundreds of Cols and Ports all
+having in common a character of difficulty, and few naturally
+so much more easy than their neighbours as to concentrate
+travel upon them.</p>
+
+<p>This feature may be summed up in the expression that the
+crest of the Pyrenees is rather one long ridge slightly serrated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>
+than (as in the case of most other ranges) a succession of high
+mountain groups separated by low saddles.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the accidents that strike one in connexion with the
+crossing of these hills nothing strikes one more than the accident
+of time. A Port is always a day and a long day. Here
+and there quite exceptionally there may be food and shelter
+upon either side within six or seven hours one from the other;
+but as a rule if you propose to sleep under cover upon either
+side, your effort will demand a long summer’s day, and it is
+best to look forward to a night camp upon the further side of
+the range.</p>
+
+<p>Before continuing the description of these passages, or any
+rules by which one should be guided in attempting them, it
+may be well to speak for a moment of the few practised and
+conventional tracks.</p>
+
+<p>First of these come, of course, the high roads. At present,
+over the frontier, these are but four in number (for the low
+passes to the east of the Canigou may be neglected), Roncesvalles,
+the Somport, the Pourtalet, and the Cerdagne. Of
+these the Pourtalet has been but recently opened, and was
+just before the war still in process of being widened upon the
+French side. Moreover, it is so nearly neighbouring to the
+Somport (there is but 8 miles between them), that it hardly
+affords a true alternative crossing. A fifth high road across
+the watershed is that which crosses it at Porté from the valley
+of the Ariège into the Cerdagne, but this road is essentially a
+lateral one. It lies wholly in French territory, it joins the
+French road through the Cerdagne, and you cannot go by it
+down the valley of the Segre. It only crosses the watershed
+on account of an accidental divergence of this to the south,
+in the upper valley of the Ariège.</p>
+
+<p>These four carriage roads are all that lead, at present, over
+the political boundary of the Pyrenees. Another is in construction
+over the Port of Salau, but it is not finished upon
+the Spanish side. The French desire several others to go over
+by the Macadou, Gavarnie, etc., but their own preparations
+are not completed and the Spanish are not even begun.</p>
+
+<p>Apart, however, from these high roads, which are carefully<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>
+graded, possess an excellent surface, and are traversable by
+any vehicle, there are a certain number of crossings which
+travel has rendered familiar, and whose facility is well known.
+Thus, the Embalire from the Hospitalet on the upper Ariège
+into the upper Segre in Andorra is a perfectly easy slope of
+grass, though high. Again, the Bonaigo, though there have
+been natural difficulties in the lower valley to be surmounted,
+and though there is not even a track across it, is a perfectly
+easy roll of grassy land barely 6000 feet high. A high road leads
+as far as Esterri on the Spanish side; another goes from
+France on the northern side, right up the valley of the Garonne,
+beyond Biella, to the paths at the very foot of the pass, so that
+the gap between the two highways is but a few miles in length.</p>
+
+<p>The Port de Venasque again, though but a mule track, is
+constantly used, and, though steep and high (close upon 8000
+feet), presents no difficulties at all, and is almost a highway
+between the two countries. The Port de Gavarnie is similarly
+constantly used and may be taken like any other mountain
+path. Certain other passes form an intermediate category.
+They present no difficulties to one who is acquainted with the
+neighbourhood, but either the whole path is difficult to trace
+or its last and highest portion is dangerous, or there are precipices
+upon its lower slope, or in one way and another they
+cannot be regarded as constant and regular communications
+of international travel, though the inhabitants use them continually.
+Of such a kind is the Port d’Ourdayte; of such a
+kind are the passages from the Aston into Andorra, and of such
+a kind are most of the passages just west of the Port de Venasque.
+If one applied the test of asking where the Pyrenees
+could be crossed in doubtful weather, not half a dozen places
+could be found beyond the four high roads; and even if one
+were to ask in what spots they could certainly be crossed by
+a stranger without chance of failure, the number of passages
+would prove less than a score. All the rest of the ridge from
+the Sierra del Cadi to the Basque mountains is the rocky wall
+I have described, with innumerable notches more or less
+practicable, but all difficult, and nearly all requiring a detailed
+knowledge of either slope.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span></p>
+
+<p>There are one or two other features needing explanation
+before I close this introduction to a physical knowledge of
+the range; thus the reader should be acquainted with the
+many groups of lakes and tarns which stand just under the
+highest peaks and ridges in groups: they are highly characteristic
+of the Pyrenees. There is a cluster of half a dozen at
+the western base of the Pic du Midi d’Ossau, another cluster
+surrounding the neighbourhood of Panticosa, another in the
+summit of the Encantados between the Maladetta group and
+the valley of the Noguera, another very famous one well known
+to fishermen high up in the knot of mountains whose summit
+is the Carlitte, and there are many isolated small lakes which
+the map discovers. But whether in groups or isolated, one
+feature is common to all these lakes of the Pyrenees—first,
+that none is of any size; secondly, that all, or very nearly all,
+are quite in the highest parts of the hills immediately under
+the last escarpment; and thirdly, as a consequence, that it is
+rare to find a lake which the presence of wood and the neighbourhood
+of habitation render suitable for camping.</p>
+
+<p>It is worth remembering that, unlike most mountain
+systems, the Pyrenees do not, even in sudden storms, endanger
+one as a rule by a rapid increase in size of the torrents; one
+has not to fear spates so much as one might imagine from the
+multiplicity of the streams on the northern side or the large
+area of the valleys on the southern. This truth, of course,
+must not be exaggerated nor too much advantage taken of it.
+That part of a stream which will be just traversable after
+several fine days may become just too violent to cross after a
+few hours of rain, but I have never seen those sudden changes
+of level from a rivulet to a considerable torrent which one
+may so often see in British mountains, which are common
+enough in Scandinavia and even in the Alps, and which are a
+regular condition of travel in the Rockies.</p>
+
+<p>Why this should be so it would be difficult to say. The
+great area of forest upon the north might account for regularity
+upon that slope, but it would not account for it upon the
+Spanish side. And one would imagine that snow in large
+masses, which is lacking in the Pyrenees and present in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span>
+Alps, would rather tend to regulate the flow of rivers; but
+whatever be the cause, the evenness of level is what one used
+to other ranges will first remark when he has to cross and
+recross under different conditions the higher streams of this
+chain in summer.</p>
+
+<p>There should lastly be noted the absence of any important
+glaciers, a feature due to the absence of snow-fields. On the
+summit of the Cirque de Gavarnie, on the summits of the Pic
+d’Enfer and the neighbourhood, on the summits of the Maladetta
+group, and in one or two other parts, there are small
+glaciers, but they form no general feature in the landscape of
+the Pyrenees, and have no effect upon travel.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, the climate of these mountains should be noted:
+it is a very important part of the conditions which determine
+travel upon them.</p>
+
+<p>The rain-bearing winds blow from the Atlantic eastward,
+and if the Pyrenees stood upon either slope equally accessible
+to the sea, it is possible that the Spanish side would be the
+more deeply wooded and the best watered. The sudden
+trend westward of the Spanish coast, however, at the corner
+of the Bay of Biscay, causes the wet winds from the Ocean
+to lose most of their moisture to Galicia and the Asturias,
+before they can strike the Pyrenees themselves from the south,
+while the same winds, coming around the range from the north,
+come upon the Pyrenees immediately after leaving the sea.
+The result of this is that the French side is throughout its
+length more heavily watered than the Spanish side; but on
+either side there are three zones which, though not sharply
+distinguishable one from the other, are sufficiently remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>The first is that of heavy rains, and, what is more important
+for purposes of travel, of continuous rain and frequent mist.
+It stretches all along the western end of the range, and only
+begins perceptibly to change with the heights of the Pic d’Anie
+and the precipitous barrier of the upper valley of the Aspe.
+West of this line—that is, in all the Basque-speaking country—you
+have deep pastures upon either side of the range, and all
+the marks of the damp in the timber and the mode of building,
+the vegetable growth and the animals of the place. Snow falls<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span>
+later here than in the other parts of the Pyrenees, for the
+double reason that the neighbourhood of the sea makes the
+climate milder and that the hills are less high. In most places,
+for instance, communication is not cut off between the north
+and south valleys of the Basques, and men can usually cross
+from Ste. Engrace to Isaba at all seasons.</p>
+
+<p>The next zone (the eastern frontier of which is very vague)
+may be said to stretch, according to the year and the accident
+of weather, certainly as far as the Catalans and the valley of
+the Noguera on the east, and sometimes as far as the valley of
+the Segre itself. In all this central part of the range (which
+may normally be said to include more than half its length)
+the French or northern side is densely wooded and heavily
+watered, the Spanish side more dry and bare; but even the
+French side slowly shows a change of climate as one goes
+eastward, the forests remain as dense, the rivers as full, but
+the days are certainly finer and mist less frequent. On the
+Spanish side the change as one goes eastward is less striking,
+because the whole climate is drier. It is to be remarked that
+if mist gathers upon the northern side of the hills when one
+is attempting a pass, one may fairly count upon its disappearance
+upon the Spanish side in this section; and, in general,
+the whole of the southern slope, from the valley of the Aragon
+to that of the Noguera, is of a dry and equal nature, somewhat
+barren and burnt, not only from the lack of moisture, but also
+from exposure to the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The lack of moisture on the central Spanish slope, by the
+way, is not a little aided by the curious formation of the
+frontier of Navarre, and the separation between the Basques
+and the Aragonese; this consists in a long ridge of high land,
+the upper part of which is known as the Sierra Longa, which
+runs south and a little west from the Pic d’Anie. The effect of
+this lack of moisture and excess of heat upon the central
+Spanish side is not only felt on the heights of the mountain,
+but also and more particularly when one approaches the Plains.
+These in France are northern in type, full of greenery, and
+amply watered. In Spain, on the contrary, they are quite
+arid, and if one comes in to Huesca by train upon a September<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span>
+evening, and looks out the next morning over the flats that
+run up to the Sierra de Guara, one has all the impressions of a
+desert, though these lands are heavy corn-bearing lands in
+the summer.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the third, or eastern, section of the hills is Mediterranean
+in character throughout. The Canigou is much more
+heavily watered than the Sierra del Cadi, its corresponding
+Spanish height. But the olives on the lower slopes, the carpet
+of vineyards on the flats, the presence everywhere of bright
+insects, the quality of the light and the aridity of everything
+which does not happen to be planted with trees, give to this
+eastern corner of the Pyrenees the same aspect that you may
+notice on the Mediterranean hills of Southern France, Liguria,
+or Algeria or the Balearic Islands, for all these landscapes are
+of one kind, and binding them all together is not only their
+burnt red look, but also that tideless intense blue of the
+Mediterranean, the hot white towns, and everywhere the
+lateen sail upon the coasts.</p>
+
+<p>These differences of climate also determine the seasons in
+which the mountains may best be visited, for the Basque district
+is at your service (especially in its western part) from the
+spring to the late autumn of the year; the central valleys can
+be everywhere travelled in only from late June to mid-September;
+the eastern end, again, from the Segre and beyond
+it, is open to you from spring to autumn.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus02" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus02.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II<br>
+<span class="smaller">THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE PYRENEES</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowp60" id="illus03" style="max-width: 20.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus03.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The Political character of the
+Pyrenees corresponds to the
+Physical character which has
+been described. The high crest is
+the bond and division, from the beginning,
+between two societies which are
+connected by such common social
+habits as mountains impose—which
+therefore fall under similar local customs,
+which have a common jealousy of
+the civilized power on the plains below
+them, and which support each other in a
+tacit way against the stranger, yet which, from the beginning,
+have different governments and (especially in the high central
+part) deal with different corporate traditions—to the north the
+Béarnese, to the south Aragon. The easier passes to the west
+and the east of the chain permit a more or less homogeneous
+community to straddle across either end of the mountains,
+and to hold upon both slopes the sea roads that pass along the
+Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The people thus astraddle
+of the eastern end have come to be called the <i>Catalans</i>. That
+astraddle of the western, a highly distinct group of men with
+language, traditions, and physical characteristics wholly their
+own, has always been known by some title closely resembling
+their modern name of <i>Basques</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The foundation, therefore, upon which Pyrenean History
+is built, or (to use another metaphor), the germ from which it
+has developed and which explains its course, is a tripartite
+division of the inhabitants, corresponding, as I shall presently
+show, to the physical features of the chain: an eastern or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span>
+Catalan, a western or Basque, and a central group whose
+characteristic it is to subdivide according to the deep valleys
+into which it is separated, but which falls into two main
+societies, the one north of the chain which becomes the group
+of French counties whose typical government is Béarn, the
+other south of the chain, which assumes at last for its title
+“The Kingdom of Aragon.”</p>
+
+<p>The first matter to be noticed with regard to this tripartite
+division is the exactitude of its boundaries. One might
+imagine that the language, the habits, and the clear characteristics
+of any group would merge easily into those of its
+neighbours upon either side. This is not the case. The
+Basque type—much the most particular—ceases abruptly
+upon the watershed between the Gave d’Oloron and the Gave
+d’Aspe to the north of the range, upon the watershed between
+the Veral and the Esca to the south of it. The Catalans, with
+a dialect, mind, and dress wholly their own, are found to the
+<i>north</i> from the sea up to the Col de Puymorens, and everywhere
+east of the Carlitte mountains; in the Ariège valley and
+just over these heights, and on the further side of that Col,
+they are changed. To the <i>south</i> of the range they extend
+everywhere from the sea to the valley of the Ribagorza.
+Cross westward from that Catalan valley to the Esera. There,
+after hours of scrambling, down by the rocks and deserted
+tarns, you may towards evening find a man; that man will
+show the slow gestures, the silence, and the elaborate courtesy
+of Aragon.</p>
+
+<p>The mountain ridges which divide these various peoples
+are sufficient to mark their boundaries; but they do not
+suffice to explain why the Catalan, the Basque, the Aragonese,
+the Béarnais should cease suddenly here or there. True, the
+high lateral ridges which are so striking a peculiarity of the
+Pyrenees form barriers with difficulty passed, but these
+barriers are found just as high and just as precipitous and
+savage between two valleys of the same speech and nation
+as between two of different allegiance. Thus the wild jumble
+of mountains, “the Enchanted Range,” cuts off the Catalans
+of Esterri from the Catalans of the Ribagorzana. To pass<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span>
+them is something of a feat for anyone not of these hills—for
+much of the year they are closed to the native inhabitants.
+Their passage is hardly more of a task or more precipitous
+than the passage from Aragonese Venasque to Aragonese
+Bielsa, or from Béarnais Gabas, in the Val d’Ossau, to Béarnais
+Urdos, in the Val d’Aspe.</p>
+
+<p>An explanation of the unity which rules over each group,
+Basque, Central and Catalan, can only be given by referring
+each to the plains at the mouths of the valleys. It is the towns
+at the entry of these plains that form the markets and rallying
+places of the mountaineers and that determine their groupings.
+Oloron is the link between the two Béarnais valleys I have
+mentioned. Urgel binds Catalan Andorra to Catalan Esterri.
+Why, however, the groups should lie exactly where they do it
+is impossible to determine, for no records reach beyond the
+Romans. All we can say is that the Pic d’Anie, the first high
+peak eastward from the Mediterranean, forms the boundary
+stone of the Basques, as it does the chief physical mark dividing
+the high central ridge from the easier western passes;
+that the tangle of difficult and impossible peaks just eastward
+of the Maladetta are the boundary of Catalan south of the
+range, the similar but less abrupt tangle of the Carlitte, their
+boundary upon the north. How these nations arose, whence
+they wandered, whether their differentiation has arisen upon
+the spot out of an earlier homogeneity or is due to the conflict
+of invaders—of all this we know nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The place names of the Pyrenees, like those of all Spain,
+and half Gascony, do indeed afford a curious speculation which
+arises from the high proportion of names that are certainly
+<i>Basque</i>, though out of Basque territory. Of this language I
+shall write later: for my present purpose the point I would
+desire the reader to note is the sharp contrast which exists
+between that idiom and the idioms around it. There is no
+mistaking a Basque word, and yet these are found in all the
+Pyrenean range and to the north and south of them in a
+hundred place names, attached to hills, rivers and towns where
+Basque has been unknown throughout all recorded history.
+It is even plausibly suggested that the Latin “Vascones,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>
+the French “Gascon” is equivalent to “Basque,” and the
+late Mr. York Powell, the Regius Professor of History at
+Oxford, would say in speaking upon this matter that “Gascon
+was Latin spoken by Basques.” He possessed that type of
+education, rare or unknown in our universities, which
+made him capable of individual judgment in departments of
+living knowledge where his colleagues could but repeat words
+taught them from a book. This quality reposed upon a wide
+acquaintance with all matters of European interest. His
+diverse reading and considerable travel enabled him to balance
+human evidence in a way hopeless to his less fortunate neighbours
+in the University, and his conclusion on this important
+detail of history has always recurred to me when I have
+examined some new point in the early history of these mountains.
+There must, however, be set against the general conclusion
+that the Basques are the remnant of a people once
+universal from the Garonne to the Pyrenees, and throughout
+the Iberian Peninsula, the fact that they present a marked
+physical type utterly distinct from others upon every side.
+That a race of such a character, vigorous, attached to the soil,
+in no way nomadic, should have abandoned a large territory
+is difficult to believe; moreover, there is no case in all the
+recorded history of Western Europe of one people ousting
+another, and the process is manifestly physically impossible,
+save among nomads. Jews or Arabs could propagate and
+even believe such a theory. To Europeans it is laughable:
+the peasants and cities of Europe never have been, nor ever
+can be, largely displaced.</p>
+
+<p>All we know is that these place names exist throughout
+Spain and all over the Pyrenees, and that the million or so
+who speak the language whence such names are derived now
+occupy a tiny corner only of the vast territory over which
+those names are spread. The rest is guesswork.</p>
+
+<p>Ignorant as we are of the origin of the differentiation
+between Basque, Béarnais, Catalan and Aragonese, an
+historical fact quite certain—though no document proves it—is
+the extreme antiquity of these classes of men. That all
+Pyrenean history reposes upon their separate existence must<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>
+be evident to anyone who has watched the commercial manner,
+the mercantile vivacity, the whole mentality of the Catalan,
+and has contrasted it with the quiet chivalry of Aragon.
+Different military fortunes, different economic outlets, and
+different accidents of central government may possibly account
+within the historic period for the contrast between the Aragonese
+and the people of Béarn, Bigorre, or Comminges. No
+such forces can account for the gulf that cuts off the Catalan
+and the Basque at either end of the chain from the inhabitants
+of its high central portion. Infinite time is the maker of
+states, and two thousand years could never have determined
+societies so sharply separate. We must regard their constant
+and immemorial presence in the Pyrenees as the first and
+enduring principle to guide us in the history of those mountains.</p>
+
+<p>From this fundamental truth, which leads the prehistoric
+into the historic, one must proceed to another political fact
+of high importance, which is that while the watershed of the
+range has but partially separated customs and local thought,
+and that only in the centre of the range, it has necessarily
+served as a political boundary whenever a high civilization
+found it necessary to establish such a strict line. The boundary
+and the watershed may not exactly coincide—they do
+not exactly coincide even in the highly organized condition
+of modern society; but in the two historical periods of strict
+policy, the Roman and our own, the crest of the range has
+marked, and marks, an obvious boundary for most of its
+length. The political distinction between Hispania and Gaul
+cut the Basque nation into two, following the mountains from
+Roncesvalles to the Pic d’Anie: it cut the Catalan people into
+two, following the water parting from the two Nogueras to
+the Mediterranean. It followed the central chain, indifferent
+to the similarity or difference between the northern and the
+southern valleys. To-day the political distinction between
+Spain and France follows nearly the same line.</p>
+
+<p>The reason of this was, and is, twofold. First, that a clear
+physical boundary easily definable and of its nature permanent—the
+crest of a chain, a broad river, or what not—necessarily
+recommends itself to a bureaucracy in search of simplicity<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span>
+and economy in the work of a great political machine.
+We see it in the new countries to-day, where the instinct of
+organized government for easily definable and exact limits
+takes refuge in establishing parallels of latitude as state boundaries
+in the absence of marked physical lines. Secondly, in
+the case of mountains, and especially of mountains as sharp
+and as boldly set as are the Pyrenees, the fatigue of climbing,
+the absence of carriageways, made each valley dependent for
+its connexion with the central government upon some town
+of the plains, and the authority of a provincial magistrate
+could not but run, as ran the physical instruments of his rule,
+up from Huesca northward to Sallent—for instance, or up from
+Jaca to Canfranc, and so to the summit of the ridge; or up
+from Oloron southward to Accous, and so to Urdos. As the
+messengers, writs, powers of each proceeded, the way would
+become harder, the progress more doubtful. It was obvious
+and necessary that the boundary of either jurisdiction should
+lie upon the pass. And though the inhabitants of the northern
+and the southern valleys might be accustomed to a regular
+intercourse across the crest, the Roman agents of a distant
+central government could not but have depended upon cities
+far removed to the south and to the north of the watershed, as
+to-day the police of Tardets, let us say, and of Isaba, two towns
+of one speech, refer respectively through Pau and through
+Pamplona to Paris and to Madrid.</p>
+
+<p>It is in the interplay of these two jarring political forces,
+the permanent national seats of Basque, Catalan, etc., and the
+use of the range as a political or official boundary, that the
+political character of the Pyrenees resides; and as their
+history begins with the Romans, to whom we owe the first
+knowledge of the Pyrenean people and the first use of the
+Pyrenean boundary, it will be well to consider it under territories
+divided as the Romans divided them, by the main range,
+and to follow first the development of the northern slope.</p>
+
+<p>The historical origins of the French Pyrenees are sharply
+divided in history by that wall which cuts off all that Rome
+<i>made</i> from all that Rome <i>inherited</i>. Rome made of the barbarians
+a new world, but before she began that task Rome had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span>
+inherited everywhere within a march of the Mediterranean a
+belt of land whose civilization was similar to, always as old as,
+and sometimes older than, her own. It was a municipal
+civilization dependent upon the arts and religion proper to a
+city state. It built, whether temples or ships, as Rome would
+build them: it was one thing; it is almost one thing to-day;
+and its bond at Antioch as at Saguntum, at Marseilles as at
+Athens or Alexandria, was, and is, the universal water of the
+Mediterranean. To such cities and their territories Rome fell
+heir. Little proceeded from her to them save first the sense
+of unity, and later the Faith, and of the whole system, the
+belt which stretches from Valencia to Genoa, now broadening
+to the plains of Nemosus (Nîmes), now narrowing to the rocky
+ledge of the Portus Veneris (Port Vendres), concerns the first
+evidence of Pyrenean history; for it was from a corner of this
+belt—between Tarragona and Narbonne—that the advance of
+civilization inland and along the Chain proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>A century before the four imperial centuries which made our
+Christian world, a century before Augustus Cæsar, Rome had
+fully occupied and impressed that soil—to the south Gerona
+and the Catalan fields, to the north the rich floor which lies
+under the Canigou and has come to be called the <i>Rousillon</i>.
+Thence the Roman advance north of the hills proceeded. The
+chief town of the sea-plain—whose name “Illiberis” is so
+strongly Basque in form—Rome took for the central municipality
+of that plain, and made it the capital of the coastal
+district. This hill and citadel, at which Hannibal had halted
+a hundred years before, preserved as a bishopric for thirteen
+hundred years a memory of the Roman order. Constantine
+formed its diocese, rebuilt it, gave it his mother’s name of
+Helena. The sea by which it lived has withdrawn from it.
+It has sunk to be a little country town, “Elne.” Roscino
+which lay also upon the coast march of Hannibal, has sunk to
+something smaller still, yet, by some accident, gave the province,
+in the dark ages, its name of Roussillon which it still
+retains. These two towns, the fruitful plain about them, the
+Port of Venus (which is now Port Vendres), formed the municipal
+structure of this district, the last corner of the great<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>
+province whose headship lay at Narbonne. Its nominal
+boundaries included all the vale of the Tet; it extended as
+far as now extends the Catalan language, and was bounded, as
+that is bounded, by the great form of the Carlitte and its high
+lakes and snows. All between that mountain and the sea,
+all the eastern decline of the range and the slope north of it,
+was ancient land, and had been ploughed and held and walled
+by men of the Mediterranean civilization long before Rome
+inherited it.</p>
+
+<p>With the much longer stretch that runs from the upper
+Ariège to the Atlantic it was very different. This was of what
+Rome made, not of what Rome inherited. Before the coming
+of Roman government it was barbarous, and the many tribes
+or petty states, whose number various guesses of antiquity
+record (they were perhaps as numerous in their subdivision
+as the valleys), stand in three main groups when first the civilization
+to the east of them began to record their existence:
+these three were first the Convenæ, south of Toulouse, and all
+about the upper waters of the Garonne. Next to these came
+the Auscians, and finally, over the Basque end of the hills
+towards the ocean, was the seat of the Tarbelli.</p>
+
+<p>The whole point of view of antiquity differed from ours in
+speaking of such tribes, nor is it easy to pick out from the
+scraps of observation that have come down to us the kind of
+information that we want. Sometimes a name survives,
+sometimes it does not; sometimes we get a hint of a variety of
+race, most often we lack it. It is the very meagreness and
+eccentricity of the information upon a barbarous race and
+custom which affords such opportunities to our dons for those
+forms of speculation which they love to put forward as dogma,
+the most absurd example of which, perhaps, is the interpretation
+and enlargement of Tacitus’ “Germania.” It is therefore
+exceedingly difficult to know of what kind were these
+people beyond the old Roman pale. We do not know what
+language they spoke. We only know that, like other Gallic
+communities, they centred round fortified places, that their
+pacification was easy, and that, like everything else in Western
+Europe, they were of an unchangeable kind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span></p>
+
+<p>The whole district between the Garonne and the Pyrenees
+came to be called, during the first four centuries of our era,
+“The Nine Peoples.” The Convenæ are early noted to have
+attached to them upon their right and upon their left, to east
+and to west, the Consevanni and the Bigerriones. The first
+of these were (to follow the high authority of Duchesne)
+organized as early as the first century; what is now St. Lizier
+was their old capital and later their bishopric, which takes its
+present name from Glycerius, a saint of the sixth century.
+They held all those hills of which St. Girons close by is now
+the centre. The Bigerriones are not heard of until the
+mention of them in the Notitia of the fourth century. They
+must have held Bigorre, and the three valleys which I have
+called the valleys of Tarbes. Tarbes—then Turba—was their
+capital, and was and is their bishopric.</p>
+
+<p>The Auscians do not concern us. They and the three groups
+into which they are later distinguished held the western plains
+and foot hills. The Tarbelli held both the foot hills and the
+mountains of the west; their capital was at Dax. They also
+split into, or are later recognized as three separate groups,
+making up with the two other sets of three “The Nine
+Peoples,” under which title all this country below the Pyrenees
+became permanently known. But of the three only the
+<i>Civitas Benarnensium</i>, whence we get the name Béarn, and
+the <i>Civitas Elloronensium</i>, with its capital at Iloro, which has
+become Oloron, concern us. The capital and soon the
+bishopric of the <i>Civitas Benarnensium</i> was at Lescar, as far
+as we can make out, and Lescar bore the chief sanctity in
+Béarn until that country was swept by the Reformation.
+The sovereigns of Béarn were buried there, even the Protestant
+sovereigns, and it remained a bishopric, whose bishop was the
+President of the Parliament of Béarn, until the Revolution;
+but it was the Reformation which destroyed its original
+character of a capital.</p>
+
+<p>We have, therefore with the earliest ages of our civilization,
+five peoples holding the northern Pyrenees, the Consevanni,
+the Convenæ, the people of Bigorre, the Béarnese, and the
+Elloronians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable that in such a list, our Roman originators
+and their geographers overlooked the Basques. The category
+ends precisely at the present limit of the Basque tongue.
+For the Val d’Aspe, of which Oloron is the town, is the first
+French-speaking valley. Why it is that we hear nothing of
+the Basques it is difficult to say, especially as the second of the
+great Roman military roads went right through their country.
+Bayonne, which is the Basque’s town of the plains on the
+north, is heard of in the fifth century. It has a garrison;
+but no bishopric until the tenth. Pamplona, which is their
+town on the south, was known before the beginnings of our
+Christian history. But the Basques themselves are not known
+to us from the Romans. The name of the Consevanni survives
+locally. The country round St. Girons is still all one
+country-side and called the “Conserans.” Of the Convenæ we
+have a pleasant legend in St. Jerome telling how Pompey got
+together all the brigands of the mountains, drove them
+northward hither, and forced them into a garrison (a stronghold
+which, like Lyons and the rest, was one of the many
+“Lugdunums”). It was destroyed early in the dark ages,
+and later revived by St. Bertrand, a little way off in his
+Episcopal town. Their name survives in the district of
+Comminges. The Béarnese name of course survives and so
+does the Bigorrean, while the Elloronean, though no longer
+the title of a district, is preserved in the town name of Oloron.</p>
+
+<p>All this country, not only that of the five tribes along the
+mountains, but the whole territory occupied by the nine
+peoples (who afterwards became twelve), lay in a profound
+peace under Roman rule, and we may be certain of its increasing
+wealth throughout the first four great formative centuries
+of our era.</p>
+
+<p>The advance of Rome upon the Spanish side was of a very
+different kind. Rome, after the Carthaginian wars, inherited
+broad belts of civilized and half civilized land. All the
+Mediterranean slope below the mouth of the Ebro, and a belt
+quite three days’ marches wide inland to the north of that
+river, was full of ancient populated towns, alive with the full
+civilization common to every shore of the inland sea. So, we<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>
+may be certain, were the broad plains of the south where the
+most complete and earliest absorption of the Celt-Iberian in
+Roman speech and ideas took place. The advance into the
+north-west and therefore along the Pyrenees covered more
+than a century of strict and perpetual warfare, which was
+intermixed by the civil wars of the Roman commanders. The
+extremities of the Asturias were reached in the century before
+the birth of our Lord, but the advance was not, as upon the
+north, a rapid expansion beyond the old boundaries. It took
+the form of siege after siege and battle after battle, in which
+those numerous and crushing defeats, which Rome (like every
+truly military power) reckoned to be a necessary part of
+history, interrupted the slow progress of her law. The Celt-Iberian
+towns were walled and strong; their resistance was
+painful and tenacious; there was no sudden illumination of a
+willing people by a new culture, such as had taken place in
+Gaul, rather was northern Spain kneaded by generations of
+warfare into the stuff of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>When the work was accomplished, it was complete throughout
+the Peninsula; and though the silent strength of the
+Basques prevented the Roman language from invading their
+valleys, the administration of the whole territory south of
+the Pyrenees must have been as exact and as bureaucratic
+as that to the north of it. There was, however, this great
+difference due to local topography between the Spanish and
+the French hills, that the municipalities upon which Rome
+stretched her power, as upon pegs, were less common, were
+farther apart, and approached less nearly to the central
+ridge upon the southern than upon the northern side. What
+you see to-day south of the Pyrenees is what you might have
+seen at any time in the last 2000 years—a very few scattered
+towns, still the centres of government, and all the rest rare
+isolated villages living their own life, free from the criminal,
+and, by a regular payment of small taxes, half independent
+of the civil law. Alone of the true mountain sites, Jaca in the
+middle, Pamplona and Urgel at either extremity, were bishoprics.
+Huesca, St. Laurence’s town, a fourth centre, is in the
+plains. For the rest the confused storm of hills ending in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>
+those parallel ranges, pushed right out on to the burnt flats of
+the Ebro, forbade the establishment of a municipal civilization.</p>
+
+<p>Upon all this land to the north and to the south of the
+mountains came, after five hundred years of a high civilization,
+the slow decline of culture, and the infiltration of the
+barbarians. In a sense the nominal divisions between the
+barbaric kingdoms has its importance, for they help us to
+understand changes of dynasty and of custom. But they were
+of no political effect. The mass of the people knew little of
+the chance soldiers who, with their mixed retinues of Roman,
+Breton, German, Slav, and the rest—some able, some not
+able to read the letters of Rome—sat in the old seats of office,
+issued their writs through the still surviving Roman Bureaucracy
+and from palaces which were but those of decayed
+Roman governors.</p>
+
+<p>For the greater part of Western Europe, and especially of
+Gaul, this process of decay was one into which Europe slowly
+dipped as into a bath of sleep, and out of which it rose more
+rapidly through the energy of the Crusades and of the renewed
+Pontificate into the splendour of the Middle Ages. But the
+Pyrenees suffered in this matter a peculiar fate. When
+Spain was overrun by the Mohammedan, and when in the
+first generation of the eighth century the Asiatic with his alien
+creed and morals had even swept for a moment into Gaul,
+the Pyrenees became a march: at first the rampart, later,
+when they were fully held, the bastion of our civilization
+against its chief peril. It is this episode by which the
+Pyrenees became the military base of the advance against
+Islam—an episode covering the whole life of Charlemagne
+and after him the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries—which
+gives them their legendary atmosphere and fills all their names
+with romance.</p>
+
+<p>The northern slope, during the long business by which Gaul
+became itself again, was but a remote border province. The
+new life of Gaul, after the shock which had so nearly destroyed
+Europe was over, sprang from Paris. The influence of Paris
+radiating upon every side built up again accuracy of knowledge,
+unity of government, and general law. To this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>
+influence the Pyrenees seemed the most remote of boundaries.
+The valleys were little affected by the growth of the French
+Monarchy; they remained for centuries broken into a maze
+of half-republican customs, of tiny independent lordships,
+guarded and menaced by separate and jealous walled municipalities
+upon the plains—all of this vaguely and slowly
+coalesced into larger districts, doubtful of their sovereignty
+and perpetually struggling upon their boundaries and their
+sub-boundaries.</p>
+
+<p>In this development nothing was more striking than the
+way in which this remote border at first looked rather to the
+south, where the interest of religious war was ever present,
+than to the north, whence government was slowly coming
+towards it. The French Pyrenees fought and felt with the
+whole range, not with the plains. Jaca in the worst time,
+when it was the only mountain bishopric free from the Mohammedan,
+counselled with and was perhaps suffragan to Eauze.
+Urgel sat in the provincial Synod of Narbonne. As the
+success of the Reconquista pushed the noise of crusade further
+and further from the range, the northern valleys looked more
+and more towards their northern towns. Their nominal allegiances
+grew stricter—as of Foix to Toulouse—and every French
+bishopric was bound more and more to its northern metropolitan,
+the Spanish sees to the new metropolitans of the Ebro.</p>
+
+<p>At last an issue was joined between Northern and Southern
+France of the first moment to the unity of Gaul itself and of
+all Christendom. The Crusades, the knowledge of the East,
+the awakening of the intelligence and of its appetites, had
+bred throughout the wealthy towns of what had been from
+the beginning Roman land, a desire to be rid of the restraints
+of fixed religion. The South of France began to move towards
+its pagan past. It was a movement which had already had
+its strange echo in the north, a movement which in England
+had only been pulled up at the last moment by the martyrdom
+of St. Thomas. Here in Gaul, in the sunlight, and backed
+by so much gold, the rational and sensual revolt became a
+larger thing, and when various sources of disruption, speculation,
+and achievement had met in one stream, it was commonly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span>
+called the <i>Albigensian</i> movement. The issue was decided,
+after heavy fighting, in the early thirteenth century, and the
+victory was with the cause of the unity of Europe. Toulouse
+(the true centre of the storm) and its lord were conquered.
+Northern barons swept down, held no small part of the
+southern land, and from that time onward the French
+Pyrenees are normally dependent on Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Two exceptions survived, the straddle of the Basque across
+the chain and the straddle of the Catalan. The Basque had
+his country of Navarre upon either side of the chain; with it
+went Béarn, and these were independent of the French crown.
+The Catalan, able to traverse the chain by the flat floor of the
+Cerdagne, preserved the unity of his mountain province, and
+the Roussillon counted with Spain. Apart from this easy
+passage into the Roussillon from the south, by way of the
+Cerdagne, the isolation of the Roussillon was the more easily
+accomplished from the long spur of the Corbieres, which runs
+north and east towards the sea and cuts off from France the
+wealthy plain of which Elne had once been, Perpignan had
+later become, the capital.</p>
+
+<p>This arrangement endured, in name at least, until the seventeenth
+century. The last heir of Navarre was also the
+heir nearest to the French throne at the close of the religious
+wars, and as Henry IV of France he united the two crowns.
+A man who, as a boy, might have rejoiced at that union, could
+have lived to see, under Mazarin, the signing of the Treaty of
+the Pyrenees, which gave the Roussillon also to the French
+Crown. The date of this final arrangement coincided with
+what is ironically called “The Restoration” in England:
+this date, which definitely closed the power of the English
+Monarchy, and substituted for it the power of a wealthy
+oligarchic class, coincides throughout Europe with the
+struggle between absolute central government for the equal
+service of all, and local aristocratic custom. In England the
+latter conquered; in Spain and France the debate was decided
+in favour of the former.</p>
+
+<p>Such centralized governments could but further define and
+insist upon a new boundary, and from that time onward, for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>
+250 years that is, the Pyrenees have been once more as they
+were under the clear administration of Rome, a fixed political
+boundary; and, save certain exceptions that will be mentioned
+later, everything north of the chain has been administered
+from Paris, and has slowly accepted, side by side with
+the local tongue, the tongue of Northern France and the habit
+of a centralized French government.</p>
+
+<p>South of the chain the process by which Christendom
+recrystallized out of the flux of the dark ages, followed a
+different course; it was a process to which Spain owes all
+her national characteristics, for out of the mountains a Spanish
+nation was formed, and from its various communities, as from
+roots, the Catholic kingships grew southward until they once
+more reached Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>To understand this process, it is necessary to consider factors
+absent in the topography of the Gaulish plains, and especially
+the factor of that unconquerable tangle of mountains which
+occupies all the north-western triangle of the Peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>The ocean boundaries of the Iberian quadrilateral are nearly
+square to the points of the compass. It is not so with the
+internal divisions that mark off its central part. Here the
+edges of the high and arid plateaux, the deep trenches of the
+rivers, the mountain ranges, the boundaries of the plains at
+their feet, run slantways from north-east to the south-west.
+This slant determined the boundaries of Mohammedan expansion,
+while the Asiatics and Africans still retained the energy
+to advance; it determined the successive frontiers of the
+Reconquest, as our race slowly ousted the invader and
+reached at last the sea-coast of Granada. The Arab and the
+Moor were masters of Narbonne and all the Roussillon on the
+east, when, on the west, they could not cross the mouth of
+the Mulio a hundred miles to the south. They were at Jaca
+within a day’s march of the watershed along the Roman Road,
+when, to the immediate west of it, they could not hold Fuente;
+they could not even reach Pamplona, though that western
+town is two marches at least from the main crest. Toledo was
+reconquered a generation before Saragossa, though Saragossa
+is by nearly two degrees more northerly, because Toledo was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>
+west of Saragossa. The last Mohammedan kingdom was
+crowded, after the thirteenth century, into the extreme
+south-east, as the surviving remnant of the free Europeans
+of the Peninsula had been crowded into the extreme north-west
+in the eighth.</p>
+
+<p>If the boundaries of undisputed Mohammedan rule be traced
+for various dates, the receding wave will be found in general
+to follow curves that lead, like the main features of the land,
+from the north-east downwards towards the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="illus04" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus04.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>This main character in the geography and history of Spain,
+the south-westerly trend of the mountain ridges, largely determined
+the fortunes of those fighting bands of mountaineers
+who ceaselessly pressed southward until they had wholly
+driven out the invader and reconstituted the unity of Europe.
+It determined the first advance to be, not from the Pyrenees,
+but from the Asturias, and the first captain connected with the
+Christian resistance after the overwhelming of all that civilization,
+<i>Pelayo</i> (from whose blood Leon, Castille, Aragon, and
+Navarre descend) had his stronghold, not in the Pyrenees,
+but a week’s march to the west, along the Biscayan coast at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>
+Cangas. Within the decade of the invasion he had checked the
+invader in his own hills at Covadonga.</p>
+
+<p>All the eighth century is full of that successful spirit in
+the north-west—but nowhere else. Alfonso, the husband of
+Pelayo’s daughter, struck the note with his boast, “No pact
+with the infidel,” and the tradition or prophecy that Christendom
+would regain the south, springs from him. He conquered
+down to the Douro, over what is to-day the mountain frontier
+of Portugal; he began those long cavalry raids into the heart
+of Moorish land. He rode into Astorga, into Zamora, into
+Segovia itself—within sight of the central range of the Guadarama:
+riding back with booty, harassed and harassing,
+nowhere permanently fixing himself save in the towns of the
+west, upon the Lower Douro, but building on the ridges of his
+defence, those block-houses, the “Castille” from which, long
+after, the frontier province began to take its name.</p>
+
+<p>All the ninth century that spirit grew. The body of St.
+James was found under the Star at Compostella—its shrine
+became the national sacrament as it were, a perpetual refreshment
+for arms, and a symbol, in its wild isolation among the
+rocks of Galicia, of the impregnable places from which the
+Reconquista drew its ardour. The advance continued. The
+frontier counties consolidated and were named.</p>
+
+<p>Leon was permanently held, Burgos was founded. If one
+takes for a date the opening years of the tenth century, just
+after Alfred had saved England also from the pagan, and just
+after the Counts of Paris had saved northern Gaul, there is a
+full Spanish kingdom standing up against the Mohammedan
+power, a king has been crowned in Leon and has died in peace
+at Zamora. The cavalry raids have pushed—once at least—to
+Toledo. All the north-west lay permanently Christian
+beyond a line that ran from the corner of Gaul to the Douro
+and down the Douro to the sea; and this united triangle of
+Roman land formed a base from which the pushing back of
+the alien could proceed.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">How did this disposition of forces affect the Pyrenees?
+Let it first be noted that the newly organized Christian country<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>
+lay wholly to the west of the range. In the Pyrenees themselves
+the Mohammedan flood had washed every valley.
+The crest had been traversed and retraversed; both slopes
+were for a moment held by the invaders. Abd-ur-Rahman had
+sent or led his thousands by the Roman roads of Roncesvalles
+and Urdos and over the Ostondo and the lower passes of the
+west. The mule tracks of these rocks had been twice crowded
+with the white cloaks of the Arabs. In the east, Narbonne
+was held for fifty years, and with it all the Catalans. Even in
+the high centre of the chain, where there is no passing between
+the Somport and the Cerdagne, wherever there was something
+to rob or to destroy, the invaders had penetrated. There was
+not here, as in the Asturias, untouched land.</p>
+
+<p>When the crest of the wave retreated, when the Mohammedan
+came back defeated from Gaul, the high valleys
+attained—it may be guessed—a savage independence.</p>
+
+<p>Jaca has legends of its battle at the very beginning of the
+Independence, before Charlemagne had come to the rescue,
+and from all the valleys of the Sobrarbe, bands of men must
+have been perpetually volunteering for skirmishes down into
+the plains. Navarre was the natural leader of the movement,
+the largest and the most fertile belt of Christian land, but the
+little lordship upon the Aragon, fighting down south and east
+towards the Ebro, the western count of the Asturias fighting
+down south and west, cut off the advance of the Basques;
+and though Navarre in the period of birth and turmoil which
+is that of Gregory VII’s reform of the Papacy, of the establishment
+in England and in Sicily of Norman power, and of preparation
+for the Crusade, was the head of all the southern
+Pyrenees and called itself an “Empire,” it was blocked by the
+double line of advance, and the Basques, upon the foundation
+of whose tenacity and courage, as upon a pivot, the Reconquest
+had proceeded, took little more part in the wars; but
+the Basque strip of Navarre gave its first king to Aragon, and
+the son of that first king, Sancho, raided so far as Huesca and
+was killed beneath its walls; his son again, Peter, took the
+town two years later just as the hosts of Europe were gathering
+for that first great march upon Jerusalem which threw<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>
+open the curtain of the Middle Ages; and <i>his</i> son, Alfonso
+(who had united in one crown Leon and Aragon), went forward
+under his great name of the Batallador, and twenty years
+later (1119) swept into Saragossa, the last of the Mohammedan
+strongholds in the north.</p>
+
+<p>Thus were the west and the centre of the Spanish slope
+recovered for our race and civilization.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Catalonia upon the east had been since Charlemagne,
+since the early ninth century, a march of Christendom;
+but it was not until the same creative period which had
+brought forth the leadership of Navarre and the advance from
+Aragon, the Normans, Hildebrand, and the resurrection of
+Europe, that Catalonia began to go forward. Its first true
+monarch was Berenguer the Old, who lived round and about the
+date of Hastings, and was first master of the whole province.
+He also founded and maintained the Cortes of Barcelona.
+His son, for a moment, raided the Balearics, and when he died
+Catalonia and Aragon, united under one crown, saw the
+alien finally driven from these mountains. All the plain
+from far beyond the base of the hills was now permanently
+held by strong and united kingships which pressed forward
+to the Ebro valley, and finally saved all the Spanish
+province of Europe. A lifetime later, the last of the foreign
+armies had been broken at Navas de Tolosa. Far off in the
+south Islam lingered, tolerated and on sufferance, but Spain
+was reconquered. For just 500 years Spain, a quarter of all
+that makes up our civilization, had lain in peril between our
+religion and the other.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that with the thirteenth century, the Albigensian
+crusade upon the north, the destruction of Islam upon
+the south (the two successes were contemporaneous), the
+Pyrenees ceased for ever to be a march between two civilizations,
+and became a mere political boundary between two
+provinces of Europe; and I have said that the nature of that
+boundary was finally fixed in the seventeenth century, or
+rather during a period which stretches from the close of the
+sixteenth to just after the middle of the seventeenth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-k" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-k.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan K.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span></p>
+
+<p>If that political boundary be examined to-day it will be
+found to coincide with the watershed, save at certain particular
+points, the character of which merits examination.</p>
+
+<p>I take for my boundaries, as throughout this book, Mount
+Urtioga on the west, and the beginning of the Alberes on the
+east, which may conveniently be placed at the Couloum.</p>
+
+<p>In this distance, there is a slight discrepancy between the
+political boundary and the watershed here and there in the
+Basque valleys. Mount Urtioga itself, though upon the watershed,
+is entirely in Spain, and the sources of the torrents which
+feed the valley of Baigorry all rise a mile or so beyond the
+political frontier, which is here composed of two straight
+conventional lines.</p>
+
+<p>The head waters of the Nive are wholly in Spain also, as is
+all the left bank of that river to a point four miles below Val
+Carlos. The right bank, however, is French, so far as the
+torrent Garratono. Thence forward from the sources of that
+torrent (that is, upon the Atheta) the frontier now follows the
+watershed, now leaves the very head-springs of the torrents
+in Spain until, a few miles further east, it makes a considerable
+invasion of Spanish territory, not because the frontier itself
+bends, but because the watershed here goes northward in a
+half circle. All the upper valley of the Iraty is politically in
+France; but from the Pic d’Orhy, where a definite ridge
+begins, it follows the frontier strictly for mile after mile (with
+the exception of a curious little enclave which gives Spain
+two or three hundred yards of the head-waters of the Aspe),
+and there is no further exception throughout all the high
+Pyrenees until one strikes the curious anomaly of the <i>Val
+d’Aran</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I have said in describing the physical structure of the
+Pyrenees that the two main axes of those mountains were
+joined by a sort of fault, a serpentine bridge of high land which
+united them from the Sabouredo to a point ten miles northward,
+the Pic de l’Homme overhanging the Pass of Bonaigo.
+The valley caught on the French side of this twist is the Val
+d’Aran, containing the upper waters of the French river
+Garonne. Geographically of course it is French, but politically
+it is Spanish so far as a certain gorge where is a bridge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>
+called the King’s Bridge, and where the Garonne pours
+through a narrow gate of rock into its lower valley. The
+story goes that when the Treaty of the Pyrenees was in
+act of negotiation someone said diplomatically and casually
+to the French negotiators, “The Val d’Aran of course you
+regard as Spanish,” and they, knowing no more of these
+mountains than of the mountains of the moon, said, “Of
+course.” The true reason is rather that the gate in the mountains
+cuts off this upper valley from the lower gorges of the
+river much more than the low, easy, and grassy saddle of the
+Bonaigo cuts it off from the Spanish valley of Eneou just to
+the east of it: and though the Val d’Aran may be geographically
+or rather hydrographically French, it is topographically
+Spanish, which is as though one were to say that Almighty
+God made it so.</p>
+
+<p>Another exception and a big one to the rule that the frontier
+follows the watershed, is, of course, to be found in the French
+Cerdagne. The true watershed here is coincident with the
+frontier as far as the Pic de la Cabanette in latitude 42° 35′
+30″. The watershed then goes on over the Port de Saldeu,
+along the crest of the Port d’Embalire to the Pic Nègre, and
+there it turns to the east along the ridge across the saddle of
+which goes the high road over the Col called Puymorens.
+It follows that ridge, <i>not</i> to the summit of the Carlitte, but to
+a lower peak called the Madides, three miles to the north-east,
+runs along two miles of a high rocky ledge to the Pic de la
+Madge and then there follows a difficult sort of hydrographical
+No Man’s Land, the centre of which is the great marsh of
+Pouillouse, nor can you tell exactly where the watershed is
+for some miles in the forest below that marsh, for the same
+damp flat ground sends water into the valley of the Tet and
+into the valley of the Segre. Three miles to the south-west,
+however, it is clearly defined again in a low rounded lump of
+wooded land, it passes over the flat Col de la Perche and then
+follows the crest still going south-west up to the Pic d’Eyne,
+where again it becomes the frontier, and the frontier it remains
+until it reaches the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<p>From the Pic de la Cabanette, all the way to the Pic d’Eyne,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>
+France and Mazarin politically took in by the Treaty of the
+Pyrenees a belt to the south of the watershed and extending
+down to a conventional line which left Bourg-Madame French
+and Puigcerdá Spanish; an exception in this is a small strip
+beyond the Pic de la Cabanette, on the left bank of the Ariège,
+which, though geographically French, was given to Andorra,
+so that Andorra might smuggle more comfortably over the
+passes.</p>
+
+<p>The causes of this annexation of the French Cerdagne by
+Mazarin are clear enough when one remembers that the Roussillon
+(which is geographically French) passed to France by
+the same treaty. There is no way from the valley of the
+Ariège into the Roussillon except by going round this corner
+of the Cerdagne, at least no practicable carriage way; the
+only other way is the difficult and high short cut described
+later in this book. If the frontier be carefully noted, it will
+be seen that it is designed merely to preserve a right of passage
+over this road. Jurisdiction was only claimed by France over
+the villages, and Llivia, being a town, stands in an island of
+Spanish territory in the midst of the French Cerdagne, as
+will be seen later when I speak of this district in detail.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the present political aspect of the Pyrenees, with
+Toulouse for their great French town in the plains, 60 miles
+away to the north, Saragossa for their great Spanish town in
+the plains, 100 miles away to the south, a string of towns just
+at their feet (Bayonne, Pau, Tarbes, St.
+Girons, etc.) on the northern side; on the
+south a rarer and less connected group
+(Pamplona, Huesca, Barbastro, Lerida,
+etc.); and against the Mediterranean
+the district of Gerona, shut in by the
+Sierra del Cadi (with its outposts) and
+the Alberes upon the Spanish side, the
+town of Gerona its capital; the Roussillon,
+with Perpignan for its capital, shut
+in between the Alberes and the Corbieres
+on the French side.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp46" id="illus05" style="max-width: 15.625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus05.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III<br>
+<span class="smaller">MAPS</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>One of the first ideas that come to a man when he thinks
+of wandering about an unknown bit of country is
+that it will be more fun if he does not take a map.
+There are places of which this is true: you discover for yourself,
+and it is more exciting. But it is not true of the Pyrenees.
+So little is it true of the Pyrenees that those who have
+no maps, that is, the local peasantry, never traverse a country
+until they know it well, and when they get into new country
+learn all they can from its inhabitants, get themselves accompanied
+if possible, and keep to a path. You will find that
+the hunters who know the mountains are always local men.
+The Pyrenees are built in such a fashion and on such a scale
+that you not only can, but must, lose yourself in the course
+of any long wandering unless you have some sort of guide to
+your hand. There is only one kind of travel off the road
+which you can possibly undertake without a map, and that
+will be pottering about one small district with a porter, a
+friend, or a mule to carry a tent and plenty of provisions;
+but if you are attempting several crossings of the ridges, and
+especially if you are attempting such a task on foot, a map is
+absolutely necessary to you.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever kind of map you take with you into the hills, you
+must also take with you a small compass, and that is why I
+mention that toy later in talking of equipment. You are
+perpetually asking yourself, as you compare the map with the
+landscape, which peak is which, and it is often essential to
+get the right one on the right bearings. Nothing is easier
+than to mistake one part of a ridge for another.</p>
+
+<p>If you are in bad weather or in the dark or enclosed, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>
+compass gives you a general direction, as for instance upon the
+track I describe later in the great wood going to Formiguères,
+and the compass further tells you at what point your valley
+begins to turn in a certain direction. Now a bend of this sort
+is very often the only indication you have for the exact place
+in which to branch off for a port, or to look for a cabane.
+Remember the variation, which is on the average for this
+range about 14 degrees, that is, the true north is 14 degrees
+to the right of the direction the needle points to.</p>
+
+<p>A map or maps, then, you must determine to take, and it
+next remains to examine what sort of maps are available for
+the whole range.</p>
+
+<p>There are but three of the greater countries in the whole
+world (to my knowledge, at least) which have sufficient and
+numerous maps, these are England, France, and Germany.
+I can imagine what reproach and criticism such a statement
+may bring from those who know the admirable work done in
+India, and the special but laborious surveys of Italy and of
+the United States. But I do say (as far as my travels extend)
+that maps valuable for the purposes of a man on foot and
+covering a whole country are confined to these three among the
+greater states. To tell the truth, there is but one large country
+that possesses perfect ones, and that is our own. Nowhere else
+in the world (to my knowledge, at least) has a complete survey
+of every detail of the soil been made, as it has been made
+under the Crown of the United Kingdom. And if foreigners
+judge, as they are apt to judge, of our cartography by the
+excellent one-inch scale map alone, they should remember
+that we also possess the six-inch, and in some cases the twenty-five
+inch to supplement it. Neither France nor Germany
+can boast of such a survey.</p>
+
+<p>Now let me abandon this digression and discuss what maps
+are valuable in the Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p>First, upon the Spanish side, there is nothing. Every one who
+tries to get a good cartographical indication of the approaches
+to the Pyrenees upon the Spanish side is baffled. Outside of
+my own experience, I have heard of many attempts and they
+have all failed. There is indeed a legend of a wonderful<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>
+military map in Madrid or elsewhere, but I have never seen
+it, nor have I ever seen anyone who has seen it. There is a
+good contour map extending outwards from Madrid in various
+sections, but it does not get anywhere near the Pyrenees.
+There is a geological map of Spain upon which some people
+fall back in despair, but it tells you very little about Spain
+except the geology. It is on an extremely large scale, 1/400,000 if
+I remember right, and it is horrible to have to use it even for
+the most general purposes of travel.</p>
+
+<p>There is a large general map of Spain, drawn in Germany,
+which is equally useless for the pedestrian; it comprises the
+whole country within a space that could easily be hung over
+the chimney-piece of a small room.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, there is no map of Spain for the foot traveller
+upon the Spanish side. Everything of that kind which exists
+so far is (I again qualify the statement by adding “to my
+knowledge”) of French workmanship.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore the French maps which the traveller must
+consider, and I will detail these in their order with their
+respective advantages.</p>
+
+<p>It must first be remarked that these maps are to be regarded
+as official and unofficial; the official ones should be divided
+into those proceeding from the French War Office and those
+proceeding from the French Home Office. The importance
+of this will appear in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Of the unofficial maps (which are very numerous) the most
+important by far is that published and printed by Schrader,
+and this is important only because it gives contours (at rather
+large intervals, it is true) on the Spanish side as well as upon
+the French.</p>
+
+<p>The map can be ordered of Messrs. Sifton &amp; Praed, The
+Map House, St. James’s Street, and costs (pre-war) twelve
+shillings for the six sheets. Its value consists in giving the
+traveller details of all the difficult central bit between Sallent
+and the Encantados. The French contours, as will immediately
+appear, are easily obtainable elsewhere; but to know
+the Spanish side, the difficulties of the way between Panticosa
+(for instance) and Bielsa, Schrader’s map is a great advantage;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>
+it is final on the heights, the steepness, and the changes in
+direction of the way.</p>
+
+<p>The official maps consist <i>first</i> of the War Office maps, the
+scale of which is 1/80,000 and 1/320,000.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing to appreciate with regard to the French maps,
+is that all of them, whether from the Home Office or from the
+War Office (and in a country such as France the work of these
+two departments is very different), are based upon the 1/80,000
+survey. It was this survey, undertaken by the General Staff
+in the course of the nineteenth century, which formed the
+basis of every other map that Frenchmen use. Certain of its
+early details were slightly inaccurate, as the heights of the
+Pelvoux group in Savoy, which Mr. Whymper, when he
+climbed those mountains, corrected. It is, however, the best
+monument of cartography left by the nineteenth century.
+Nothing has since appeared to rival it in any country upon the
+same scale. We must except of course the highly detailed
+large-scale survey of special districts, which may happen to
+be, by a political accident, autonomous and wealthy.
+Belgium has a far better map, upon which indeed all modern
+work upon the Belgian battlefields is based. Switzerland also
+has a better map. But no such large area as that of the
+French Republic has upon so small a scale (much less than one
+inch to the mile), so complete a record of every track, wood,
+habitation, height, and watercourse.</p>
+
+<p>The 1/320,000 is merely a reduction of this map; it is of service
+to people who motor or bicycle, to anyone who uses the high
+road, and who wishes to be able occasionally to wander into
+by-paths; but for little local details and difficulties it should
+not be consulted. It is useful advice to anyone who desires
+to know the Pyrenees that he should consult before leaving
+home a map of the whole range upon the 1/320,000 scale, but travel
+in the hills with the 1/80,000 scale.</p>
+
+<p>The disadvantage, however, of the military map, accurate
+though it is, and full of detail though it is, lies in two points
+inseparable from the early conditions under which it was
+produced; the first of these is the use of one colour, that of
+printers’ ink, so that the line marking a stream, a wall, or a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span>
+path are similar; the second derives from this, and is the confusion
+of so many small details, all in <i>one</i> colour and in black.
+There are no contour lines. The hatching, though bold, does
+not give exact heights, save where such heights are marked
+in figures, and what with the lines marking the paths in mountainous
+districts, the water-courses, the roads, the marks
+indicating the rocks, habitations, etc., the 1/80,000 map tends
+(though it still remains the best map for a very careful student,
+e.g., for a soldier on manœuvres) to be somewhat crowded and
+confused.</p>
+
+<p>An appreciation of the demerits of these maps, and perhaps
+a certain rivalry between the two departments, led the French
+Home Office to undertake an Ordnance Map of its own. This
+map is in various scales, of which the sheets showing the
+Pyrenees—the only ones that concern us—are in 1/100,000 and
+1/200,000. Let me explain the general qualities of both and the
+advantages and disadvantages attaching to either of these.</p>
+
+<p>Both are in colours, giving water-courses and lakes in blue,
+woods in green, roads in red, etc., and that is an enormous
+and immediate simplification upon the old-fashioned black
+map.</p>
+
+<p>Both are brought up to date with more care than the
+military map; both are less crowded with detail, and both
+indicate such civilian necessities as the telephone, telegraph,
+post-office, etc. On the other hand, neither contains hatching—the
+only true way of representing a country-side to the
+eye—and neither give that minute and exact multiplicity
+of markings which it is the boast of the military map to afford.
+The civil map is more practical, the military map more full
+of duty and more accurate.</p>
+
+<p>It must finally be remembered that the scale of the civil
+maps, even of 1/100,000 is so small as to impede the setting down
+of details such as we have on a one-inch Ordnance Map. It is
+three to four times smaller superficially than our official map
+in England. Nevertheless, for reasons that I shall presently
+show, it is on the whole the best map to carry in the Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p>The 1/200,000 map is but a reproduction on a smaller scale of
+the 1/100,000 map. It has the great advantage of contour lines,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span>
+but the scale is so small and the contours so pressed together,
+that, though it is invaluable for giving a general and plastic
+impression of the chain (to look down on a general map of
+the Pyrenees on this scale is like looking down on a model of
+the French side of the range), it is of little use for telling one,
+as a contour map should tell one, exactly how much higher
+this spot is than that other spot. When you are climbing
+and you wish to identify your position, you have usually to
+estimate comparative heights on a delicate scale and at a short
+distance, for which the 1/200,000 map is of very little use to you.</p>
+
+<p>One way of using the contours of the 1/200,000 which is laborious,
+but not without value, is to trace the <i>deeper</i> contour lines in
+some particular district, which you are specially studying.
+These deeper contour lines stand out much more clearly than
+the intermediate faint ones, which, as I have said, are too
+numerous for a mountain district. They can be followed
+clearly even in the dark shading of a steep ridge, and are set
+every hundred metres apart. When such a tracing has been
+made, neglecting the finer intermediate lines, you have a good
+working relief plan of the mountain you propose to deal with.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the area open to the climber and the man on foot in the
+Pyrenees, that upon the Spanish side of the frontier is the
+larger and wilder, and this for two reasons. First, because
+property and its attendant limitations is more developed upon
+the northern slope, so that the vast areas common to all, are,
+if anything, vaster upon the southern side, and secondly,
+that the formation of the range between the ramparts above
+the Ebro and the main chain, covers a larger space than that
+between the main chain and the French plains. Yet, as I
+have just said, it is on the Spanish side that proper maps are
+lacking, and one must do the best one can to supplement them
+by the French extensions.</p>
+
+<p>A common plan guides all the French maps in their delineation
+of territory south of the frontier. Colours, contour lines,
+hatching, and every detail are omitted. Heights are given
+in certain cases (but those are rarer of course than on the
+French side). The names of towns and, in some cases, their
+telegraphic and postal communications are marked, but upon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>
+the whole the Spanish side upon the French maps has far less
+detail than is accorded for the territory to which the maps
+directly relate.</p>
+
+<p>However, let me explain the various advantages and disadvantages,
+for use upon the Spanish side, of the four types of
+French maps I have mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>The 1/320,000 of the Ministry of War may be neglected; whatever
+use it has upon the French side, it is negligible upon the
+Spanish.</p>
+
+<p>The 1/80,000 map of the Ministry of War marks the main water-courses
+upon the Spanish side, the main peaks, and the main
+important ports and cols, with their heights, but it does not
+afford any indication of the shape of the country. It is a bare
+white space of paper with but few lines traversing it, one or
+two names, and one or two numbers on each sheet.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole it is better not to use the French military maps
+for the Spanish side; here it is the maps of the Ministry of
+the Interior which must chiefly be relied upon. Of these the
+1/100,000 map is the best. It is true that the colours, which are
+so valuable in the differentiation of the French side, are absent
+upon the Spanish, save in the case of water-courses, which are
+marked in blue upon either slope of the range. There is no
+indication of woods upon the Spanish side, as there is upon the
+French, and as this indication is useful for purposes of
+camping, the loss of it on the south side is often felt. Moreover,
+the absence of colour upon the Spanish side often makes
+one misinterpret the nature of the mountains upon these maps,
+giving to the whole a bare look, since the rocky and bare spaces
+on the French side are similarly left uncovered. On the other
+hand, the 1/100,000 French map does afford upon the Spanish side
+a very large number of detailed points of information. I will
+enumerate them in their order.</p>
+
+<p>1. The general shape of the country is indicated by
+shading, the light being supposed to come (as is the case
+throughout this series of maps) from the north-west.</p>
+
+<p>2. Steep rocks and cliffs, the presence of which should
+always be indicated to the traveller, are carefully marked upon
+either side of the frontier.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span></p>
+
+<p>3. Paths, the importance of which the reader will presently
+appreciate, are clearly marked, with all details, as exactly as
+on the French side.</p>
+
+<p>4. Every habitation is marked, and in the case of villages
+and towns, the number of inhabitants, the postal and other
+facilities.</p>
+
+<p>5. Most of the heights are marked, though not so many
+as on the northern slope, but at any rate the height of every
+important port, col, and peak appears. In general, it may be
+said that there is no map of the Pyrenees, immediately to the
+south of the frontier, equivalent to those of the districts which
+happen to fall within the French 1/100,000 survey.</p>
+
+<p>This leads me to the principal drawback connected with the
+use of the French 1/100,000 map upon the Spanish side, which is,
+that it only includes such Spanish territory as accidentally
+happens to fall within each square blocked out in the French
+survey.</p>
+
+<p>The English reader is acquainted, it may be presumed, with
+the one-inch Ordnance Map, and he will have remarked, how,
+if it so happens that a little corner of land escapes the regular
+series of rectangles into which the one-inch Ordnance Map is
+divided, that little corner of land will have a map all to itself,
+though the greater part of the rectangular space so marked
+may be taken up by the sea. In the same way any little bit
+of French territory which projects beyond the scheme of
+rectangles into which the whole survey is divided, has, added
+to it, an outer part completing the map and extending into
+Spain; where (as for instance on the sheet called “Gavarnie”)
+the little piece of French territory so projecting is small in
+comparison with the whole rectangle, a considerable piece of
+Spanish territory will be included; but where (as for instance
+on the sheet called “Bayonne”) the frontier very nearly
+corresponds with the survey, very little of the Spanish side
+will be included.</p>
+
+<p>From this it is easy to perceive that the maximum amount of
+Spanish territory in any one map must be inferior either in width
+or in length to the full dimensions of each sheet, and that the
+total distance into Spain, which any one sheet can mark, south<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>
+of the frontier, is less than the width of any one sheet. Now
+each sheet of the French 1/100,000 map includes 15 minutes of a
+degree from north to south, that is, about 17 miles. One may
+say, therefore, that the amount of Spanish territory shown to
+the south of the frontier in this excellent survey is always less
+than one full day’s journey. In many parts it narrows to
+far less than this. There are not a few parts of the range where
+even for those who make but short excursions on to the
+Spanish side, this drawback is of considerable effect. For
+instance, in the easy and pleasant excursion which takes one
+from Andorra to Urgel, the 1/100,000 map cuts one short at 42°
+30′ below Andorra, and 42° 15′ beyond the main road to
+Urgel, and no small part of the road lies south or west of this
+limitation.</p>
+
+<p>The 1/200,000 map somewhat makes up for the deficiency of
+the 1/100,000 map, but not in a complete manner. The frontier
+sections of this survey (five in number) show Spanish territory
+to the extent of some 30 miles in the Basque country, they give
+but a tiny corner of the extreme east of the territory of Aragon,
+they give over 30 miles for the greater part of the north of that
+province, but in Catalonia the belt is restricted to far less.
+Moreover, the Spanish details afforded are much slighter than
+in the 1/100,000. There is no indication of the relief of the country,
+no shading, only the principal water-courses and the principal
+highways and mule roads are marked. But it is here that the
+1/200,000 is useful, if one has the intention of walking for some days
+upon the Spanish side. Thus the direction from Castellbo
+in Catalonia to Esterri can be roughly drawn upon the 1/200,000
+and will not be discovered so clearly in any other survey.</p>
+
+<p>It now remains to sum up the respective advantages of
+these four maps for the general purposes of travel, and to
+give a few comments upon the uses of each.</p>
+
+<p>The 1/320,000 military map will not be of great use to the
+traveller. It can only show him the main roads if he is motoring
+or cycling, and present him with a general view of the
+country for which the clearer 1/200,000 map will serve his purpose
+better.</p>
+
+<p>The 1/80,000 military map is the best for minute details, and if<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>
+a man desires to ramble off and explore some special districts
+of this great range, it is the 1/80,000 map which will be of most
+use to him, though its value will be supplemented and greatly
+extended by using it in conjunction with the colour 1/100,000 map
+of the Ministry of the Interior or Home Office.</p>
+
+<p>This last, as the reader will have seen, is the staple map,
+upon which every form of travel depends. If no other be
+purchased, this at least is always indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>It is well here to summarize briefly certain points in the
+reading of this map, which do not immediately appear on one’s
+first acquaintance with it.</p>
+
+<p>First, the map is on too small a scale to show a certain
+number of features, which, though unimportant in the general
+landscape, are essential to the traveller on foot. This is true
+of rocks, for instance; open rock, extending over a considerable
+surface, will always be marked, but hidden ledges,
+especially small ones, are more often not marked, and this
+may lead to disaster if one trusts the map too exactly. For
+instance, in the sheet numbered xi. 37, a range will be seen
+rising to the left of the main road, which bisects the map from
+north to south: I mean the range running from the Spanish
+frontier to the Pic-du-Ger. This ridge is intersected by two
+profound valleys, and the whole of it is a mass of greater or
+smaller limestone ledges, more or less masked in the density of
+the forests. Yet it is impossible to indicate these on such a
+scale, save here and there by sharp hatching. These limestone
+ledges are in this particular case such, that unless one knows
+the paths extremely well, it is impossible to cross the ridge at
+all, but one would have no idea of that from merely consulting
+the map. On the other hand, every rivulet, however small,
+is distinctly marked, and that is something of a guide when
+one has tried to ascertain one’s position in a valley. This map
+has a further advantage of marking in the clearest way the
+paths by which the various ports are approached, and after
+a considerable use of it in many places, I can say that when
+you have lost the path, the indication afforded you by the
+1/100,000 map is invariably right—upon the French side. However
+unreasonably the line seems to acting upon the map, if it lies<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>
+to the left of a stream, or beneath a particularly clearly marked
+rock, then it is to the left of that stream, or beneath that rock
+that you must cast about if you want to find it, and if you
+find another path in another direction, you may be certain it
+is but a random track, which will mislead you, however clearly
+it may appear for the moment. When, in first using these
+maps, my companions and I neglected such information, it
+invariably led to trouble. For instance, in the lower crossings
+of the Sousquéou, the map gives the path everywhere on the
+north, or right bank of the stream. There is a spot just before
+the first rocky “gate” of this ravine where all indication of
+further travel upon the right bank disappears, and on the
+contrary a fine-made path crosses over by a strong bridge to
+the further or left bank. We thought the map must be in
+error, and crossed by the bridge, with the result that we spent
+a whole day cut off by a bad spate from the further side,
+and were for some hours in peril; for the bridge once crossed,
+this false path disappeared within half a mile. If we had
+pinned ourselves to the map, kept to the north bank, and cast
+about in circles, we should have found the path again but a
+hundred yards or so further on, running precisely as it was
+indicated on the survey. The importance of the 1/100,000 map in
+thus giving all tracks accurately will hardly appear to the
+reader unused to the Pyrenees, but it will be seen clearly
+enough when we come later to speak of travel upon foot in
+the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>It is a defect of the 1/100,000 map that heights, though accurately
+marked, cannot always be as accurately referred to the
+exact spots standing near the figures. This is because the
+heights are marked in pale blue ink, and the ambiguity is
+accentuated by that absence of contour lines which is the chief
+fault of the series. The method of marking is to point a
+small blue point close to the figures, and this dot marks the
+exact spot to which the figures refer. Where the figures are
+printed in a white space, and where there are no other features
+to interfere with them, this small blue spot is plain enough,
+but where they come upon woodland or steep shading, or
+other print, it is almost impossible to discover the dot. Thus,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>
+for instance, in the xi. 37 sheet to which allusion has just been
+made, a little lake will be found right upon latitude 42° 50′,
+just before its intersection with longitude 2° 40′. The height
+of this lake is given as 2170 metres, and the small blue point
+to which that altitude exactly refers is unmistakably marked
+at the southern extremity of the lake; but immediately to
+the right of those very figures, one of the highest peaks of the
+Pyrenees, the Bat Lactouse, marked 3146 metres, presents no
+point of which one can be certain. The frontier happens to
+cross this peak, and the little blue spot has got lost in the
+chain of black dots marking the frontier and in the print of the
+name of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>As a general rule, however, if you are in doubt as to what a
+figure may refer to, you are pretty safe in referring it to a peak,
+rather than to a pass or a group of houses in the neighbourhood.
+I have said that the accuracy of the map is undoubted
+for the French side; it is less certain upon the Spanish, where
+indeed its accuracy is not guaranteed. It is the best map to
+use upon the Spanish side (save for that restricted district
+over which Schrader’s contour map applies), but do not, upon
+the Spanish side, take the map against the evidence of
+your senses, as you will be wise always to do upon the
+French side. The map is notably wrong upon the Spanish
+side where unfinished works are concerned; it is not revised
+with the same frequency and care as upon the French side;
+for instance, the big new road from Sallent up to the French
+frontier goes in long winding zigzags, which make the total
+distance between eight and nine miles. The 1/100,000 map marks
+it in dots as though it were not finished, makes it far straighter
+than it is, and thus reduces the distance by nearly half.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the 1/200,000 map gives the best bird’s-eye view of the
+whole district, and is the only one showing contours, and
+penetrating further upon the Spanish side than any other.
+It will be my advice to those who desire to take a walking tour
+of some length in various parts of the range, to equip themselves
+with the whole set of the 1/200,000 maps (5 sheets), with the
+whole of the 1/100,000 map, but only with such of the 1/800,000 (the
+uncoloured map of the Ministry of War) as cover small districts<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>
+of the nature of which one is in doubt. Those, on the
+other hand, who purpose spending their time in one or two
+valleys only, should, without fail, purchase the sheets of the
+1/100,000 survey covering that district, and would do very well to
+add to these all the corresponding sheets of the 1/80,000 survey.</p>
+
+<p>With these remarks, most that can be usefully told to my
+readers with regard to the maps of the Pyrenees has been told
+them, but perhaps a few final notes will not be without their
+use, thus: The English traveller must always remember that
+none of these maps comes up to the English one-inch Ordnance
+for accuracy and detail—the scale forbids this. Next, let
+him remember that the dates of revision of each map will
+differ, as do the dates of revision of ordnance maps in every
+country. For instance, I have before me, as I write, the 1/200,000
+of Luz, purchased in this year (1908); no date of revision is
+attached to it, but the new road (which is at present an excellent
+carriage road, one of the best in Europe, up the Gallego
+to the French frontier) is marked, at first as a lane, afterwards
+as a mule track. On the 1/100,000 (Laruns sheet), purchasable
+this year, the new road is marked as existing for traffic, but
+not fully completed beyond a point about three miles from the
+frontier, and its true form is not given but merely indicated.
+It is evident that these sheets were revised at different times
+(the Laruns sheet bears a date six years old), and that we must
+always take the later of any two impressions, if we can obtain
+it. The highways of the Pyrenees upon the French side especially,
+both by road and by rail, are being extended with such
+rapidity that every year makes a difference to the accuracy
+of the information conveyed.</p>
+
+<p>It remains to enumerate with their titles the maps covering
+the district: in England they may be most easily obtained from
+Messrs. Sifton &amp; Praed, The Map House, St. James’s Street.
+This firm provides the 1/200,000 for the whole chain of the Pyrenees
+range mounted on canvas, the most useful map perhaps for
+motoring and cycling. Any sheet of the 1/100,000 can also be
+obtained from them, as all are kept in stock, but by far the
+most convenient form in which to carry them is to have them
+folded in the stiff cover issued by the French Government:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>
+to get them in this form, a few days’ notice in London will be
+needed. From the same firm the military maps can be procured
+in a similar manner, but I do not know whether all are
+kept in stock as a regular thing.</p>
+
+<p>In ordering the sheets of the 1/200,000 (if one does not purchase
+them as a whole), reference is made not to numbers, but to
+names. There are five sheets, “Bayonne,” “Tarbes,”
+“Luz,” “Foix,” and “Perpignan,” the price of which in
+England is 10<i>s.</i>; the whole series can also be purchased
+mounted.</p>
+
+<p>The sheets of the 1/100,000 map may be referred to either by the
+names of their central towns, or by the index number of the
+series in which they are printed. It is difficult to say what
+numbers of these maps exactly cover the range, unless one
+knows how far from the watershed towards the plain the
+traveller intends to go. The smallest number sufficient to
+cover the actual watershed and the highest peaks is 16, or,
+for the whole frontier, 17. These sheets are by name (going
+from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, from west to east),
+St. Jean-de-Luz, Bayonne, St. Jean Pied-de-Port, Mauléon,
+Ste. Engrace, Laruns, Luz, Gavarnie, Bagnères-de-Luchon,
+Val-d’Arouge, St. Girons, Mont Rouch, Perles, Ax-les-Thermes,
+Saillagouse, Ceret, and Banyuls. Referring to
+their numbers in the series upon the index map, they are
+respectively viii. 35, ix. 35, ix. 36, x. 36, x. 37, xi. 37, xii. 37,
+xii. 38, xiii. 37, xiii. 38, xiv. 37, xiv. 38, xv. 38, xvi. 38, xvi.
+39, xvii. 39, and xviii. 39. It will be observed that in the
+index map of the 1/100,000 series, the divisions running from north
+to south are marked in Roman numerals, those from east to
+west in Arabic numerals, and that the gradual increase in
+Arabic numerals from 35 to 39, corresponds to the gradual
+trend southward of the Pyrenean chain from the Atlantic to
+the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<p>Very few of my readers will be concerned with the main
+crest of the range alone; it will therefore be necessary to add
+to that list northward of the frontier (the lower Arabic
+numerals) the further sheet according to the district each may
+have chosen to travel in. A certain number of extra sheets<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>
+are necessary to those who travel in the main chain only, for
+instance, “Perles” (xv. 38) includes within the limits of its
+sheet the frontier upon either side, but this frontier so nearly
+approaches the northern limits in one spot, that it will be
+quite impossible to travel in this part until we also add the
+sheet “Foix” (xv. 37), to the north of it. Even the little lake
+of Garbet, which is not three miles from the crest of the range,
+is half out of the map and half in.</p>
+
+<p>Those who desire a complete collection of all the sheets of
+the 1/100,000 survey, extending from the furthest mountain over
+the Spanish side up on the foothills into the French plain, may
+remark the following lists: in series viii. 35; in series ix. 35
+and 36; in series x. 35, 36, and 37; in series xi. 35, 36, and
+37; in series xii. 36, 37, and 38; in series xiii. 36, 37, and 38;
+in series xiv. 37 and 38; in series xv. 37 and 38; in series
+xvi. 37, 38, and 39; in series xvii. 38 and 39; in series xviii.
+39; in all twenty-five sheets will cover the mountainous region
+in this survey, and anyone who desires a complete map of the
+French Pyrenees, with as much of the Spanish side as the
+survey includes, should possess them all.</p>
+
+<p>Schrader’s map is in six sheets upon the scale of 1/100,000 and
+with contours. It is essentially a climber’s map. Detailed
+maps of special districts of course exist in many shapes, but
+they must be sought for in the periodical reviews, and in monographs
+in which they have appeared. Finally, it may interest
+the reader to know that in the Casino of Bagnères-de-Luchon
+he may inspect a fully detailed relief map of the whole range
+on a scale somewhat larger than one inch to a mile, though the
+inspection of it rather satisfies curiosity than affords any guide
+to travel.</p>
+
+<p>Schrader’s map is of the greatest value for one particular
+piece of touring, which I shall describe later in these pages.
+Meanwhile it may be as well to add a further note upon it
+here. It is by far the best, so far as it goes, of all the Pyrenean
+maps; it is due to private enterprise, and if the whole range
+had been done in the same way there would be no need to
+discuss any other type, it would amply suffice for all purposes.
+Unfortunately, whereas the range, within the limits laid down<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>
+in this book, stretches in length from a degree east of Paris
+to nearly four degrees west of that meridian, covering, that is,
+four or five degrees of longitude, and stretches in latitude from
+43° 25′ to at least 42°, Schrader’s survey covers only 1½° in
+longitude (namely, from 1° 10′ west of Paris to 2° 40′), and in
+latitude extends over no more than half a degree, namely, from
+42° 20′ to 42° 50′.</p>
+
+<p>As the reader may see by comparing these bearings with a
+general map, Schrader’s map is intended to include no more
+than the very high Pyrenean peaks: it is the result of many
+years of careful individual survey, begun before the war of
+1870 and carried on to quite the last few years.</p>
+
+<p>Like the French Home Office map, it is in the scale of 1/100,000,
+and, like it, it is printed in colours, but unlike the Home
+Office map, it shows the invaluable feature <i>of contours</i>. You
+have an exact plan of the country before you, and in clear
+weather, with the aid of this map, you can fall into no error in
+connexion with the relief of the land. The contours are at
+some distance, at 100 metres or 328 feet apart, but this in such
+country is an advantage; indeed, the cramping of the closer
+contours on the official 1/200,000 map, greatly detracts from their
+usefulness. Not only are contours marked, but all rocky
+places are given with the greatest care, and the impression of
+relief is helped by shading as well as contour lines. The only
+drawback of the map, apart from its restricted area, lies in the
+absence of any indication of woods. As to the steepness, to
+which woods are often a guide, his contours amply make up
+for the deficiency, but for camping it affords you no indication.
+On the other hand, all cabanes and all paths are very clearly
+marked.</p>
+
+<p>All heights and distances with which you will have to do in
+these hills upon either side are marked in metres, save in the
+popular talk, which measures distances by the time taken to
+traverse them. With this I shall deal in a moment. Let me
+first deal with what is a constant source of trouble to Englishmen
+on the Continent, the turning of the metrical system of
+measure into its English equivalent.</p>
+
+<p>There are two ways of doing this. One is the application<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span>
+of quite easy and rough rules of thumb, the other is the more
+complicated process which aims at a fairly high degree of
+accuracy. It is the first of these of course which most people
+will want to know, and there are two simple rules, one for
+heights and one for distances.</p>
+
+<p>The rule for heights is, divide by 3, shift the decimal point
+one place to the right, and you have the height in English
+feet, <i>within a certain limit of error</i>, which I shall presently
+detail.</p>
+
+<p>The rule of thumb as applied to measures of distance is to
+take the number of kilometres (a kilometre is 1000 metres, and
+is, as one may say, the French mile), divide by 8, and multiply
+by 5, and you have the corresponding number of English miles
+<i>within a certain limit of error</i>, which I shall describe presently.</p>
+
+<p>For all ordinary purposes these two rules are sufficient,
+though in both cases they somewhat exaggerate. They make
+a French distance measured in English miles a little too far,
+and a French height, measured in English feet, a trifle too
+high.</p>
+
+<p>The exact constant of error is, in the case of the heights,
+1.6 feet in every 100. Thus if your rough calculation gave you
+a height of 10,160 feet, the exact height ought to be just
+10,000; you see upon the map in the blue figures referring to
+metres, “3048” (which happens by the way to be within two
+steps of the height of the Bac Lactous). You divide by 3,
+add a 0, and get 10,160, and you know by the constant of
+error that the true height is just exactly 10,000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>The knowledge of this constant gives us a rough-and-ready
+method of getting a height within a very small degree of accuracy,
+and for any purposes where such accuracy is required, I
+recommend it. It consists in cutting off the last three figures,
+multiplying what is left by 4, and then again by 4, and subtracting
+that from your first rough calculation. It sounds
+complicated, but it does not take half a minute, and you will
+be well within two feet of any height; for most heights you
+are likely to calculate, you will be right within a few inches.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, you see 2403, in blue figures upon the map
+dividing by 3 and shifting your decimal point, you at once<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span>
+get 8010; there is your rough calculation, which you know to
+be a trifle in excess of the truth. Cut off the last three figures
+and you have left 8, multiply 8 by 4, and then again by 4,
+and you have 128 as the amount of your error. The peak is
+by this calculation 7882 feet high, and rough as the rule is
+you are within 20 inches of the truth: the exact height of such
+a peak in English feet is 7883.7624....</p>
+
+<p>However, if you want absolute accuracy, multiply the
+French measure by 3.2808992, and you will be sufficiently
+near the truth to save your soul.</p>
+
+<p>As to distances, the exact proportion of error, when you
+turn miles into kilometres by dividing by eight and multiplying
+by 5, is 2 inches or so short of 50 feet too much in every
+mile; when, therefore, you are dealing with a hundred miles,
+you are very nearly, but not quite a mile out in this form of
+calculation. The error is, within a very small fraction, 1%.</p>
+
+<p>If therefore you want an easy rule for turning your rough
+calculation into an accurate one, you cut off the last two figures
+and subtract from your total the figures thus left. For
+instance, 244 kilometres divided by 8 gives 30½, and that
+multiplied by 5 is 152.5; cut off the 52, leaving “1” on the
+left, subtract that 1 (making 151.5), and you are within a few
+yards of accuracy. As questions of distance count nothing
+in mountains compared with questions of height, I will make
+no mention of decimals, but proceed to a very different matter,
+which is the way of counting that the <i>mountaineers</i> have, and
+this you will do well to heed blindly.</p>
+
+<p>When you are tired and distracted and wondering perhaps
+whether you can push on, if you have the good luck to find a
+shepherd, he will tell you your distance to such and such a
+place in <i>hours</i>. The Spanish, the Gascon, the Béarnais, and
+the Catalan dialects all use the same words, so far as sound
+goes, for this kind of measure, and the Basque will never
+speak to you in Basque: it is part of the Basque tenacity
+never to do this. So if you find yourself in any part of the
+high hills where a man can talk to you of distances, you
+always hear the same sounds “Dos Oras,” “Quart’ Ora,”
+“Mi’ Ora,” and the rest. This habit, as every reader knows,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>
+is universal throughout the world wherever true peasants
+exist; but in mountains, whether they be Welsh or African,
+it is not only universal, but it withstands all the invasion of
+the modern world.</p>
+
+<p>What I would particularly impress upon anyone going into
+the Pyrenees is this, that such a method of counting is exceedingly
+accurate, and is moreover the only accurate method.
+Nothing is more fatal to a civilized man of the plains than to
+take his little measuring stick and measure upon the map by
+the scale the distance between two points, saying, “It will
+take me so many hours.” There was a Basque at Ste. Engrace
+who very well expressed to me the contempt which
+mountaineers have for that method of the plains. A deputy
+of the French Parliament had stopped in his inn, had thus
+measured the distance from the village to the pass, and would
+not believe that it could take three hours. It always takes
+exactly three hours. I have done it in four by careful dawdling,
+and the dawdling, when I came to reckon it up, had taken
+exactly one hour out of the four. Now, measured upon the
+map, that distance, as the crow flies, is precisely three miles,
+but it takes three hours none the less. You will not do it in
+less, and what is odder, you can hardly do it in more, for if you
+deliberately go too slowly, you are done for in no time, and if
+you halt, you will find that your halt fits in exactly to make
+the walking time three hours. Similarly, over the Pourtalet,
+from the last Spanish hamlet to the first French one, is six
+hours; part of the way you may choose between a good road
+and a mule track, but whichever you choose it is six hours;
+and there is nothing more astonishing in Pyrenean travel than
+the accuracy of this rough method. As I said just now, you
+must heed it blindly; it is by far your best guide.</p>
+
+<p>The use of maps has one last thing to be said about it, which
+applies particularly to the Schrader map and to the 1/100,000, and
+this is that where you think you see a short cut, and the map
+gives you no track, there the short cut is to be avoided. I
+say it applies particularly to the Schrader and 1/100,000, because
+these two maps are so particular in detail that you think their
+information must be enough without the further aid of a path.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>
+Moreover, the path sometimes takes such apparently needless
+turns that you are for escaping it by an easier cut.</p>
+
+<p>You will never succeed. You may indeed succeed in a bit
+of exceptionally hard climbing, you may not lose your life,
+but you will most certainly wish that you had never attempted
+the unmarked crossing of the ridge you have attacked. It is
+obvious that the exception to this doctrine would be found
+in a piece of genuine experiment. If you say to yourself for
+instance, “I can get over the shoulder of the Pic d’Anie into
+the valley of the rivulet beyond, which has no name, but which
+runs into the Tarn of Uterdineta,” you will probably do it,
+but it will not be a short cut from the Val d’Aspe into the
+valley of Isaba, though it is the shortest way. These temptations
+for cutting across the hills come very often in one’s first
+experiments in the Pyrenees: they get less frequent as one
+knows more of them. These mountains are full of vengeance,
+and hate to be disturbed.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—A convenient map for viewing the whole range is the 1/400,000
+which is sold by Messrs. Sifton &amp; Praed, mounted in two sheets,
+and in a case. It is especially of use in showing a large belt of the
+Spanish side. Motorists in particular should see it.</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br>
+<span class="smaller">THE ROAD SYSTEM OF THE PYRENEES</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowp75" id="illus06" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus06.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>There are two
+kinds of platforms
+for travel
+in the Pyrenees—mule
+tracks and great,
+highly engineered,
+modern roads. No
+others exist. When,
+therefore, one is describing
+travel in the
+Pyrenees, one must
+separately describe the
+opportunities of wheeled travel open to all vehicles,
+however elaborate, and of travel on foot or with a
+mule. As the last will take up the greater part of my space,
+I will speak of wheeled travel first.</p>
+
+<p>To understand what are the opportunities of this, one may
+take as one’s standard the roads which can be traversed by a
+motor car. Those passages which a motor car cannot use
+cannot be used by a bicycle or a carriage, for the roads of the
+Pyrenees are, as I have said, either very good broad roads, well
+graded, and with a hard surface, or they do not exist; the
+change is always abrupt throughout the chain from an excellent
+highway, carefully engineered, to a mule track.</p>
+
+<p>The scheme of Pyrenean roads, as it exists now, is, briefly,
+<i>first</i>: a couple of great lateral roads on the French side, which
+may be called the upper and the lower road; <i>next</i>, four roads
+traversing the chain (six if you count the roads along the sea-coast
+at either end, which I omit—the one goes by St. Jean
+de Luz, the other by the Pass of Lacleuse or La Perthuis);<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>
+<i>thirdly</i>, a series of roads, numerous on the French side, rare on
+the Spanish, which penetrate the valleys but do not cross the
+chain, and end at a greater or less distance from the watershed.</p>
+
+<p>The main lateral road from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean,
+along the base of the Pyrenees, links up all the towns
+upon the plains; it joins Bayonne to Pau, Pau to Tarbes,
+Tarbes to St. Gaudens, and so on through St. Girons, Foix,
+and Quillan to Perpignan: this may be called <i>the Lower
+Road</i>. The upper road has been but recently completed.
+It is made up of sections, some of which are old highways,
+some links quite newly built, and the characteristic of the
+whole is that it skirts as nearly as possible the crest of the main
+chain, crossing at some places very high passes over the lateral
+ridges, and everywhere keeping right up against the high
+summits of the range. The whole line runs from Perpignan
+over the Col de la Perche up the Val Carol and over the
+Puymorens to Ax, Tarascon, and St. Girons. At St. Girons,
+it is compelled by the conformation of the country to touch
+the lower road, but it leaves it at once to pass from Fronsac
+to Luchon; thence through Arreau, Luz, Argelès, Laruns,
+Oloron, and Mauléon—all the high mountain towns—to St.
+Jean Pied-de-Port, and thence back again to Bayonne.</p>
+
+<p>The four roads over the ridge into Spain lie all of them on
+the western side of the hills. They are, first, the road through
+the Baztan valley, which connects Bayonne with Pamplona;
+secondly, the Roman road over Roncesvalles, 12 or 15 miles
+to the east of this, which used to be the high road between
+Bayonne and Pamplona before the Baztan road was built,
+and which was during all history the westernmost road of
+invasion and communication between Gaul and Spain;
+thirdly, the road which goes over the Somport, which was also
+a Roman road and the chief one, uniting Saragossa with the
+French plains; fourthly, a road parallel to this and not 10
+miles east of it, running over the Pourtalet Pass and joining
+the Saragossa road lower down. No other roads cross the
+range from France into Spain until one reaches the Mediterranean,
+and all these four lie within the first westernmost third
+of the Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span></p>
+
+<p>It would be quite easy to open other roads which should
+unite the last of the Spanish highways with the first of the
+French, notably over the easy pass of Bonaigo, where 20 miles
+of work would be enough, and through the Cerdagne, where
+there are no engineering difficulties. One such road is now
+in process of completion between Esterri and St. Girons over
+the pass of Salau. Another, which was begun from the valley
+of the Ariège into Andorra, was abruptly stopped, and it will
+probably never be completed. There are some half-dozen
+other places, where a road could cross and where the French
+are building their side of it: but the Spaniards are reluctant
+to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>Of the roads of the third kind, roads running up the valleys
+but not attempting to cross the mountains, one may say that
+on the French side every valley has one or more good roads,
+the one drawback to the use of which in a motor is that you
+are compelled, unless you can take a cross road from one high
+valley to another high valley, to go back by the way you came
+into the plain.</p>
+
+<p>Not only has every valley its highway leading to the very
+foot of the main range, but often the bifurcations of the valley
+will have roads as well. Thus along the valley of the Nive
+you can go in a motor not only to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, but
+also right up the eastern valley to a country-side called the
+“Baigorry” as far as Urepel; along the next Basque valley
+to the east, you can go from Mauléon in the plains right up
+into the hills as far as Larrau, but you cannot go to Ste.
+Engrace, where the valley splits, because the track thither,
+though a good one, will not take wheels. You can go up the
+branch valley from Oloron as high as Aritte, and the main
+road up the Val d’Aspe (which is that leading to Jaca by the
+old Roman way), has lateral branches, one taking you to
+Lourdios, the other across the foot hills to Arudy and the Val
+d’Ossau. The valley of Lourdes has a road which, with the
+exception of the roads over the passes, goes nearest to the main
+watershed. I mean the road to Gavarnie; and the Val
+d’Aure, which comes next to the westward, has a road going
+as far as Aragnonette, almost as close to the last cliffs as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>
+Gavarnie is; and there is an embranchment to the east which
+takes one to the very foot at the Hôpital of Rivanagon in
+one of the loneliest parts of the hills. The road to Bagnères
+de Luchon is carried some miles beyond that town, as far as
+the Hospitalet, which stands at the foot of the pass into Spain.
+The road to Viella in the Val d’Oran goes on up to within a
+mile or two of the pass of Bonaigo. A road from St. Girons
+takes one up the valley of the Lez as far as Sentein, which,
+like Gavarnie, lies right under the main chain, while the road
+from the same town up the main valley of the Sallent goes up
+to the watershed itself, and is being constructed to cross it,
+and to afford (over the pass of Salau) one more badly needed
+passage into Spain. The valley of the Ariège has a road all
+along it, almost to the sources of that river. It is continued
+through the Cerdagne and down the valley of the Tet into the
+Roussillon.</p>
+
+<p>There is not a main valley on the French side of the Pyrenees
+which has not its great carriage road, and most of the lateral
+valleys have now the same kind of communications. The
+journey up them is nearly always of the same kind, save the
+few which are prolonged to carry over the watershed into
+Spain. There is the succession of two or three enclosed plains
+or jasses after one has left the plains, the sharp pitch up to one
+flat, and then another, through short but steep rocky gorges,
+till we reach the little terminal mountain village, sometimes
+not more than a group of three or four buildings, lying under
+the last escarpment, and in sight of the frontier ridge above it.
+Of this terminal sort was Urdos until Napoleon III pushed the
+road out beyond it into Spain; Gabas, until the Republic
+did the same with the road there; and of this sort still an
+old Hospitalet, Sentein in the Val d’Aure, and though it is in
+a state of transition, for the road is now being pushed beyond
+it, of this sort is Gavarnie. Little places almost as old as our
+race, with no history and no national memories, but with
+immemorial traditions, rooted as deep as the mountains, were
+brought into the life of our time by that new activity of the
+French, which is to many foreigners so hateful, to many others
+so marvellous.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="plan-l" style="max-width: 75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/plan-l.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Plan L.</span></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span></p>
+
+<p>On the Spanish side there are no roads of this kind penetrating
+the valleys except the incomplete road to Isaba from
+Pamplona by way of the Val d’Anso, and the short stretch
+from Sandinies to Panticosa.</p>
+
+<p>A road is being made up the Val d’Anéu, but it is not yet
+finished, and a road goes just so far up the broad Segre valley
+as Seu d’Urgel.</p>
+
+<p>All the other valleys have mule tracks alone.</p>
+
+<p>The general scheme of existing roads in the Pyrenees is
+roughly as upon the map on previous page, where it will be
+seen that much the greater length of the chain is impassable to
+a wheeled vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>Motoring sets a standard for every other form of wheeled
+traffic, I will therefore first speak of this kind of travel. The
+best road to take with a motor, if one wishes to obtain a general
+idea of the Pyrenees, is the Lower Road (by Tarbes and Foix)
+from Bayonne to Perpignan; one may then come back again
+from Perpignan to Bayonne by the upper road, many parts
+of which are of very recent construction and which goes right
+through the highest part of the chain across the main lateral
+valleys of the Pyrenees. Such a round—about 500 miles
+altogether—gives one from far and from near the whole of the
+French Pyrenees: from the first one sees the chain as a whole
+before one: by the second one mixes with its deepest valleys.</p>
+
+<p>The first day’s run from Bayonne had best end at Tarbes;
+it is a town central with regard to the chain, and it is also a
+very pleasant place to stop at under any conditions; not cosmopolitan
+like Pau, and not in a hole and corner like Foix.</p>
+
+<p>The lower road from Bayonne to Tarbes runs through
+Orthez, Puyoo, and Pau, and if one starts early, Pau is a good
+halting-place for the middle of the day. This part of the road
+is, during the whole of its length or nearly the whole of it, a
+rolling road of the plains with no striking points of view save
+in where it tops a slight rise. It first follows but runs above
+and north of the valley of the Adour below it, next descends
+after the first 20 miles or so to cross the Adour, and so comes
+to Peyrehorade, the first town (and railway station) upon its
+course. During all this first part of the run one has sight after<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>
+sight of the range which stretches out eastward before one to
+the south rising higher as it goes; and one sees at first before
+one upon the horizon, later abreast of one and due south, the
+pyramid of the Pic d’Anie, which is the first of the high peaks.</p>
+
+<p>From Peyrehorade to Pau, between 40 and 50 miles, the
+road goes through Orthez along the valley of the Gave de Pau,
+for the most part following the river bank and allowing but
+few sights of the range; but at Pau itself it rises on to the high
+plateau of the town whence the most famous general view of
+the Pyrenees is spread before one.</p>
+
+<p>From Pau there are two roads to Tarbes; for curiosity and
+for general travel it is the road round by Lourdes which is
+generally taken, and that is during the whole of its length a
+lowland road though it runs among the foot hills; but the
+better road on such a drive as I am describing is the direct
+northern road, which, after it has climbed on to the plateau
+of Vignan, goes up and down steep small ravines until it comes
+down again upon the main valley of the Adour and the plain
+of Tarbes.</p>
+
+<p>There are on this road two points, one just after one leaves
+the railway line, not quite half-way to Tarbes on the climb
+up to Vignan, the other just before the loop and descent above
+Ibos, which afford fine views of the range to the south, and
+one begins to gather one’s general impression of these mountains,
+which, more than any other range, present an appearance
+of simplicity and the united effect of a barrier. Tarbes,
+less than 30 miles from Pau, may seem a short run for one
+day from Bayonne, but it breaks the journey exactly and
+conveniently.</p>
+
+<p>After Tarbes (where the hotel for you is the Hotel Des
+Ambassadeurs) the road goes through much broken country,
+passing by Tournay up on the high plateau of Lannemezan
+to Montréjeau. It is a road full of short hills, but it is necessary
+to take this section in order to go eastward from Montréjeau
+and to proceed through St. Gaudens, taking an elbow
+by St. Martary and so down to St. Girons.</p>
+
+<p>After St. Girons one follows the new and excellent road
+which runs along the valley side by side with the new railway<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
+to Foix. From Foix to Nalzen your way is to go along the
+main road from Foix up the Ariège Valley for some 4 miles
+and then turn to the left, leaving the railway and making
+due east. From Nalzen continue to Lavenalet; there take
+the right-hand road to Belesta and Belcaire; thence, when you
+have crossed the plateau, a very winding road takes you down
+hundreds of feet, on to Quillan. After Quillan you have a
+few miles through the very little known and wonderful gorges
+of Pierre Lys to St. Martin, through which gorges the railway
+accompanies you. Do not follow it round by Axat, but cut
+across by the road which goes eastward to La Pradelle. This
+road takes you across a low pass to the watershed of the
+Mediterranean. From La Pradelle to Perpignan the road is
+a perfectly clear one through St. Paul and Estagel. It is a
+straight, good road, following the valley all the way, save the
+last stretch, which runs across the plains between the river
+Agly and the Tet.</p>
+
+<p>This second day will of course be far longer than the first;
+it is nearer 200 miles than 120. If you would break it, however,
+break it rather after the short run to St. Girons, than at
+Foix, for though Foix be nearly the half-way house, yet the
+accommodation is better at St. Girons, and so is the cooking.</p>
+
+<p>A two days’ run of this kind from the Atlantic to the
+Mediterranean, following such a route, gives you the whole
+distant range in one general appearance, and gives it you better
+than you will have along any other line with which I am
+acquainted.</p>
+
+<p>The way back by the upper road from east to west through
+the Pyrenees is a piece of travel quite peculiar to these mountains;
+nowhere else in Europe is there a lateral road driven
+right across the buttresses or supports of a main range. The
+Pyrenees possess such a road in their highest part. What
+the French have done here is as though the Italians had driven
+a road from the sources of the Dora Baltea right under Mont
+Rosa, and the Matterhorn to Lake Maggiore, or as though the
+Swiss had driven one from Faido and Fusia right over into
+the valley of Domo d’Ossola. From Tarascon in the valley
+of the Ariège to Laruns in the Val d’Ossau—that is, over all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>
+the central part of the chain and for just over half its length—a
+mountain road goes right up against the main heights (only
+once coming near the lowlands at St. Girons), crossing the
+high, perilous passes which lie between the upper valleys. By
+taking advantage of this new piece of engineering you can
+return from Perpignan to Bayonne through the midst of those
+hills which the road just described from Bayonne to Perpignan
+showed you in a distant general view: when you have so
+returned you will have seen the heart, the French Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p>I will now describe such a return journey by the upper road.
+From Perpignan you will do well to run the first day to Ax.
+The road is the great road from the Roussillon into France.
+You go up the valley of the Tet (which is the main river of
+the Roussillon) through Prades with the Canigou first right
+in front of you, and at last rising steeply to your left. You
+continue through Prades up the gorges and tortuous zigzags
+of the Upper River until you come to the head of the pass at
+Mont Louis: there the broad and easy valley of the Cerdagne
+opens to the south, sloping gently before you. The road runs
+down, almost as in a plain, to Bourg Madame, where you must
+turn to the right up the Val Carol to Porté. The pass above
+Porté (called the “Puymorens”) though long, is of an easy
+gradient, and once over it you run down all the 18 miles to
+Ax, following the valley of the Ariège.</p>
+
+<p>Ax is, of course, an early stopping-place. The whole
+distance from Perpignan is under 140 miles, but Ax is so much
+more comfortable than Tarascon that it is better to make one’s
+halt there.</p>
+
+<p>Next day go down the valley as far as Tarascon and there
+take the mountain road off to the left; it is not a national<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+road but it has a perfectly good surface in spite of a considerable
+climb. One little col comes almost immediately at
+Bedeillac, after that you climb steadily up the valley to the Col-du-Port
+(which is about 4000 feet high) then down the mountain
+side to Massat, which lies on the western side of the pass<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span>
+and about 2000 feet below it. Thence it is an ordinary valley
+road until you come to St. Girons again.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> The French metalled roads are of three main kinds, supported by
+the State, the County and the Parish respectively. Of these the first
+and most important are called “National Road.”</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>From St. Girons you continue this progress parallel to the
+watershed and right among the high peaks, by taking the cross
+road from St. Girons to the valley of the Garonne. Just
+before the railway station at St. Girons turn sharp to your left,
+taking the road which goes up the left bank of the Lez. At
+this starting point you are not more than 1300 or 1400 feet
+above the sea; at Audressein (300 feet up) turn to the right,
+cross the river, and begin to climb the upper valley until you
+reach the col of Portet-d’Aspet at about 3400 feet, that is,
+some 2000 feet above St. Girons, and between 15 and 20 miles
+from that town. From this col the road descends rapidly
+down the valley of the river Ger, falling in 5 miles 1500 or
+1600 feet. At the end of the 5 miles you take a road that goes
+sharp off to the left before reaching the village of Sengouagnet,
+this road going off to the left crosses a low watershed, makes,
+at the end of another 5 miles, a great loop round the forest of
+Moncaup (the church of which village you leave to the left
+just before making the turn), and comes down into the great
+open plain into which the valley of the Garonne here enlarges.
+It is one of the finest enclosed plains in the Pyrenees, and to
+come down upon it by this road is perhaps the best way to
+approach it.</p>
+
+<p>The first village in this plain is Antichan, thence several
+long windings take one down to Frontignan below, and thence
+it is a straight road through Fronsac to Chaum where there is
+a bridge over the river, and where the plain of which I have
+spoken terminates in a narrow gateway through the hills.
+You cross the river by this bridge, fall at once into the great
+national road upon the further or left bank, and a straight
+run of not more than 12 miles in which one only rises 300 or
+400 feet up the tributary valley brings one to Bagnères-de-Luchon.
+Though at the end of an even shorter day than was
+Ax from Perpignan, Bagnères will make a convenient stopping-place
+after a good deal of hill climbing and roads the surface
+of which, especially in the early summer, is occasionally doubtful.
+Bagnères has, of course, everything that people motoring<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span>
+can want, it is the capital of the touring Pyrenees, and even if
+this cross journey has not proved enough for one day, the
+character of Bagnères makes it the right place to stop at
+on the second day.</p>
+
+<p>Though Bagnères is right in the middle of the mountains,
+but a mile or two from the frontier of Spain, not 6 miles, as
+the crow flies, from the watershed and within ten of the highest
+peaks of the Pyrenees, yet the importance of the town has
+caused good communications to spring up around it, and there
+is an excellent road crossing straight over from the high valley
+of Bagnères into the next high valley, the Val d’Aure. It
+starts at the market-place just opposite the new church,
+crosses the col called “Port-de-Peyredsourde,” and comes
+down into the main road of the Val d’Aure at Avajan, which
+follows down the stream at an even gradient to Arreau, 7
+miles further on.</p>
+
+<p>Arreau is the capital of the Val d’Aure, and when you have
+reached it you will have come about 20 miles from Bagnères.</p>
+
+<p>The next parallel valley to the Val d’Aure is that of the
+Gave-de-Pau: the valley which has at its mouth the town of
+Lourdes, and at its head, right under the Spanish frontier,
+the famous village and cliff of Gavarnie. There is, indeed, a
+small subsidiary valley in between where the Adour takes its
+rise, and of which Bagnères-de-Bigorre is the capital, but it is
+shorter and stands lower than the two main valleys upon either
+side. The section I am about to describe, the great new road
+from the Val d’Aure to the Valley of Lourdes, just touches this
+upper valley of the Adour but does not pursue it.</p>
+
+<p>The cross road from Arreau in the Val d’Aure to Luz in the
+valley of Lourdes is the steepest and the most diverse in
+gradient, as it is also by far the finest in scenery, of all the new
+sections which have recently been pierced through the highest
+parts of the range and between them build up what I have
+called “The Upper Road.” The distance as the crow flies
+from Arreau to Luz is not 20 miles, but the long windings of
+the road which take it over two passes, and the northern diversion
+necessary to turn the great mountain mass of the Port
+Bieil, lengthen it to nearly double that distance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span></p>
+
+<p>There is no mistaking this road. It branches off at Arreau,
+leaving the valley road not half a mile beyond the bridge and
+going to the left up a little side stream, the name of which I
+do not know. Within 2 miles it crosses this stream and begins
+to take the long complicated and graded turns up the
+mountain. One must be careful, by the way, at the point
+where the road crosses the stream to turn sharp to the right
+and not go straight on towards Aspin, for though one can get
+to the main road again from Aspin, it is by roads too steep for
+a motor. If one so turns to the right, the road goes up to the
+col in great zigzags and climbs in some 6 or 7 miles the 2000
+feet between Arreau and the summit, thence it falls rapidly
+for 3 or 4 miles to a point where the new road cuts off the
+corner the old road used to make. It is important to recognize
+this point, not only because it saves one at least 6 or 7
+miles of travelling, but also because it saves one going right
+down into the valley of the Adour and climbing up again.
+I will therefore attempt to fix for the traveller the exact
+place where he must turn off to the left, though the
+description is difficult on account of the absence of any
+landmark.</p>
+
+<p>As you come down from the Col d’Aspin, you run through
+a wood along the mountain side for perhaps 2 miles. The
+road sweeps round the curve of a gulley on emerging from this
+wood, crosses the rivulet of that gulley, and comes down
+close to the stream at the foot of the valley which is the source
+of the Adour. Just at this point a road will be seen coming
+in from the left, descending the slope of the valley beyond the
+stream and crossing it by a bridge. This is <i>not the road</i> you
+are to take. You must continue on the same road you have
+been following down from the pass, until, in about half a
+mile, it crosses the stream to the left bank, and approaches
+on that bank a wood that lies above one on the hill. Immediately
+after this bridge there is a bifurcation; one branch goes
+straight on, the other goes off to the left; this last is the one
+you must follow. The branch going straight on is the old
+road which leads down the valley of the Adour, and from
+which one used to have to double back some miles on at an<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>
+acute angle to reach Luz. The new road, which you must
+thus take to the left, cuts off that angle.</p>
+
+<p>There are no difficulties from this point onward. The road
+winds a good deal round the hill-side, and almost exactly 5
+miles from the point where you turned into it you come again
+upon the main road to Luz over a bridge that crosses a stream.
+Just where you join that main road it begins its long climb up
+to the pass called Col du Tourmalet.</p>
+
+<p>This pass is the highest and steepest on the secondary or
+lateral passes, over which the new roads have recently been
+driven. It is just under 7000 feet in height, is everywhere
+practicable, and once it is surmounted there is a clear run down
+of some 10 miles and more (following the valley called locally
+that of the Bastan) to Vielle and to Luz in the main
+valley.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the crossings between the high valleys of the Pyrenees
+this is the one best worth taking. The height of the pass, the
+great mass of the Port Bieil dominating one side of the road,
+and of the Pic-du-Midi dominating the other, give it an aspect
+different from any other of the secondary roads, and comparable
+only to the two main passes of the Somport and the Val
+d’Ossau.</p>
+
+<p>From Luz a great national road takes one down the valley
+to Argelès and the railway, a distance of about 18 miles, and
+the end of about as fine a piece of engineering as there is in
+Europe. From Argelès, which is just above Lourdes and
+whence Lourdes can be reached at once by road or by rail,
+the cross road which I am describing goes on over another
+high pass into the Val d’Ossau.</p>
+
+<p>The motorist must decide whether to make Argelès his
+stopping-place or not. In distance from Bagnères he will
+have gone no more than somewhat over 70 miles, and that is
+a short day; but it is a day that will have included a great
+deal of climbing and of sharp descents, and that will have had
+at the end of it one of the highest passes in the Pyrenees.
+If he does not choose to stop at Argelès, he will find in Eaux
+Bonnes above the Val d’Ossau, rather more than 20 miles on
+(but over a high pass), a very wealthy little modern town, like<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span>
+Bagnères on a lesser scale, with everything that he or his
+machine can want; and only an hour or an hour and a half
+beyond Eaux Bonnes, by one of the great national roads and
+along the lowlands, is Pau.</p>
+
+<p>This cross road from Argelès and the valley of Lourdes,
+into the Val d’Ossau runs as follows. You take at Argelès
+the road for Aucun, a village about 5 miles off, up a lateral
+valley, during which 5 miles you climb over 1200 feet.</p>
+
+<p>From Aucun, still climbing, the road passes Marsous, winds
+up the hill-side away from the stream, and reaches the first
+pass, the Col de Soulor, thence it makes round the head waters
+of the Ouzan valley and round the flank of a bare hill called
+in that country-side “Mount Ugly,” until it reaches the point
+called the Col de Casteix. Here the foot passenger would
+naturally cross, as he might have crossed still lower down by
+the Col de Cortes, but for the sake of a gradient the road goes
+right round to the north and over the Col d’Aubisque, falling
+from thence in very long curves down to Eaux Bonnes. The
+town is not 2½ miles from the top of the col in a straight line.
+It is more than 5 by the long zigzags of the road.</p>
+
+<p>From Eaux Bonnes a road of less than 3 miles takes one
+down the Pyrenees to Laruns in the valley, and here the great
+lateral road of the high Pyrenees may be said to end.</p>
+
+<p>One may go to Pau the same night, but, sleeping at Eaux
+Bonnes, it is a most interesting journey to continue down the
+valley of the Gave d’Ossau to Arudy and to Oloron, thence by
+the road through Aramits, and Tardets to Mauléon, thence by
+Musculdy, Larceveau, and Lacarre to St. Jean Pied-de-Port,
+but all that run is through the foot hills, and though one has
+fine views of the range from every little pass and hilltop, these
+last 80 or 100 miles are not of the same nature as the track I
+have just been describing, the chief feature of which is the
+presence of a good carriageway running through the very core
+of high and abrupt mountains. Still, anyone who has taken
+the lower road, as I have advised, from Bayonne to Perpignan
+and wishes to go back all the way to Bayonne by a higher
+road nearer the mountains, cannot do better than go on from
+Eaux Bonnes to Laruns, to Oloron, Mauléon, St. Jean Pied-de-Port,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>
+and thence down the lovely valley of the Nive to
+Bayonne.</p>
+
+<p>So far I have described the main circular journey, west to
+east, and from east back again to west, which one can take in
+a motor car in the French Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p>To describe or to advise as to a similar journey from north
+to south is not so easy, because the Spanish roads are uncertain.
+Moreover, there is no Spanish road crossing the lateral
+ranges as the French one does, so that, unless one abandons
+the Pyrenees altogether and goes right down into the plains,
+a circular journey from north to south and back north again
+is confined to the very narrow choice between Roncesvalles,
+the Somport, and the new Sallent road.</p>
+
+<p>The road over the Somport is the best international road
+between France and Spain. It is completely finished, and
+yet it is sufficiently modern to present every advantage for
+travel. On the French side it has been complete since the
+time of Napoleon III; on the Spanish side its highest
+stretches have been finished only in recent years. It is
+perfectly possible to take the whole road from Oloron to
+Jaca, and so back by Sallent and Laruns to Oloron again in
+one day, but it would be a foolish thing to do, and if the ascents
+try the machine, it might mean going through some of the
+best scenery of the Val d’Ossau in the dark. It is best therefore
+to break the journey at Jaca, and no number of hours
+spent in that delightful town are wasted. The first part of
+the road—the first 16 miles or so—are nearly level. It is
+interesting to see the straight line which the Roman track
+makes for the gate of the hills at Asasp. The pass seems to
+invite the road: it is the most obvious gap in the whole Chain.</p>
+
+<p>The rise, as I have said, is slight. The river, which is rather
+less than 800 feet above the sea at Oloron, is not 1400 above it
+at Bédous; in the whole 20 miles or so, you rise but 600 feet.
+There are occasional hills, but they are insignificant, and the
+general impression is that of following the floor of the valley.
+When, however, one has passed through the great enclosed
+plain of Bédous, and left behind him its chief town, Accous,
+one passes through a narrow gorge, which rises continually<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>
+to Urdos about 12 miles on. The rise is gradual, however, and
+never steep. It was at Urdos that the old valley road used to
+stop, until Napoleon III continued it to the summit of the pass,
+and for 7 miles above Urdos there are continual and steep
+rises. The pass, however, is low (it is but slightly over 5000
+feet) and the last 2 miles before the summit are fairly flat.
+From the summit the road runs down on the Spanish side a
+little steeply, but with no really difficult gradient, and after
+about 2 miles of this, where the Canal Roya falls in and forms
+the river Aragon, the road takes on quite an easy slope.
+Indeed, the escarpment is so much steeper upon the French
+side that Jaca, though it is 25 miles away, stands no lower than
+Urdos close by just over the ridge. Rather less than half-way
+between the summit and Jaca is the little town of Canfranc.
+It would be a pity to stop there, the food is doubtful,
+and so is the wine, and if one wants to breakfast on the
+journey, it is better to make an early breakfast at Urdos.</p>
+
+<p>After Canfranc the mountains open out and you are fairly
+in the lowlands; 17 miles on, through a wide valley, you come
+to Jaca.</p>
+
+<p>Your hotel at Jaca will be the Hotel Mur, as good and comfortable
+a one as you will find in northern Spain. From Jaca
+you may go on to Pamplona westward, or down further south
+into Spain by Saragossa. As you enter the northern gate of
+Jaca, you will have gone exactly 57 miles from Oloron; a
+short distance I know, but I repeat, it is foolish to go to Jaca
+and not to spend your time in so charming a place. Moreover,
+the run back has no opportunities for repose.</p>
+
+<p>The return journey is first eastward by the Guasa road,
+which has (or had, when I went along it last), a most indifferent
+surface in parts, and you follow this, with a railway never
+far from the road, some 10 or 12 miles, until at Sabiñanigo
+the railway turns down south and in much the same neighbourhood
+(but north of the line) the road turns up north and
+reaches Biescas (a smaller town than Jaca), in about another
+8 miles. After that it begins to climb. At Sandinies the road
+bifurcates. That on the right goes up to Panticosa; crossing
+the river by the stone bridge of Escar, your road goes straight<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span>
+on up the valley and climbs up to Sallent for 3 or 4
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>I confess I have never been over this bit, but I am assured
+that it is practicable for a motor, and I have indeed seen a
+motor which had come round from Panticosa. There is
+nothing at Sallent that you can call habitable, though as
+motors live there it is to be presumed that there are ways of
+looking after them. You will do well to volunteer at the guard
+room (which is on the left of the road as you leave the town)
+information as to your whereabouts. It has happened to me
+not to be allowed to leave a Spanish town without all manner
+of formalities, while on other occasions it has happened to me
+to walk through one and over into France without a question
+being asked.</p>
+
+<p>From Sallent the new road goes up with rather steep gradients
+at first, zigzagging up the side of the Peña Forata. The
+old road, a mere track, may be seen cutting off the great bends
+as one climbs the mountain. About a mile from the frontier,
+where the steepness of the road grows level, is a post of police
+where they may or may not bother you; they bothered me
+on one occasion, and on another they let me alone. From the
+summit, which is some 12 kilometres and more—say 8 miles
+by road—from the town of Sallent one goes down first
+gently, then steeply, with the Pic-du-Midi d’Ossau, a vast
+isolated rock, right in front of one, and one is accompanied
+by a torrent upon one’s left—which is the Gave d’Ossau.
+The road follows the right bank of this for some 7 miles,
+crosses over to the left bank, and 3 miles after this
+bridge reaches Gabas, a tiny hamlet, where is one of the
+most delightful hotels in the Pyrenees. Gabas is the highest
+inhabited point in this valley, and is just the same distance
+from the summit that Sallent is upon the other side, that is,
+between 8 and 9 miles. From Gabas down to Laruns the road
+continues all the way downhill, a matter of another 7 or 8
+miles, and from Laruns back to Oloron, through Buzy, is a
+lowland road with a flat surface. The whole round from
+Oloron back to Oloron again is somewhere between 125 and
+150 miles.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span></p>
+
+<p>There is but one other circular journey for which I can vouch
+that it can be made in a motor car; it is the journey from
+Bayonne to Pamplona, by way of the low passes on the
+Atlantic side of the range, and back again through Roncesvalles.</p>
+
+<p>You find yourself at Bayonne as a starting-place. The main
+road into Spain and towards Madrid goes along the sea, much
+as the railway does, and bears westward, but there is another
+road through the tangle of Basque mountains, or rather those
+hills which between them make up French and Spanish
+Navarre, and this road is the direct road to Pamplona. It is
+a short day’s journey of some 60 miles at the most when all
+the windings are taken into account, and there are no really
+high passes or steep gradients throughout. You leave
+Bayonne by the main straight road which leads out south-west
+towards Biarritz, but, immediately outside the fortifications,
+you turn to the left along the high land above the valley of the
+Nive. A mile and a half out you cross over the main line and
+immediately afterwards take the road to the left which leads
+you to Arcangues. There are many branch roads on this
+little bit, which is well under 4 miles, but the chief road is
+plain. At Arcangues, just after you have left the church on
+the right, you turn to the left, still following the high road,
+and in some 2 miles you strike the forest of Ustaritz, the confines
+of which were for so many centuries the sacred centre
+of the Basque people. Through this forest there is no doubt
+of the way. The road leading to the town of Ustaritz, which
+goes off to the left in the midst of the forest, comes in at so
+sharp an angle that one would not be tempted to take it, and
+the high road goes on, without any bifurcations, to St. Pée.
+You have, by this time, crossed the low watershed between
+the basin of the Adour and that of the Nivelle, upon which
+river St. Pée stands at some 13 or 14 miles from Bayonne.</p>
+
+<p>You turn to the left in St. Pée by the road that leaves that
+village due south, and take the left-hand road again at the
+first bifurcation, which is immediately outside the village;
+then follow steadily up the valley of the river. There is but
+one doubtful place, not 3 miles out of St. Pée, where you choose<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span>
+the left of two roads, but even that is not really doubtful,
+for your road obviously follows the stream, which it there
+crosses by a bridge, while the right-hand road goes over into
+the hills. About 3 miles more from this bifurcation you cross
+the frontier, and thence onwards there is no doubt of your
+way. The high road goes over the Pass of Ostondo, or Maya,
+quite low, and brings you into the Basque valley of Baztan.
+Come on down through Elizondo, a most delightful town of
+this people, and climb up continually thence (taking the left-hand
+road at Irurita, one and a half miles from Elizondo)
+until you come to yet another pass, called the “Port La
+Betal” or “Vetale” in French, some 2000 feet or more in
+height. After crossing this col you are in the basin of the
+Ebro, and the road thence into Pamplona is a straight stretch
+all the way to the plain, which appears suddenly spread out
+as you round a corner, a fine sight.</p>
+
+<p>The old road back from Pamplona into France over Roncesvalles,
+the road which the armies of Charlemagne took, and
+which the Romans built, went first east and west, and was the
+first portion of the great road to Saragossa. It met the road
+over the mountains and branched north towards Roncesvalles.
+There is a modern road which cuts off this corner,
+and joins the Roncesvalles road quite close to the hills. It
+crosses three low lateral ranges by very easy gradients, and
+has an excellent surface. It takes one through Larrasoaña,
+Erro, and finally, without any doubtful cross roads or turnings,
+falls into the old Roman road, just below Burguete.</p>
+
+<p>Here you must make ready for one of the greatest sights in
+Europe. You are on a very high upland plain, something
+like the glacis of a fortification. The last crest of the Pyrenees
+stands like a long wall of white cliffs, which seems low and
+familiar, because you are so very high up on this sloping plain.
+You go through a fine northern-looking wood which might
+be in England, with great spacious clumps of beeches and
+broad glades. You pass the monastery, and then go up
+through the hamlet of Roncesvalles, quite an insignificant few
+hundred feet of road; you see a ruined chapel upon your
+right (ruined quite recently by fire, and yet no one has taken<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>
+the trouble to rebuild it!), then suddenly you are at the
+summit, and a profound trench opens sheer below you and
+points straight to the French plains, miles and miles away.</p>
+
+<p>It is here that Roland died, in the valley below.</p>
+
+<p>From this summit the roads run down directly on the
+northern side of the watershed, but still politically in Spain,
+till you come to the last Spanish town, Val Carlos, where you
+will do well to ask for papers permitting you to leave the
+country. These papers are obtained from the Corregidor.
+Two miles on you cross the river into France, and four miles
+further you are in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, where there is good
+food and promptitude and news and all that is necessary to
+man.</p>
+
+<p>From St. Jean Pied-de-Port the main valley road takes
+you, without any doubtful turnings, down the river and the
+railway, now on one side, now on the other, all the way to
+Bayonne. There is but one place where the traveller might
+be a little confused, and that is some 12 miles or more from
+St. Jean Pied-de-Port, where the road, which has been running
+right along the railway and the river for miles, turns sharp
+over to the right to reach a village called Louhossoa; but this
+village (which is but a mile from the river) once reached, everything
+is plain again. Turn to the left at the church, where
+the road goes straight back to the river (a matter of 2 miles),
+crosses it, and goes along the heights on the left bank, all the
+way back to Bayonne.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of this circle is about equivalent in distance to
+that which I have described round from Oloron to Jaca, and
+back again round by Sallent; and, as in the former case, you
+will do well to break the journey in Spanish territory and at
+Pamplona, for though this makes two short days in a motor,
+they are days in which you ought to see what you can see.
+For my part also, I would stop at Elizondo, to eat and to watch
+the place; but I would not eat at the hotel in the main street,
+where the people are cruel and grasping, but rather at the
+cheap and genial place kept by one Jarégui.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these two circular journeys upon good roads, which
+a man can take across the main range, there is the variation<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>
+of them that can be made by taking the valley road from Pamplona
+to Jaca, a journey of at least 70 miles or more. I know
+that it can be done, for I have seen motors that had done it,
+and for all that I know the road may even be excellent: or
+it may be very bad—I am not acquainted with it. Such as
+it is, it takes you all along Aragon and the parallel outer
+ranges of the Spanish Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p>I have mentioned another extension to the roads described,
+the run down to Saragossa from Jaca. This of course takes
+you right out of the Pyrenean country, but the first half of it at
+least is in the hills, and no journey shows you better the nature
+of the outlier mountains on the Spanish slope of the main range.
+Off the direct road one may make a long elbow eastward to
+reach Huesca, which was St. Laurence’s town. The surface
+is good, and there are few steep gradients, though there is a
+long climb out of Jaca itself. From Jaca to Saragossa, by
+way of Huesca, along this road, is just about 100 miles, and,
+as far as Huesca at least, it provides a complete knowledge of
+the mountain types upon the Spanish side of the watershed.
+Nor is this typical scenery anywhere finer than in the splendid
+gorges and chimney-rocks of Riglos, nor is any one of
+the parallel ranges more characteristic than the high Sierra
+de Guara, which stands up above the burnt plain of Huesca,
+30 miles out from the main ridge, quite separate from the
+general range, and yet reaching a summit of nearly 6000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>All the roads suitable for motoring, especially in such a
+district as this, are suitable for bicycling also. I say “especially
+in such a district as this,” because the identity between
+motoring and bicycling roads is more striking in the Pyrenees
+than in most parts of France, since the expense and difficulty
+of making the great highways here has been such that it was
+not worth while building a carriage road on these hills unless
+the engineering was to be of the most perfect kind, and the
+surface of the best, and the gradients as easy as nature would
+allow. The consequence is that there are in the Pyrenees no
+roads (which he will find in the plains) where a man on a bicycle
+can go with difficulty, and a motor cannot go at all. Stretches
+of this kind, due to bad surface or to steepness, are familiar<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span>
+to every one, but I can remember none of the sort, not even of
+a few miles, between St. Jean Pied-de-Port and Puigcerdá,
+nor between the French plains and the Spanish.</p>
+
+<p>The question will, however, be asked by anyone who proposes
+to bicycle in this district for the first time, whether the
+long gradients are not such as to destroy the advantage of
+using the greater part of the roads. To this objection a
+general rule applies, one which will seem a little unusual when it
+is first read, but which I have found from experience to be true.
+It is this, that the few crossings of the hills from north to south
+make easier journeys for the bicyclist than do the lateral
+roads across the ribs or buttresses of the main chain. Anyone
+going for instance on a bicycle from Laruns to Lourdes,
+will have some very fine scenery for his pains, and, if the day
+is fine, he will not regret his experience, but he should
+be warned that on this lateral road most of his energy will be
+taken up in slowly climbing the great pass over the Mont
+Laid; for though it is but a few miles as the crow flies, it is
+a big and toilsome business along the highway. Nor would
+that be the only pass. It is characteristic of these lateral
+roads that they usually contain more than one big ascent.
+He will be troubled again at the Col-de-Soulor and to get from
+Laruns to Lourdes, though the two towns are in contiguous
+valleys and no further apart than London and Windsor, would
+be a day’s work for most men.</p>
+
+<p>Another example of the same sort could be given from the
+other lateral roads of the Pyrenees, as, for instance, the low
+cross road between St. Jean Pied-de-Port and the valley of
+Mauléon. Here the pass is much less high, but a mile or two
+from St. Jean, when you have gone through St. Jean-le-Vieux,
+you begin to climb, and all the long way of the valley of the
+Bidouze, and out again, over the next range, that overlooks
+the Saison, is a succession of long wheelings uphill.</p>
+
+<p>For the purpose of seeing some particular place in the next
+valley, it may be worth while to follow one of these lateral
+roads, but a general tour of that sort is not worth while. If,
+on the contrary, a bicyclist chooses the main north and south
+roads, he will find many advantages in the choice, and I would<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span>
+recommend in particular, as the best that he can undertake
+in these mountains, the round from Oloron to Jaca and back,
+which I have already described. Such a journey is a task
+taking three full days, four or five easy days, and it gives such
+an opportunity of contrasting two civilizations, and of learning
+the barrier which separates them, as does not offer itself
+in so short a space anywhere else, I think, in western Europe.
+I will not detain the reader in this particular with what I have
+to say upon this road in general, for that will rather concern
+the description I will make of it when I speak of travel on foot,
+but I will point out in what way it can be dealt with by the
+bicyclist.</p>
+
+<p>All the long road from Oloron to Bédous, though it leads to
+the very heart of the mountains, needs no more energy upon
+a bicycle than does a two-hours’ ride (and it ought not to take
+two hours) in any part of the plains. There are one or two half-miles
+of hill, all of them rideable, but the general run of the
+way is flat, or burdened with a slight rise which is hardly
+perceived, and the approach to Bédous, in its magic circle of
+hills, is actually <i>down</i> along a fine slope, which faces the last
+ridge and the frontier watershed. So far, it is a ride
+which one may take even upon a high gear, and have for
+his pains as fine a survey of great mountains as he will find in
+Europe. From Bédous the road cuts straight across the dead
+level of the valley floor for 2½ miles, passes a “gate” of rock,
+and thence continually runs through gorges up the 7 miles
+to Urdos. It rises considerably in this last bit—nearly 1 in
+20—and though the distance from Oloron to Urdos may not
+take one more than one afternoon, anyone bicycling into Spain
+will do well to pass the night at Urdos, for the big climb
+begins just after that place. In this hamlet, of no pretensions,
+you may choose with advantage the little inn called the
+“Hotel of the Travellers,” of which, and whose charming
+terrace, I speak in another place.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, unless you wish to accomplish a feat, you will
+begin to walk up to the summit of the road. There are parts
+that can be ridden—the last quarter is almost flat—but the
+earlier part and the larger is too steep for comfort. The continental<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span>
+road-book makes the whole distance 12 miles, the
+kilometres by the roadside, which are somewhat more reliable,
+make it 8, and so does the map; anyhow it is a continuous
+uphill which should be taken leisurely, pushing one’s machine
+until one gets to the flat bit at the top. The short cuts are
+here, unlike those of some other cols, quite impossible to a
+bicycle, even when one is pushing it, and the whole way must
+be taken upon the high road; if one can afford it, it is wise to
+have the machine carried on a cart as far as the hospital, 2
+miles from the obelisk which marks the frontier and the
+summit of the pass; but whether one pushes it, or whether
+one has it carried, it is a three-hours’ climb. It is wisest to
+take these three hours in the early morning.</p>
+
+<p>From the summit at the entry into Spain there is 2 miles of
+steep new zigzag, falling a little too sharply, and all around is
+the very novel aspect of the southern side of the range, where
+the dryness and the sun have eaten up the forest; at the foot
+of this zigzag begins an easy and continual run down of 7 or 8
+miles into Canfranc; your bicycle takes its own way; there
+is no place so steep as to fatigue one with the break, still less
+to be of any danger. The 17 miles from Canfranc onwards
+towards Jaca is a road upon the whole descending, but by that
+time one has entered the foot hills, which are flat and undulating
+rather than mountainous, and at Jaca you will find the
+Hotel Mur, which I have called the kindest little hotel in
+Europe, and certainly one of the cleanest in Spain.</p>
+
+<p>You will leave Jaca early after spending there your second
+night. I am not saying that the whole distance from Oloron
+could not be done in a day, on the contrary, it could be done
+quite easily. A man could pass the night at Oloron, starting
+in the early morning from that town, be at Urdos easily by
+ten, lunch there at leisure, get to the summit by four, and be
+down at Jaca before dark on a July day, and before the hour
+of the late Spanish meal. But the climbing of the pass would
+fatigue him, it would come at an awkward time of the day, and
+he would have to count upon what is not so certain in the
+Pyrenees, fine weather. It is best to break the journey at
+Urdos as I have advised.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span></p>
+
+<p>From Jaca, a great road leads all the way down to Saragossa,
+throughout scenery where you are at first amazed by the contours
+of the isolated cliffs above the gorges of the Gallego, and
+afterwards almost equally amazed by the aridity of the great
+plain that slopes down to the Ebro. The run from Jaca to
+Saragossa is too much for one day in the hot season. It had
+best be broken at Huesca. If he choose to make this excursion,
+the traveller will have to return by the same road, and
+he would perhaps be wise to save himself the tedium of it and
+to put his machine upon the train, for a railway goes back,
+much as the road does, to Jaca.</p>
+
+<p>If one does not take the excursion to Saragossa but returns
+to France, the way is by Biescas, Sallent, and the Val d’Ossau.</p>
+
+<p>The Biescas road leaves Jaca to the east and runs so for 10
+miles, then it goes 8 miles northward to Biescas.</p>
+
+<p>From Biescas it begins to rise, in the last part heavily;
+and Sallent, which is not 10 miles from Biescas as the crow
+flies, is nearly 1500 feet higher. The gorge of approach to
+Sallent is a plain embranchment from the Panticosa road at
+Sandinies about 8 miles from Biescas.</p>
+
+<p>Sallent offers a problem to the bicyclist which it does not
+offer to the man with the motor, and that is the problem of
+lodging. It is a bad place to stop at, and yet the next place
+where one can sleep is over the pass, 17 miles on at Gabas.
+One will have gone nearly 40 miles from Jaca, and the last
+bit one will have been climbing all the way; for some miles
+up to Sallent quite steeply, and more or less uphill all the way
+from Biescas. To push the machine up another 8 miles to
+the summit (for it cannot be ridden) is a task, but it is a task
+worth accomplishing, especially if you have a long evening
+before you, for once on the summit you will have not only a
+run down of 8 or 9 miles to Gabas without putting your foot to
+the pedal, but also the prospect of the best inn in the Pyrenees,
+the delightful inn which the Bayous who own it call the Hotel
+des Pyrenees; or, if you like to take the whole pass at once,
+you have nearly 20 clear miles downhill without stopping,
+past Gabas to Laruns; but the inn at Laruns is not to be
+compared with the inn at Gabas.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span></p>
+
+<p>If one takes on a bicycle the round which I have spoken of
+for a motor from Bayonne to Pamplona by the valley of the
+Baztan and back again by Roncesvalles, there is no difficulty
+about inns, but on the other hand there is a multitude of
+shorter hills, some of which cannot be ridden. You could
+make two short days of the journey out by sleeping at
+Elizondo, in which case on your first day you climb up a pass
+and down into a valley, and your second day is a repetition
+of the same process. The third day back from Pamplona to
+France has one hill at Erro, which you will hardly be able to
+climb, but from that valley through Burguete and right on to
+the top of the pass is rideable on any reasonable gear. From
+the summit down to Val Carlos all the way to the frontier is
+one long easy run down, and you may continue the valley
+road along the Nive as far as you like upon the same day.
+Even Bayonne is not too far at a stretch.</p>
+
+<p>As for those who wish to know how to get a series of long
+coasts in these hills at the least pains, my advice to them is
+this: start from Perpignan, take the train from Perpignan to
+Mont Louis. From Mont Louis you have a run of 15 miles,
+falling 1000 feet all through the French Cerdagne to Bourg
+Madame, uninterrupted save for two or three short rises. At
+Bourg Madame next day an omnibus (with a very bad-tempered
+driver—at least he was so in my day) will take you
+up the Val Carol to the summit of the Puymorens; from there
+it is an uninterrupted coast all the way down the valley of
+the Ariège to Ax, and beyond as far as you like to go, 20
+or 30 miles of downhill with scarcely an interruption.</p>
+
+<p>The other way round is good coasting too. By the rail to
+Ax, up the Puymorens by coach, coast down Val Carol, <i>ride</i>
+up (through Llivia) to Mont Louis and coast down the gorges
+of the Tet. It is only in this eastern part of the range that
+you will get such long uninterrupted downhills: there is, in
+the central part, the run down from the Pourtalet (but no
+coach to take you up), and there is a coach up the Val d’Aran
+to Viella, with a run back of a few miles down the Garonne;
+but neither of these are like the Ariège valley or that of the
+Tet, and the roads up the enclosed western valleys to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span>
+Luz, Bagnères, etc., have not sufficient fall for long coasting.</p>
+
+<p>One ought not to leave the road system of the Pyrenees
+without saying something on driving. Your best town, I
+think, for beginning a drive is Oloron, and there is a job-master
+close to the station from whom you can get horses and
+carriages by the day, by the week, or by the month. I do not
+speak of this from my own experience but from what I have
+been told, and I know that there are relays of horses all up the
+pass; but whether the job-master has arrangements for relays
+I do not know. That sensible kind of travel has so generally
+died out that I should think it doubtful. It is better to depend
+upon the same horses for the whole journey, and whether upon
+the round by Navarre or that by Jaca the posthouses are
+frequent everywhere, your longest stretches without one being
+the bit of new road, 17 miles long, between Sallent and Gabas,
+and the similar 14 or 16 miles between Urdos and Canfranc.</p>
+
+<p>On the other roads, should you determine to drive along
+them, there is one rather long piece without a relay up the
+Tourmalet, between the eastern foot of that pass and Barèges;
+but this road is continually traversed by carriages at all
+times, and there is sufficient provision for the distance. These
+three are the only long gaps without relays which you have
+to fear in driving through the Pyrenees. For the rest, except
+that your days’ journeys must be so much shorter, what I
+have said of the roads for motoring applies to driving also.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="illus07" style="max-width: 18.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus07.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br>
+<span class="smaller">TRAVEL ON FOOT IN THE PYRENEES</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowp100" id="illus08" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus08.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The road system of the
+Pyrenees and the opportunities
+it affords for motoring,
+bicycling, and driving are
+but a small part of what most
+English readers desire to know
+about travel in these mountains.
+For most men the pleasure of such travel is to be found in
+wandering upon foot from place to place, in learning a district
+by slow daily experience, in camping, and in the chance adventures
+that attach to this kind of life, and also in climbing.
+Of climbing I can write nothing; it is an amusement or a
+gamble that I have had no opportunity of enjoying. Those
+who think of mountains in this way can learn all they need
+in Mr. Spender’s book, “The High Pyrenees.” They can get
+more detailed knowledge from Packe—if a copy of the book
+is still to be bought—and I am told by those who understand
+such matters that the rock climbing of this range is among
+the best and the most varied in Europe. In the matter
+of travel upon foot other than climbing, I have some considerable
+experience, and this is the sort of travel which I
+shall presuppose when I come to speak of the various districts
+into which travel in the Pyrenees may be divided.</p>
+
+<p>There are two ways in which travel on foot in these hills
+can be enjoyed; the first is by laying down some long line of
+travel—as over the Somport, across from the Aragon to the
+Gallego, and so through Sobrarbe to Venasque—the second
+is by fixing upon a comparatively small district in which one
+can slowly shift one’s camp from one day to another. In<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>
+either case, the aspect of travel on foot is much the same, and
+so are its difficulties and its necessities.</p>
+
+<p>I have heard it discussed whether a man should travel with
+a mule in these hills. The practice has in its favour the fact
+that the mountaineers, whenever they have a pack to carry
+and some distance to go, travel with a beast of burden. The
+mule goes wherever a man can go, short of sheer climbing,
+and it will carry provisions for some days. The expense is
+not heavy; a mule is saleable anywhere in these mountains;
+one can buy it at the beginning of a holiday and sell it at the
+end of one, never at a great loss, sometimes at a profit. Nevertheless,
+upon the whole, the mule is to be avoided. You are
+somewhat tied by the beast. He is not always reasonable,
+and feeding him, though it will be easy two days out of three,
+is sometimes difficult, for while he will carry many days of
+your provisions, he can carry but few rations of his own. With
+a mule one always finds one’s self trying to make an inn,
+and that preoccupation is a great drawback to travel in the
+mountains. Moreover, the keep of a mule, at a Spanish inn
+especially, is expensive. It is a better plan to hire a mule
+occasionally, as one needs repose, or in order to carry any
+considerable weight for a short distance over some high pass.</p>
+
+<p>I presuppose therefore a traveller upon foot carrying his
+own pack, and I will now lay down certain rules which my
+experience has taught me to apply to this kind of excursion.</p>
+
+<p>I shall speak later of what sort of kit one should carry,
+what amount of provision, etc.; and I shall also speak later
+of the nature of camping in these hills; but these two main
+things do not cover the whole business, and the more you know
+of the Pyrenees, the more you will find them enemies unless
+you observe the laws which they teach you in the matter of
+exploring them.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the first and the most essential of these laws to regulate
+your travel is to make certain of no one distance in any one
+time. Do not say to yourself “I will leave Cabanes” (for
+instance) “and will sleep the night in Serrat.” Such
+plans are too easily made at home or on the plains. One
+measures the distance upon the map, and the thing seems<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>
+simple enough. One may be lured into security by starting
+in fine weather or over easy ground, but <i>unless you have been
+over the place before</i>, never make a plan of this kind, and even if
+you know the territory, beware of the false confidence which
+comes so easily in the plains, when one has forgotten the terrors
+of the high places.</p>
+
+<p>Here are two examples within my own experience to show
+what dangers attend this sort of confidence, the first taken
+from the Aston, the next from that very easy place, the Canal
+Roya; and remember that nothing I am saying has to do
+with the fantastic exercise of climbing, but only with straightforward
+walking and scrambling.</p>
+
+<p>A companion and I had settled to force in 36 hours the
+passage from the Aston valley into Andorra. There is a path
+marked upon the map; the way is apparently quite clear and
+one might have made sure that with provision and calculation
+for one night, nothing could prevent one’s reaching the first
+houses of the Andorrans. On the contrary, this is what
+happened.</p>
+
+<p>The first evening was mild and beautiful, the sky was clear,
+the path at first plain. It was so plain that we did not hesitate
+to continue it after dark. Here was a first mistake, and
+the breach of a rule I shall insist upon when we come to
+camping. Still, it was not this error which destroyed us.</p>
+
+<p>We slept the few hours of darkness under a thorn bush before
+a most indifferent fire, and the next morning we began our
+way.</p>
+
+<p>We came almost immediately after sunrise to a place where
+the valley bifurcated, and that in so confused a manner, with
+so many interlacing streams and so unpronounced a ridge
+between the main bodies of water, that we took the wrong
+ascent by the wrong stream, and only found, when we had
+ended in a precipitous cul-de-sac, that we had made an error.
+We went back to the bifurcation (which, remember, was of
+that confused sort where nothing but a very large scale map is
+of any use), and we made up the other stream. The hours
+which we had lost had brought us into the heat of the day,
+and the day was exceptionally hot. We climbed a shelving<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span>
+slope at the end of this further valley: a matter of 2000 feet,
+very steep and rough. When we were already near the
+summit there bowled over towards us from beyond it, without
+the least warning, a violent storm. We were so close to the
+top, and there was so little shelter on the open rocks we were
+ascending, that we thought it well to gain the summit before
+halting. On the whole the decision was wise. We found overhanging
+ledges upon the summit and took refuge there until
+the worst of the downpour had ceased. But the storm left
+behind it a mass of drifting cloud, now rising and now lifting,
+which made it quite impossible to determine what our true
+way should be. The summit of the slope was an open grass
+saddle with great boulders dotted about, and from this saddle
+a man might go down one of three declivities which branched
+southward from it. There was no seeing any complete view
+of the valleys below even in the intervals of the drooping
+clouds, for, as is so frequently the case in these steep hills,
+there was a great deal of “dead ground” just below us. We
+had to guess which of the undulations of the summit we should
+follow, we could not be certain until we had gone down some
+hundreds of feet that we had definitely entered an enclosed
+valley, but once on the floor of this we were fairly certain by
+our general direction that we had crossed the main watershed
+and were in Spain. The storm renewed itself; the late hour
+made us anxious, we pushed on through the driving mist and
+rain, necessarily losing a consistent view of the contours and
+the windings of the valley; when the sky cleared again we saw
+before us a great open gulf stretching down for miles and
+miles, and the very amplitude of the prospect further deceived
+us into believing that we were certainly descending into the
+first of the Spanish open places, but hour after hour went past
+and no sign of men appeared. There were not even any huts
+in the Jasses. To confuse us still further and to lead us on in
+our error, a definite path suddenly appeared; we naturally
+made certain that it was the head of the valley road upon the
+Spanish side. So confident were we that we <i>must</i> by the map
+and by all common sense be now close to habitations that,
+after consulting together a little, we thought it wiser to eat<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span>
+what little provisions remained so as to gather strength for a
+last effort, than to camp hungry and reserve our food for the
+morrow. When we had so eaten it grew dark; hour after
+hour of the night passed, and the path was still plain—but
+there was no sign of men. By midnight we were dangerously
+exhausted and incapable of pushing further: we lay down
+where we were by the side of a stream and slept. The morning
+of the third day we might well enough have failed to reach
+succour. We had come to the end of our powers, we had no
+more food and it was only the accidental encounter with a
+fisherman who happened to be thus far up in the hills that
+guided us to safety. He told us that by choosing that particular
+one of the three slopes we had come down, not upon the
+Spanish side, but into a long curving valley that had led us
+back again into French territory. We had made a circle in
+those forty-eight hours of strain and certainly had we not
+found him our getting home at all would have been doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>Now these errors, for which there seems very little excuse
+when they are set down thus in print, were not only natural,
+but as it were, necessary. Anyone unacquainted with the
+district <i>might</i> have made them, and under our circumstances
+<i>would</i> inevitably have made them. Nothing but a large
+scale map—which does not exist—would have saved us the
+hours lost at the bifurcation of the streams, and not even a
+large scale map could have properly decided us at the confused
+summit of the pass where a full view, which the storm had
+prevented, was necessary to judging one’s direction. The
+true remedy lay not in maps, however perfect, but in allowing
+for the chances of error, in taking a full three days’ provision,
+and in avoiding that sort of forced marching which had
+exhausted us, and which we had only undertaken from fears
+about our remaining stock of food.</p>
+
+<p>The other matter, that of the Canal Roya, is the more significant
+in that it was quite a little detail that might have
+betrayed us into a very nasty situation. I knew the Canal
+Roya, and acting on the strength of that knowledge, my companion
+and I decided late one summer evening not to camp in
+the valley but to push on over the pass at the head of it, for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>
+immediately beyond this pass we knew to lie the good new
+modern high road which leads down to Sallent. The pass was
+marked on the map in the clearest possible fashion, the valley
+was of a very particular and decisive shape, and the pass lay
+straight over the end of it. Now at that end was a sweep of
+high land, and rising up from it two rocky peaks. The map
+and the general trend of the land made it certain that the pass
+would go to the right or to the left of the lowest of these two
+rocky peaks. There was no difficulty of approach, and one
+unacquainted with the Pyrenees might have thought that it
+mattered little which side of the peak one took, but we both
+knew enough about the mountains to be sure that there was
+one way and only one way across; smooth and easy as the
+approach appeared from our side, all the chances were that
+somewhere upon the other side there would be precipices.
+The sun was getting low, and the path which we had been
+following was suddenly obliterated under a new-fallen mass
+of scree. Neither of us can to-day ascribe what we did to
+anything but luck. We looked at the peak carefully and
+determined that a certain little notch upon the <i>right</i> of it, was
+the port. We were fatigued after nearly 20 miles of walking
+(which had already included one Col) and we wearily began
+the last ascent. It so happened that as we painfully toiled
+up over and round the loose boulders, the surface to the
+<i>left</i> of the peak became more and more inviting. Our doubts
+as we surveyed it were like the conflict which goes on in daily
+life between instinct and reason. Every bit of thought out
+reasoning put the port at the little notch on the <i>right</i>, but every
+temptation which could assail two tired men, made us hope
+and wish against reason that it lay over the smooth grass to
+the <i>left</i>; at last in a cowardly and (as it turned out) salutary
+moment, we broke for the grass. We tried to persuade ourselves
+that if that smooth round sward was a cheat, and
+betrayed (as such enticements often betray in the Pyrenees)
+nasty limestone cliffs on the further side we still had daylight
+and strength enough to come down again and to go up
+to the rugged notch to which reason and duty pointed. We
+reached the grass and there found two things, first, the path<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span>
+which had been lost on the stones and the scree suddenly reappeared
+<i>there</i>, and secondly, the descent on the further side
+towards Sallent was as easy as walking down an English hill.</p>
+
+<p>The reason of this apparent error in the map we soon discovered.
+Out of sight, beyond the Col, was yet another rocky
+mass, to the left. The scale of the map was not sufficient to
+indicate every mass of rock, upon this ridge, but the map, as a
+fact, did indicate this peak which had been hidden from the
+valley and was unable specially to indicate the other peak
+which had been more prominent to us as we walked up from
+below. The adventure ended well for we got on to the main
+road before dark and to Sallent before nine, having covered in
+that accidentally successful day close upon 30 miles. But it
+might have ended, and should in reason have ended, very
+differently. For when we looked at the Sallent side of the
+range the next morning we saw that this notch on which we
+had first directed ourselves would have led to a perfectly
+impossible fall of rocks upon the further side. It would have
+been equally impossible to have gone back in the dark. We
+should have spent the night on a high stony ledge, without a
+fire and without shelter and without food, and the next day
+we should have had no choice but to come down again into
+the Canal Roya, utterly exhausted, certainly without the
+strength to climb up again by way of experiment upon other
+issues, but bound to make our way, if we could, to Canfranc,
+miles away down the Aragon Valley. It is not certain that
+we should have had the strength to do this. These examples
+and many more that one might give, prove the inadvisability
+of any plan that does not allow for a wide margin of delay:
+and, as I have said, a margin of three days is not too ample.</p>
+
+<p>Not only a misjudgment of topography, to which these hills
+particularly lend themselves, may put one into a hole of this
+sort, but mist may do it, or worse still, a sprained ankle. Or
+one may find oneself cut off by marshy ground, or 20 or 30
+feet of sheer cliff, too small for the map to mark, may take one
+an hour out of one’s way. In general, allow three days’ provision
+for any task, and never plan single days in the Pyrenees
+unless you are following a high road.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span></p>
+
+<p>A second rule is to take the first part of the day slowly and
+yet without halting. It is the morning usually that gives you
+your best chance upon the heights, and such examples of mist
+as have endangered any of my excursions have fallen usually
+from mid-day onwards. Apart from the danger of mist, if you
+break the back of the day by ten or eleven, before the first
+meal, you are safe for the end of it; and breaking the back
+of the day usually means getting over a port.</p>
+
+<p>A third rule is, stick to the <i>path</i>, and if the path seems lost,
+cast about for it with as much anxiety as you would for a scent.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said in speaking of the use of maps in the
+Pyrenees, that the great advantage of the 1/100,000 map was the
+clear way in which it marked the <i>paths</i>. The idea of paths
+does not fit in very well with the wild life which the Pyrenees
+promise one as one reads of them at home, and it is of importance
+to know what a Pyrenean “Path” is, and why such
+tracks are essential to travel in these mountains.</p>
+
+<p>It is perfectly true that if you are going to camp and fish,
+or ramble about certain small districts for your pleasure,
+the point is unimportant, but if you are making a journey from
+one place to another, upon a set itinerary, a very little experience
+in the mountains will show you that a “path” must be
+known and followed, nor do the inhabitants of these hills,
+whose experience is based upon so many centuries, underestimate
+the value of these slight and <i>sometimes imperceptible</i>
+tracks. On the contrary, you will hear one of the mountaineers
+carefully indicating to some fellow of his, who has not
+yet made a particular crossing, how to find and keep the <i>path</i>.
+You do not hear him giving general indications of scenery,
+nor distant landmarks, but particular directions as to how
+the path may be made out in passages where it is difficult to
+trace.</p>
+
+<p>The reason that these tracks are essential to Pyrenean travel
+lies in that formation of the hills which I have already often
+mentioned, a formation which causes them to be broken everywhere
+with sharp descents of rock down which no man can
+trust himself, and many of which are overhanging precipices.
+It also lies in the peculiar complexity of the tangled ridges<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>
+so that not even with a good map and a compass can you be
+certain of guessing your way from one high valley into another.</p>
+
+<p>Now the interest of these paths is that they are not, as the
+mention of them suggests to one unacquainted with these
+mountains, definite and continuous. Even the most frequented
+of them have difficulties of two kinds. The first
+difficulty is the crossing and multiplicity of tracks as one
+approaches a pasture, the second is the loss of the way over
+certain kinds of soil.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever people go to cut wood, or to lead their flocks on
+to enclosed fields known to them, a divergent path appears
+and it is often difficult to tell the main path from the branch
+one. Save over very well-known ports these paths are not
+made-ways; they are never mended or laid down, they are
+but the marks left by travel which is sometimes that of but
+one man on foot in a week, and that man shod in soft and
+yielding sandals that leave little impress. For many months
+in the year these faint traces are covered with snow, and in
+early summer they are soaked in the melting of it. No money
+is voted for them, and if here and there the crossing a rivulet
+or the getting past a difficult corner of rock has been artificially
+strengthened, this will only be upon the main ways and usually
+only near the villages. A Pyrenean path is the vaguest of
+things: it is a patch of trodden soil here and there, a few worn
+surfaces of rock, then perhaps a long stretch with no indication
+whatsoever. Yet upon this chain of faint indications with
+only occasional lengths marked, your life depends; and the
+finding and picking of it up has the same sort of interest and
+excitement as the following of a scent or a spoor.</p>
+
+<p>There are three kinds of soil over which the path is almost
+invariably lost. The first is swampy land, the second is any
+broad stretch of clean grass, the third is scree.</p>
+
+<p>Loss in swampy land is rare, for the simple reason that the
+path avoids such land; loss on scree is often made good towards
+the end of the summer by the passage of men and
+animals whose treading down of the loose stones can be noticed
+from place to place, but intervals of grass are most baffling.
+The native knows where to pick up the track again upon the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>
+further side; the foreigner has no chance but to guess, from
+the last direction it took, where he is likely to find it again.
+He will almost invariably be wrong, and then he must cast
+about in circles until he finds it upon the further side of the
+pasture, entering a wood or picking its way between gaps of
+rock. There is a lacuna of this sort on the perfectly easy way
+up the Peyréguet, and it cost me last year three valuable hours;
+for easy as the Peyréguet is—and it is little more than a plain
+walk—if you get too much to the right of it, there is a slope
+on the further side that a goat could not get down.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the importance of <i>Paths</i> in the Pyrenees. It is
+a point very difficult to make in print, but one which
+the reader, if he intend to walk there, will do well to take on
+faith. Make the 1/100,000 map your infallible authority, don’t
+expect to find on the black line it gives—especially if it is a
+dotted line—more than the merest string of indications,
+often separated by very wide gaps, and regard the discovery
+and continuity of these indications as vital to your safety.</p>
+
+<p>I now turn to equipment.</p>
+
+<p>The first question asked by an Englishman about to
+attempt fresh journeys will be what things he must take
+with him from England. My answer is. Two things only,
+his woollen clothing and a pannikin. With regard to this
+last, the best form is one which I myself get from the Army
+and Navy Stores, and which is of the following character.
+The handle is double-hinged, and curved, so that it fits to
+the outside curve of the pannikin. A spirit-lamp is sold
+which just fits into the interior, and with it, a curved metal
+receptacle for methylated spirit which also fits into the
+interior. The whole is bound together by a strap, passing
+through staples upon the sides, and through one upon the
+cover. The advantage of carrying this sort of pannikin lies
+entirely in its compactness. Weight counts. Every ounce
+counts when you are knocked out upon the third day; and
+the third day—the forty-eighth hour of losing your way and
+of missing human succour—may happen to you oftener than
+you think.</p>
+
+<p>Weight counts even upon the first day, after the first few<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>
+miles. Weight counts all the time. Now it so happens
+(why, I cannot tell) that when things are packed in a close
+compass they weary a man less than when they are loose
+and straggling, and there is the further recommendation that
+when they are closely packed, there is less chance of knocking
+them about and hurting them. So this is the kind of pannikin
+I recommend. Note, that the people who know most about
+these hills, the inhabitants of them, carry no provision for
+cooking. But there is a reason for this which does not
+apply to the traveller I have in view. The inhabitants of
+these valleys walk from a house to a house, with the chance
+of one night at most in the mountains; they carry with
+them, bread, cold meat and wine, and for the night they
+make a great fire for warmth but not for cooking. A person
+exploring at random, and liable to pass several nights in the
+open, must have the chance of getting a warm meal, and that
+opportunity will make all the difference if ever he finds
+himself, as he probably will very frequently, in a tight place.
+As to the woollen clothing, no one needs to hear the merit
+of that, and nowhere can it be got so good or so cheap as
+in England. Everything upon you should be of wool, except
+your boots. The differences of temperature are excessive,
+you are certain to be frequently wet, you will not have a
+change; good wool is, moreover, the substance that will
+wear least in the rough-and-tumble of your going.</p>
+
+<p>In this connexion I must speak of socks. Those who
+know most about marching, wear none, and for marching
+along roads it is a sound rule (startling and unusual as that
+rule may sound) to have the skin of the human foot up
+against the animal skin of the boot, that boot being well
+soaked in oil and pliable. There is no form of foot covering
+within the boot that does not chafe and tear and therefore
+blister the skin, if one goes a long way at a time, and for
+many days of continual tramping on end. That is the
+general rule, and in the French service it is universally recognized
+in the infantry. Now, to the particular kind of going
+which these mountains involve that rule does not apply,
+because, as we will see in a moment, boots are not what one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span>
+commonly wears. You must therefore take woollen socks—two
+pairs.</p>
+
+<p>If woollen clothing and the pannikin I have described are
+to be purchased in England, where are you to get the rest
+of your kit, and of what kind will it be?</p>
+
+<p>You must purchase it in any one of the towns of the foothills,
+and the nearer to the mountains you buy it, the better
+for you, since the further out you are upon the plains, the
+more they look upon you, with justice, as a fool who will
+buy bad or useless material at too dear a rate, and lose, waste,
+or destroy it in a very few days, a mere tourist to be fleeced.
+Buy at St. Jean Pied-de-Port, at Tardets (admirable town!),
+at Bédous, at Laruns (where the people are hard-hearted),
+at Argelès (where they are too used to tourists), or at Ax.
+Buy, if you can, <i>in the fairs</i>: to these the mountaineers come
+down to sell their wares and one can bargain, and as for
+bargaining, I will tell you the prices of things as I proceed.
+But of all things do not put off purchasing till you are <i>deep</i>
+in the range. Do not buy south of Ax, for instance, nor
+north of Jaca. The materials grow scanty and bad.</p>
+
+<p>The things you will need are four: first you will need a
+gourd, next sandals, next
+a sack, and lastly a
+blanket.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="illus09" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus09.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>As to the gourd. The
+gourd is the universal
+vessel used throughout
+these mountains, and its
+use extends from an
+indefinite distance upon
+the Spanish side (where
+it is universal) to the
+towns of the plains upon
+the French side: to
+Oloron that is, Mauléon,
+Foix, St. Girons, and the rest. It is a leather bottle of an
+oval shape, made in all sizes from a quart to a gallon, and
+this picture represents the structure. It is in three parts:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span>
+the oval leather case (<i>a</i>), which is made of goat’s skin with
+the hair inside; the top (<i>d</i>), which is made of goat’s horn,
+with a mouth from an inch to half an inch across, and the
+nozzle (<i>e</i>), which screws on to this top and is pierced by a
+tiny hole (<i>g</i>), through which one drinks, also made of goat’s
+horn. There is a fourth part if you will, the little stopper (<i>h</i>),
+which screws on to the nozzle, and is made of the same
+material and tied by a string to the mouth of the gourd for
+fear of losing it. On the inner edge of the leather bottle
+are two leather loops through which to pass the string, by
+which the whole thing is carried over the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Remember that the name for this invaluable instrument
+(one has a right to call it invaluable, for it saves the lives
+of men) is <i>Gourde</i> on the French side, and <i>Bota</i> upon the
+Spanish. This detail is not unimportant, for in many French
+villages they have never heard of a <i>Bota</i>, and certainly in
+no Spanish villages have they ever heard of a <i>Gourde</i>. It is
+in this convenience that one carries one’s supply of wine.
+The horn nozzle on top (<i>g</i>) screws off, the wine is poured into
+the mouth (<i>d</i>) through a funnel, until the gourd is completely
+full; one then screws the top (<i>g</i>) on again, and the little
+stopper (<i>h</i>) into that. When one wants the wine to pour
+into one’s mouth or into one’s mug, one screws off no more
+than the little stopper which protects the hole in the nozzle.
+If you can learn the proper way of drinking out of the small
+hole pierced in the horn-work, do so. It saves an infinity
+of delays, and it is the universal method of drinking throughout
+the Pyrenees. Here is one of those practical things in
+the trade which you can never get by book learning, and
+which one can only learn by doing them, nevertheless I will
+describe it.</p>
+
+<p>Unscrew the little stopper (<i>h</i>) and let it hang by its string;
+take the double horn top piece (<i>d</i> and <i>g</i>) in the left hand,
+and grasp with your right the bottom of the leather bottle;
+tilt the whole up, squeeze slightly with your right hand, held
+high in the air, and let the thin straight stream of wine from
+the little hole (<i>g</i>) go straight into your open mouth; then
+(to paraphrase Talleyrand’s famous phrase to the Maker of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>
+Religions), “if you can possibly manage it,” let it go down
+without swallowing; if you swallow you are lost.</p>
+
+<p>For Talleyrand well said to the Maker of Religions, after
+having described to him how, to found a religion, he should
+first suffer obloquy: how he should be ready to stand alone
+and the rest of it, then added, “If you can possibly manage
+it,” work a few miracles: and this kind of drinking also
+seems at first miraculous. But it can be accomplished; all
+it needs is faith, and that strength of will which overcomes
+the subconscious reactions of the body.</p>
+
+<p>Do not swallow. When you think enough has poured
+down your throat, do three things all at the same time:
+relax the pressure of your right hand, tilt the gourd that
+you are holding upright, and put the forefinger of your left
+hand smartly down upon the hole in the nozzle. For the
+first few hundred times you will spill upon yourself a little
+wine, but in the long run you will learn, and you will drink
+as neatly and as cleanly as any Basque or Catalan.</p>
+
+<p>If you do not learn to use this instrument thus, you will
+be compelled to carry a glass, which is not only difficult but
+dangerous; and if you compromise by using the gourd, but
+pouring the wine into a cup, it would either take you infinite
+time through the nozzle, or else you will have to unscrew
+the main top piece (<i>e</i>) of the gourd, and if you do that too
+often it will certainly leak.</p>
+
+<p>These are the elements of the use of the gourd, but, like
+all things noble, the gourd has many subtleties besides. For
+instance, it is designed by Heaven to prevent any man
+abusing God’s great gift of wine; for the goat’s hair inside
+gives to wine so appalling a taste that a man will only take
+of it exactly what is necessary for his needs. This defect
+or virtue cannot be wholly avoided, but there is a trick for
+making it less violent, a trick advisable with an old gourd,
+when one is starting out on one’s journey, and absolutely
+essential with a new one. This trick consists of pouring
+into the gourd somewhat over half a pint of brandy and
+shaking it well up and down, and after that carrying it for
+a few hours, jolting about and irrigating all the hairy inwards<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span>
+of the bottle as one goes. But do not imagine that the
+brandy so used can be drunk; when you have thus used
+it for a few hours it must all be poured away, for it is wholly
+spoilt. By the way, if you can get an old gourd second-hand
+that does not leak, it is far preferable to a new one;
+all things really worth having are better old than new. As
+to the price of a gourd, you will not get a small one of a
+quart or two for less than 8 to 10 francs, nor a large one from
+a quarter to a half gallon or upwards at less than an extra
+3 or 4 francs for every quart. Gourds are not things to haggle
+about. Satisfy yourself that it does not leak and be grateful
+to get a sound one. It will last you all your life. As to
+weight, a gallon is ten pounds: a quart is two pounds and
+a half.</p>
+
+<p>Further, you will find very often that when your gourd
+is empty, especially if you have carried it empty upon a
+cold and misty morning, the inside sticks together, and when
+you try to blow it out through the mouth (as is advisable,
+before pouring in the wine), no effort of yours can swell it;
+the trick is to put it before a fire and warm it gently; after
+it has warmed about ten minutes, it will swell easily.</p>
+
+<p>As to the sack, nothing is more difficult than to advise
+upon this matter. Some men to be happy must carry a
+block, and pencils, and colours, and brushes. Others cannot
+live without combs. Nothing is really necessary besides
+bread and meat. Each traveller must decide his own minimum,
+but I can give advice both as to the shape and the
+weight of the sack. The people of the hills, when they carry
+a sack, carry a light bag slung by a strap over the shoulder,
+and for a light weight, up, say, to seven or eight pounds,
+that is the most practical equipment: thus what we call
+in England a satchel, and what the French call a Havresac
+does very well. For anything heavier a knapsack is often
+advised; but there are disadvantages in the knapsack: it
+is complicated, one cannot get at it without taking it off,
+and it is hot to the back. If you will be at the pains of a
+knapsack, always have one that is watertight in material,
+with a large overhanging flap, and never burden yourself<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span>
+with a knapsack which has outside pockets. The value of
+a knapsack for heavy carriage is that the weight of it comes
+right down on to the build of the body. Weight is quite
+a different thing, when it sags, backward or sideways, from
+what it is when it presses right down upon the framework
+of a man’s bones. That is why all those used to carrying
+very heavy weights habitually carry them upon the head
+or the shoulders, the human body is built for taking a strain
+in this way down the length of the bones. Now if you
+carry the haversack by a strap over the shoulder, any appreciable
+weight, even one so small as ten kilos, becomes a grievous
+burden after a short distance. Light weights, under that
+amount, can be so borne, but directly <i>upon</i> the shoulders
+weights up to forty pounds can be carried without destroying
+a man’s marching power, and indeed both French and English
+armies have often repeatedly climbed the mule tracks of
+these very hills carrying such weights in this fashion.</p>
+
+<p>It must, however, be remarked in connexion with the
+knapsack that it will not save you fatigue unless the weight
+bears right down upon the crest of the shoulder blades, and
+in order to ensure this, make certain of three things. First,
+that the shoulder straps come well down the knapsack, so
+that a good part of the weight is above the point where
+they are sewn on; secondly, that your knapsack is so packed
+that the weight is at the top, that no heavy things sag towards
+the bottom; and thirdly, that you have strings or straps
+going from the shoulder straps in front to a belt round your
+middle, whereby you can brace up the knapsack whenever
+it begins to lean away backwards. Every soldier knows the
+difference between a knapsack fitting close to the back and
+coming well above the shoulder, and one that drags away
+backwards.</p>
+
+<p>To have said so much about the knapsack may mislead
+some of my readers. I would not advise it; it is only necessary
+if for some reason or other you want to carry weight.
+If you are wise, and content to take only the necessary, a
+haversack slung at the side from the shoulder will do perfectly
+well, and it has the advantage of being get-at-able at any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span>
+moment. You may balance the weight of it by carrying
+the gourd slung over the other shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>As to sandals—Many an Englishman will understand the
+need of the gourd and the sack who will not understand the
+advantage of sandals. All the Pyrenean people, for the
+matter of that, most Spaniards, travel not in leather boots
+but in cloth slippers with a sole made of twisted cord, and
+to these the French give the name of sandals. But, as in
+the case of the gourd, the name suddenly changes on the
+Spanish side. In France you must ask for <i>Sandales</i>, in
+Spain for a pair of <i>Alpargatas</i>. The advantage of these is a
+thing of which you can never convince a man the first time
+he attempts these mountains, but he is sure enough of it at
+the end of his first day. For some reason or other, the loose
+stones and the pointed rocks of a mule path make travel
+upon foot intolerably painful and difficult if it is too
+long pursued in ordinary boots. With <i>Alpargatas</i> on, you
+do not feel the fatigue of a track that would finish you
+in 5 miles if you tried to do it in leather. And conversely,
+oddly enough, a high road with a good surface soon becomes
+as intolerable in Alpargatas as is a mule track in boots.
+There is nothing for it but to leave your boots at the nearest
+town, if you propose to return to it, or if you do not, to
+carry them with you and change from one footgear to the
+other as you pass from the mountain to the road, and from
+the road to the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Remember that, in Alpargatas, you will <i>always</i> end the
+day with wet feet. Let not that trouble you. They dry at
+once before the camp fire and they do not shrink. The
+reason you will always have wet feet is that in every few
+miles of hills you have to cross a marshy place or a stream.
+But though it is easy to dry Alpargatas in a few minutes, it
+is advisable to change socks at night, while those you have
+worn during the day dry before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>As to the blanket—No more than any of the inhabitants
+can you go through these hills without a blanket. It is often
+of the greatest use in the changes of weather during the day,
+it is absolutely necessary at night. Were you to take it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span>
+from England, you would certainly take one that would be
+too heavy, or if you took a light one, one that would be too
+cold. The people of the Pyrenees who have thought out
+these things slowly for thousands of years, have ended with
+the right formula. They have a thin, close, narrow blanket,
+which just protects a man and protects him as much by its
+double fold with the air between as by its texture. Get one
+of a neutral colour, a sort of dark slate grey is the commonest,
+and pay from 30 to 50 francs for it.</p>
+
+<p>With these five things, a pannikin from England, a gourd,
+a sack, sandals, and a blanket, you are equipped. You
+cannot take less, you need not take more, and if you take
+more you will certainly repent it.</p>
+
+<p>I have said nothing about tents. The tent like twenty
+other luxuries is taken for granted in England. I have
+heard of people roughing it in various mountains who took
+with them not only a tent, but an india-rubber bath, a
+Norwegian kitchen, and for all I know, collars as well. But
+many a man who will have had the sense to get rid of his
+luxuries when he begins scrambling, will be reluctant to give
+up the tent, for it seems necessary to be at least dry. Now
+the arguments against having a tent have always seemed
+to me final, so far at least as the Pyrenees were concerned.</p>
+
+<p>You are dealing here with a great expanse of mountain
+in which weather is very variable, but in which you do not
+have snow or prolonged furious weather during the months
+you are likely to travel in. This argument is enforced by
+the peculiar structure of the mountains. Everywhere in the
+Pyrenees you can find either rock shelter—and you find this
+much more frequently than in any other part of the world I
+have ever seen—or dense forests, or, on the bare upland
+sweeps of grass, those stone cabins of the shepherds, upon
+the shelter of which the inhabitants largely depend. These,
+of course, are not very near one to another, but they are
+always marked on the 1/100,000 French map, under the title of
+<i>Cabanes</i>. The owners, when they have owners, never mind
+one’s using them, and the only drawback about them is that
+sometimes you make certain of using one particularly far<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span>
+from mankind, and discover it to be all in ruins. One way
+with another I have never known three nights upon the
+Pyrenees which could not be passed in succession without a
+tent, if the rules which I shall give for camping were properly
+observed; and that is the experience also of those who have
+spent their whole lives in these mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Next, let it be remarked that a tent is a great hindrance,
+it is either very light—in which case it is always fairly useless—or
+it is heavy, in which case there is an end to your free
+going. As will be seen later, when I speak of the way of
+settling for the night, there need never be occasion for such
+a shelter, which, moreover, in high winds is more troublesome
+than an animal or a child.</p>
+
+<p>If your equipment consist in no more than a gourd, pannikin,
+blanket, sack, and sandals, what is your provision to be?</p>
+
+<p>You must never make your provision for less than forty-eight
+hours, and it is better to make it for sixty. However
+modest is your plan, always allow for two nights on the
+mountain and for the better part of the third day as well.
+Remember that you will start in the early morning from the
+shelter of a roof, that you will therefore have a whole day
+before you dependent upon your own resources, that if you
+are making anything of an effort you will certainly camp the
+first night, but if the weather goes wrong or you miss your
+way or come upon any accident, you may very well have
+to spend the second night out, and if you do this, the chances
+are in favour of a long tramp and scramble on the third day
+before you reach human beings again. All this will be
+clearer to the reader when I come to speak of the accidents
+of weather in these hills, but I may here mention as an
+example of the truth of what I say that two companions
+and myself were once held for exactly twenty-four hours in
+a space of not much more than a square mile, and almost
+within earshot of a high road and a village, and that yet it
+was merely a piece of good luck towards evening—a fog
+lifting just at the right place for a few moments—that saved
+us from spending a second night out of doors. In work of
+this kind the chief part of strategy is to secure your retreat, but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>
+you cannot make even one day’s excursion without your retreat
+involving at least another day and perhaps two. Therefore,
+inconvenient though it be, you must have ample provision.</p>
+
+<p>The first element of this provision is bread, and you will
+do well to allow a pound and half per man per day. Those
+are the rations of the French army and they are wise ones.
+If each man of a party carries a four-pound loaf, you have
+just enough, but not too much for accidents. A man must
+have bread, he can do without meat, and at a pinch he can
+do without wine, but I know by experience that he cannot
+depend upon any form of concentrated food to take the place
+of the solid wheaten stuff of Europe. Half a pound of
+bread and a pint of wine is a meal that will carry one for
+miles, and nothing can take their place. For meat, you
+will carry what the French call Saucisson, and the Spaniards,
+Salpichon. You will soon hate it, even if you do not, as
+is most likely, hate it from the bottom of your heart on the
+first day, but there is nothing else so compact and useful.
+It is salt pig and garlic rolled into a tight hard sausage which
+you may cut into thin slices with a knife, and it is wonderfully
+sustaining. If you like to carry other meat do so, but you
+can live on salpichon and it means less weight than meat
+in any other form.</p>
+
+<p>These two, bread and saucisson, are the essentials of
+provision, but other provision hardly less essential should
+be added to them, and the first of these extras is <i>Maggi</i>.
+Maggi is a sort of concentrated beef essence, sold both in
+France and in England, and to be got anywhere in the French
+towns, but you will do well to make quite certain by laying
+in a good stock of it in some large town, such as Bordeaux
+or Toulouse or Paris itself, on your way south: I have
+known the grocers of a Pyrenean town to be out of it. The
+essence is packed in little oblong capsules which you buy
+by the dozen, at about 2<i>d.</i> a capsule, and you will do well
+to start with three or four dozen a man. They keep indefinitely,
+they weigh next to nothing, and the great advantage
+of them will be seen in what follows. You can, with two
+capsules to a quart of water, make in a few moments a hot<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>
+and comforting soup which quite doubles the nourishment
+of your bread; with three capsules to a quart of water you
+have a very strong soup, which will bring a man round a
+corner of extreme fatigue. It is a food which can be prepared
+in a moment under almost any conditions, and one which is
+invaluable when you find yourself lost, especially if you are
+cut off by thick weather, or in any other way exhausted. It
+may seem an insignificant detail to tell the reader how to
+prepare so simple a meal, nevertheless I will do so. It took
+me a little time to learn, and he may as well be saved the
+trouble. Each little cylinder of extract is contained in two
+gelatine caps which fit together, you pull these off, you drop
+the essence into a little water while it is warming, but it will
+not melt of itself, you must crush it and mix it thoroughly
+with the water, and then add more water, still stirring till
+you have full measure. It needs no salt in the proportions
+I have given.</p>
+
+<p>Further, you will do well to fill the little curved receptacle
+in the pannikin with methylated spirit, and to carry an
+extra provision of this in your sack. A pint is enough for
+many days, and very often you have no occasion to use it
+at all, but you may be caught in some wet place, or in a
+rocky piece where there is no wood, or in one way or another
+have a difficulty in making a fire; and even where you have
+plenty of wood, a drop or two of the methylated spirit makes
+you certain of the fire catching even in wet weather; of that
+I shall speak when I come to camping. By the way, take
+plenty of English matches and of two kinds, fusees and
+others, and if you are carrying a sack and not a waterproof
+knapsack, wrap your matches in a little square of india-rubber
+cloth, for if there is one thing that imperils a man
+more than another, it is to be caught in the hills without the
+means of making a fire.</p>
+
+<p>As for brandy, the people of the hills themselves discourage
+its use; it is, on the whole, best to have some with you,
+only you must not depend upon it; it is quite honestly, under
+the circumstances of climbing, what some foolish fanatics
+think it under all conditions, that is, a medicine. If you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>
+take it when you do not need it it will fatigue you, especially
+in high places. Such as you do take carry in a flask. The
+gourd, as I have said, spoils it utterly.</p>
+
+<p>Here then you have the rules for equipment and for
+provision, and I will sum them up before continuing.</p>
+
+<p>For equipment: Haversack or knapsack, a blanket,
+sandals, a gourd, a pannikin fitted with spirit lamp and
+spirit vessel, four pounds of bread for each man, a pound of
+sausage, a pint of methylated spirits, and matches; to which
+you may add, if you will, a length of candle, and one of
+those little mica lanterns which fold into the shape of a
+pocket-book, and three or four dozen capsules of Maggi. Fill
+your gourd with wine as full as it will hold, you will need it.
+So much for equipment and provision.</p>
+
+<p>As for the packing of it I have already spoken of this in
+connexion with the knapsack. A few additional remarks
+may be of use. See that your bread is always covered from
+the air; to wrap it in paper is enough for this, and if it
+will fit into the sack so much the better. Work if possible
+a broad band of cloth into the straps where they catch the
+shoulder, keep the straps short so that the weight hangs
+high, carry the blanket loosely over either shoulder: it gives
+far less trouble thus carried than it does when it is rolled
+and tied over the chest. If you carry a knapsack, however,
+roll the blanket tight upon the top of it, it will then incommode
+you even less than when it is carried loosely. Wrap your
+matches as I have said in a waterproof cloth (if you have no
+knapsack), and wrap in the same the maps you need for
+each particular climb; forward the rest by post to the town
+for which you are making if it is in France; if it is in Spain,
+don’t, for they will not get there.</p>
+
+<p>I had forgotten to mention that most useful thing, a pocket
+compass. Take a large cheap one, and allow for the variation
+when you put it on your map: but of using this and of
+several other little points I will speak later. I have dealt
+with what regards equipment: let me now speak of Camping.</p>
+
+<p>Camping in the Pyrenees differs from camping under any
+other conditions that I know. The structure of the range,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span>
+its climate, and even the political condition of the valleys,
+make it differ from camping in Ireland or in the Vosges, or
+in those few parts of England where the wealthy will allow
+plain men to indulge in this amusement. It is not the same
+as camping in the Alps, in Savoy, or in the Apennines, or in
+the Ardennes; and it is the particular conditions of camping
+in the Pyrenees which made me say just now that one can
+do without a tent.</p>
+
+<p>Though geologists are careful to describe the very varied
+structure of the range, yet to the traveller one feature,
+peculiar to these among all mountains, perpetually appears
+common in every part of it, and that is the continual presence
+of overhanging rock. I can remember no considerable
+stretch in any main valley, not any in a crossing between
+two valleys, where you are not perpetually finding examples
+of this formation. It is this upon which one must first
+depend for shelter. Next to such overhanging rocks one
+must depend upon the great forests; lastly, upon the cabanes.
+But before speaking of their various advantages rules of
+time must be given, for upon the time of day chosen for the
+halt the success of a camp will depend.</p>
+
+<p>I am speaking of course throughout these notes of the
+warm weather alone; that is, of the end of June, July,
+August, and the first part of September. Seasons vary, and
+there are years when the whole of September may be included.
+At the end of the season one may count, especially in the
+eastern part of the Pyrenees, upon a sufficient succession of
+fine nights to make camping possible; but if one comes
+upon a streak of bad weather it will last, especially in the
+western part, for three or four days, and it is better, if the
+people of the valley foresee such weather, to let it go over
+before taking the heights. Thunderstorms and very heavy
+rain may happen upon any night in these mountains. They
+are said (I do not know upon what authority) to be commoner
+upon the French than on the Spanish side. More dangerous
+than these, though less momentarily annoying, are the mists
+which gather quite suddenly in the higher parts of the range,
+and which as suddenly interfere with every form of travel.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is absolutely necessary, unless one is quite certain of
+the finest weather, to cross the col or port, in the route one
+has traced out for the day, before that day is far advanced.
+The reason for this is twofold; first, that wood for a camp
+fire is not usually to be found upon the higher slopes, secondly
+that good water is not easily to be found there. It is further
+necessary to choose the place for one’s camp an hour or so
+before sunset, and it is wiser to make it even earlier. The
+disappointments which I remember within my own experience
+in this matter have nearly all proceeded from pushing on
+from a likely place discovered in the afternoon; one so
+pushes on in the hopes of finding a likelier spot before the
+end of the day. Such an extension of one’s journey is nearly
+always ended in a rough, unsuitable camp, sometimes without
+a fire, and under the most uncomfortable conditions. When
+therefore you have found in the course of the afternoon, the
+shelter of good rock, overhanging a dry place by the stream
+you are following, pitch upon it and do not regret the hours
+you appear to lose.</p>
+
+<p>When you have chosen the place for your camp your
+first act must be to gather at once as much dry, <i>large</i> wood
+as you can find. The local customs in this matter are very
+liberal. Even if you are quite close to a village, no one
+grudges you the use of wood, and your only possible disturbance
+will come from the frontier guards if you are so foolish
+as to choose their neighbourhood, which, by the way, can
+only be the case if you encamp near one of the few chief
+crossings of the range. These may ask you questions and
+make trouble, not for your gathering of wood, but for their
+suspicion that you are smuggling.</p>
+
+<p>The temptation to gather only small wood is strong. It
+always seems as though the branch you have chosen will be
+large enough to last for some hours. But a little experience
+of these fires will show you that nothing small enough for
+you to drag will be too large for your purpose. The eight
+hours or more during which you must feed the fire consume
+a great deal of wood, and the keeping of the fire in depends
+upon having large logs for its foundation. You will not, of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span>
+course, be able to cut these into the right length, you will
+have so to arrange them when the fire is once well started
+that they burn through their middles. You can then, later,
+shift into the centre of the flame the halves that fall aside.
+If there is any breeze pile a few stones to windward of your
+hearth, for you will have to sleep to leeward of the fire, and
+an arrangement of this kind will break the force of the wind
+and prevent the smoke and flame from coming too near
+you. If the wind is too strong, you must make your fire and
+your camp under the lee of some great rock, or it will both
+burn out in a very short time and make itself intolerable to
+those who depend upon it for warmth. For a wind that rises
+in the middle of the night, you have, of course, no remedy;
+short of heavy rain it is the worst accident that can befall
+you. If you have enough wood make your fire of a crescent
+shape with the hollow towards the wind. It is the warmest
+and the best way. You must so arrange that in sleeping
+you lie with your feet towards the fire, and your great provision
+of wood must be brought quite close to hand otherwise, most
+certainly, you will not have the energy to feed it in the few
+wakeful moments of the night. That wood should be somewhat
+green or wet matters little if you have a great fire well
+started, but if you let it get low while you sleep, it will be
+impossible to revive it, and when the fire fails, there is an
+end to sleep for every one. It is impossible to say what the
+effect of such a fire is by giving reasons for it; it does not
+perhaps warm one so much as do something to the air which
+makes sleep possible and easy without a shelter, and it is
+the universal aid and solace of all the Pyrenean mountaineers,
+whom you will often find in groups, woodcutters or shepherds,
+gathered round one of these great blazes for the night.</p>
+
+<p>The conditions of a good rock shelter, of a neighbouring
+stream and plenty of wood, though common, are not universal,
+and if from the structure of the hills and from the nature of
+the map you fear you will not reach one, or if the greater
+part of the afternoon is passed without your finding such a
+place, your next choice must be a spot in one of the great
+woods that everywhere clothe the range. They are more<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span>
+common upon the French than upon the Spanish slope.
+Here there is always cover from the wind, for they are very
+dense, and even a partial cover from the rain, but it is
+important to make your fire in a clearing, and luckily there is
+nearly always a succession of open spaces between the forest
+and the stream. With such a fire and with such an arrangement
+to leeward of it the Pyrenean blanket with which you
+have provided yourself will be ample covering for the night.</p>
+
+<p>As for using cabanes, I have already said that there is no
+grudge felt against you for
+doing so, but you must treat
+any man coming upon you in
+such a shelter as though he
+were the owner, for the local
+shepherds will certainly regard
+you as their guest, and will
+think they are doing you the
+favour of a host. Moreover,
+your fire, if you make one
+here, must be lit outside the
+building, though the local
+people who use the cabanes
+most constantly, will often
+make it inside. On the whole
+the night is more comfortably
+spent in the open than in one of these shelters, unless one is
+caught by rain.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp63" id="illus10" style="max-width: 26.5625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus10.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The open sandy spaces such as are quite common by the
+side of the larger streams may be used with safety. There
+are no places where a spate will be so rapid as to endanger
+one, unless one choose, as a companion and I were once
+compelled to choose, a cave almost cut off by the water.
+The only places where it is essential that one should <i>not</i>
+camp, are the higher flats where wood is rare, and where the
+cold of the night is exceptionally severe. It is a choice to
+which one is often compelled, if one pushes on too long, after
+having miscalculated the fatigues and duration of the climb;
+but it is an error which one always regrets.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span></p>
+
+<p>A further recommendation is, <i>not to camp by the map</i>. The
+map may look like <a href="#illus10">that on p. 131</a>, and one may say that one
+will follow up the stream at one’s leisure. The reality may
+turn out a series of ascending precipices, quite unassailable.</p>
+
+<p>But it is a great temptation. A man may have
+known the Pyrenees and experienced time and again the
+error of trusting to a map for a camping site, but there
+is something so convincing about the print and the
+colours that after years of experience one may commit
+the same folly again. It was but this year that, trusting
+to the 1/100,000 map, I planned to camp at the place where
+the Cacouette falls into the main stream below Sainte
+Engrace. I did not know the spot; it seemed to come at a
+convenient hour in the ascent of the mountains: I should
+be there about 5 o’clock. There was wood marked, good
+water; it was on the lee side of the wind that was then
+blowing from the south. When I came to it the place was a
+sharp ledge of limestone higher than Cheddar cliffs, dotted
+here and there with trees and affording between the wall of
+rock and the water not three feet of ground. It was not to
+be approached from above; it could not be reached from
+below. A more impossible place for camping never was. I
+had the same experience some years ago on the Aston, though
+that was before I knew the Pyrenees well. There a place was
+chosen by my companion and myself for its mixture of wood
+and meadow upon the map, there were cabanes and apparently
+plenty of good water; it was so plain on the map, that
+one did not hurry to reach it before darkness; but when we
+got there it was a marsh; no cabane appeared until daylight,
+and there was even that very rare thing in the Pyrenees,
+doubtful water. As for the wood that should have dotted
+the pasture, it turned out to be tough little live bushes, and
+all green, that would neither cut nor burn.</p>
+
+<p>There is one last and very grave danger of which I would
+warn the reader in connexion with travel on foot in the
+Pyrenees, with a map and even with a map and a compass.
+Without map or compass it is more than a danger, it is a sort
+of necessary misfortune perpetually attending men, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span>
+gravity of it is proved by the fact that the local people who
+use neither compass nor map when they go into a district
+with which they are unacquainted, carefully ask the marks of
+the path and get themselves accompanied, if they can, by
+someone who knows the country-side. This danger may be
+called “Getting into the wrong valley.”</p>
+
+<p>As one sits at home, one thinks of the scheme of mountain
+valleys too simply. One thinks of the stream as coming down
+through a ravine with its head waters appearing below a definite
+saddle or notch in the watershed. This stream, let us
+say, is flowing north. One sees on the further side another
+stream rising just on the other side of the notch and flowing
+on through a simple valley, going to the south. The crossing
+of the port between these valleys seems to depend upon no
+more than physical endurance and fine weather. One goes
+up one stream to the saddle, crosses the saddle, follows the
+other stream downhill, and so makes one’s passage from
+France to Spain.</p>
+
+<p>There are many passes of this simplicity, but there are many
+more that, both between the lateral valleys and over the main
+range, present the danger of which I speak, and which consists
+in a complexity at a summit such that it is difficult in the
+extreme to know—even when one is certain one has gone up the
+right part of the hither slope—what one should do on the
+thither.</p>
+
+<p>This danger of “getting into the wrong valley” cannot
+be seized without illustration, and in the following rough
+sketches I give examples of this.</p>
+
+<p>In the first example is a bit of country such as one
+very often gets in these mountains with summits round about
+the 2600 metre line and the last valleys under the ports somewhat
+above the 2000. I have marked with hatching the
+contours below 2200 and in black the summits above 2600.
+The main watershed I have indicated by a dotted line.</p>
+
+<p>When one is crossing a port of this type one sees before one
+from the summit a confused and gentle slope leading apparently
+to one obvious valley on the far side like the obvious
+valley out of which one has just ascended. It seems indifferent<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span>
+whether one should come down on to this by M or by N,
+to the left or to the right, yet the two valley floors to which
+each leads are quite separate and may lead one round to different
+river basins. How deceptive such a place is, the rough
+sketch appended may help the reader to grasp. It shows the
+kind of thing one sees from the summit of such a pass and how
+indifferent the choice appears between the ways by which one
+may descend.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus11" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus11.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>This type of confusion exists sometimes in a still more
+dangerous form, as in the contour lines of sketch on next page.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus12" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus12.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>A man arrived at the port P climbing up from the valley Q,
+which is deep and well defined, sees before him another valley
+R exactly in line with the last, also deep and also well defined.
+On either side of him, as he gets to the saddle, run high ridges
+perpendicular to the line of the two valleys. It seems common
+sense to take the watershed as running along these ridges and
+across the port, and if Q is the French valley, R will be the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span>
+Spanish one. As a matter of fact the watershed may not run
+in this simple way at all, but (as indicated upon the sketch
+map) take a sharp turn to the right. R may be a French
+valley after all, and the proper way down into Spain may be
+over the gradual grassy slopes indicated by the arrow line.
+A man standing just at the port, and having a rocky ridge A
+and the rocky ridge B to his left and right, sees before him the
+obvious trench of the valley R and takes for granted that it
+is the Spanish valley, whereas his true way is across the vague
+grassy land towards S, and the watershed which he thinks runs
+from B on to A really turns round from B and runs on to the
+distant mountains before him.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus13" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus13.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus14" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus14.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span></p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that on these summits all traces
+of a path as a rule disappear. What is worse, indications of
+a path may begin on the other side into the wrong valley and
+not into the right one.</p>
+
+<p>A second type of this peril is that in which some feature upon
+the ridge which looks quite unimportant upon the one side
+turns out to be all-important upon the other. Thus a man
+coming from A in the map below, where the valleys are
+hatched and the highest summits are black, would have before
+him the plain ridge B-C. It is indifferent where he crosses
+it from that side, but on the far side he finds a confusion of
+falling valleys, and if he does not pick out the right one he
+may find himself in a few hours shut in by high walls which
+constrain him to a journey he never meant to make. He
+may have intended to follow valley (1), and so to reach food
+and shelter, he may find himself in valley (2) caught for the
+night far from men and with walls of 3000 feet between him
+and them.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp96" id="illus15" style="max-width: 28.125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus15.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Sometimes this confusion takes the form of one’s being led
+on to an obvious notch in the ridge before one: a notch lower
+than the general line of the ridge which (one thinks) cannot but
+be the port. When one has climbed to it, however, one finds
+that the valley one was seeking lies far to the right or to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span>
+left of such a notch, and that the gap which was so noticeable
+on the one side of the pass corresponded to nothing useful
+upon the further side.</p>
+
+<p>There is a good example of this under the peak called Negras
+where an obvious notch which one thinks surely must be the
+way over to the Gallego, leads to nothing more useful than an
+enclosed Tarn under the precipices of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>A sketch of the aspect of this particular ridge will make the
+difficulty plain.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus16" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus16.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>All the contours upon the Aragonese side invite one to the
+notch at N, yet the true way lies over the ridge between A and
+B, and the nearer to B the better is the descent upon the
+further side. Indeed at A it is perilous, at B it is a very
+gradual descent of easy grass.</p>
+
+<p>The third type of mountain structure which may lead one
+into the wrong valley is what may be called “The Double
+Col.” It is damnably common and a good example of it will be
+found in the track I describe later on in this book when I speak
+of the short cut from the Ariège Valley into the Roussillon.</p>
+
+<p>The accompanying sketch will explain the character of this
+sort of tangle, and it is most important that anyone unacquainted
+with these mountains and wishing to learn them
+should seize it thoroughly, for it is the worst of all the lures
+that get a man astray.</p>
+
+<p>Observe carefully the numerous contours on <a href="#illus17">the sketch
+map overleaf</a>. They are numerous because it is necessary to
+show the minute details of such a case. I will suppose them
+to be about 50 feet apart. The traveller is coming up the
+valley marked V, the floor of which is marked in black upon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span>
+the sketch, and the apex of which is, let us say, 6000 feet above
+the sea; he climbs the last little slope of 250 feet and reaches
+the col at C, which is 6250 feet above the sea. On this saddle
+he has upon either side of him precipitous slopes, which lead
+up to two summits of mountains upon the right and the left,
+the one towards A, the other towards B. Right in front of him
+opens another valley corresponding apparently to the valley
+V from which he has come, and which we will call W. The
+floor of this also is marked in black upon the sketch. It
+will be observed from the contour lines that the descent on
+to W is easy, though the walls bounding it on either
+side become increasingly precipitous as one proceeds.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus17" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus17.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Hidden from him by rising ground upon the right, as he
+stands at C, there is yet another valley, the floor of which is
+also given in black. This valley we will call Y, and it is this
+valley which leads the traveller towards his object; valley W
+only gets him deeper into the wilderness. Both valleys W
+and Y, are so precipitous that once engaged in either of them
+one is caught and compelled to pursue them for many miles.
+It is evident that on a very large scale map such as this, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span>
+with full contour lines giving every few feet of height, the
+traveller would make no error. Once at C he would go up to
+the right around the base of mountain B, rising continually
+until, somewhat under 6500 feet, he came to the second col,
+D, which would bring him down into valley Y.</p>
+
+<p>But consider how this corner would look upon an ordinary
+small scale map!</p>
+
+<p>The whole distance from the apex of valley V to the apex
+of valley Y is not half a mile. It would occupy little more
+than a quarter of an inch upon your French map. The general
+trend and nature of the valleys, which the traveller shut in by
+high mountains cannot grasp, would seem obvious upon such
+a map and he would take it for granted that he could make no
+error and that the passage marked from V to Y would be perfectly
+plain sailing. It would never occur to him that he could
+be trapped into the little ravine W leading nowhere and in no
+way connected with his journey.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus18" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus18.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The map would look something like this, perhaps, giving
+one a perfectly accurate general impression of the whole
+country-side, but quite useless for the critical point C-D, the
+difficulties of which nothing but numerous contours and a very
+large scale can possibly explain. The traveller consults the
+map, he sees the mountain group whose summits are A, H,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>
+and K, with their heights marked, he sees the other mountain
+group culminating at B with its height also marked, he see
+the main valley V up the road of which he has proceeded with
+the town in which he stopped and the river which he has been
+following. He sees the pass clearly marked at C-D, leading
+over to the further valley Y with its town, river, and road—and
+the journey seems to present no difficulties. It is only
+when he gets actually shut up in the hills at the heads of the
+valleys that he may begin to doubt or to be misled. On his
+map he could never believe that the little torrent W going
+right round out of his direction could take him in, or that he
+would get into its valley.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp93" id="illus19" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus19.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>If you consider what he actually sees when he gets to the
+summit of the pass, you will appreciate yet more easily how
+his error will come about. He will see something like this,
+with an obvious way straight before him, and with nothing
+to tell him that he must go up a second col, two or three
+hundred feet above him to the right at D, if he is to get into
+the right valley.</p>
+
+<p>It is in cases of this sort that Schrader’s map is so useful—so
+far as it goes; but it only covers the quite central part of
+the Pyrenees, and the contours are 100 metres apart.</p>
+
+<p>The particular ways in which one may get into the wrong
+valley are innumerable, but these three types which I have
+given include all the most common of them; and, of the three,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span>
+the last which I have described in such detail is at once the
+most perilous and the most common.</p>
+
+<p>While I am upon this subject of getting into the wrong
+valley on the <i>downward</i> side, I ought to mention the tricks
+which the map and one’s own judgment play upon one as one
+goes <i>upwards</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Errors made as one follows the map <i>up a ravine</i> are nearly
+always due to making a false estimate of distance. The path
+may be lost for a considerable stretch, and the contours may
+at first be puzzling, but if one will trust to one’s map and to
+one’s compass one will never go far wrong, unless one misjudges
+distance, and it is on this account that in the directions
+I give below for particular places, I mean distance with what
+care I can.</p>
+
+<p>Thus you may miss the path which branches off from the
+main path from the valley of the Cinqueta to go eastward
+over the Col de Gistian; but if you have made an accurate
+estimate of distance, and trust to the measurements given, you
+cannot fail to identify the stream up which that crossing lies.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can replace judgment, but there is a rule of thumb
+which is workable enough, and that is, save under conditions
+of extreme fatigue, that your kilometre on a mule path hardly
+ever takes you less than twelve minutes or more than fifteen.
+I except steep climbing of course, but steep climbing only
+comes at the port itself, or in quite unmistakable ravines and
+gorges, where you will not lose your way. Where you lose
+your way is in the Jasse, or in the bifurcation of main valleys,
+and there, as you plod up your mule path, you will, as I say,
+never take less than ten minutes over your kilometre (which
+is a centimetre upon your map)—and you ought always to
+have a little measure with you—nor will you ever take much
+more than twelve, save when you are quite knocked out and
+unable to calculate distance at all.</p>
+
+<p>These limits will seem narrow to those who have not experienced
+such paths. But they are wide enough. You must
+of course note the times during which you choose to stop,
+and it is also true that if you make quite short halts for a
+moment or two, of which you take no record, you will quite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span>
+put out your calculation; but twelve minutes to the kilometre
+is 3 miles an hour, fifteen is 2½ miles an hour, and if a
+man gets over a level mule track in the early morning carrying
+weight a little faster than the first pace, or on a steep part
+at evening a little slower than the second, yet the occasions
+when this rule of thumb fails are rare.</p>
+
+<p>When your watch tells you that by the distance measured
+you should be approaching a bifurcation, or any other doubtful
+place, halt and decide.</p>
+
+<p>If you do miss your way going upwards, or do take the wrong
+valley, if, in a word, you are lost (as I was badly four years
+ago, so that I have the right to speak of it), the first thing to
+remember is that the path, if you will take it <i>downhill</i>, will
+lead you at last to men. The rule about following running
+water is all very well in many mountains of the ranges, but it
+won’t do in the Pyrenees, for the running water very often
+goes under sharp limestone cliffs, and if you don’t find your
+way round or over them, you may spend more hours than are
+safe in looking for a way out. They form a very complete
+prison door, indeed, do these gorges.</p>
+
+<p>The path, I say, if you follow it downhill, will save you, but
+if, when you find you are in the wrong valley, you attempt to
+recover your track by going up the lateral ridge, you always
+run a grave risk. It is by experiments of that sort that men
+die from exhaustion. It is true that one is not usually tempted
+to this extra effort. It is much easier to go on the way one
+is going, and to follow the path down, though one knows it
+is a wrong one, but there are occasions, especially late in the
+day, when one has <i>all but</i> conquered the main crest of the range,
+after perhaps one failure, and when one knows that one is lost,
+when the idea of one vigorous effort to get over while it is yet
+daylight is tempting. It is a fatal temptation.</p>
+
+<p>When you have made up your mind that you are lost, or
+even when the map has told you so, pay no attention to anything
+else about you or within you, such as the guess that such-and-such
+a rock in front of one may hide such-and-such
+a village, or the hope that your strength will hold out
+for 12 or 15 hours without food, but at once behave like a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span>
+person in grave danger, that is, calculate your chances of
+retreat, and think of that only, for I repeat, it is more easy
+to die from exhaustion than in any other way in these hills,
+and nearly all the people that perish in mountains perish from
+that cause.</p>
+
+<p>When you have made up your mind that it is your business
+to find men again, and that you do not know how far men may
+be, first note your bread and wine and the rest, if any provision
+is left; next determine to reserve it until nightfall: eat it
+then, do not blunder on through the darkness (it is astonishing
+what very little distance one makes after sunset, and every
+half-hour of twilight makes it more difficult to camp)—sleep,
+and take the first half of the next day without food; you are
+reserving your very last rations until the noon of that day.
+For one can do a considerable distance without food if the
+effort is made in the early morning.</p>
+
+<p>Never bathe under such conditions of fatigue, and towards
+the end, when you are exhausted, drink as sparingly as
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps useless to give any hints about what a man
+should do when he is lost, because men get lost in mountains
+by hoping against hope and pushing on when common sense
+tells them to return. But I write down these hints for what
+they are worth. After my first bad lesson in the matter, I
+found them fairly useful. Remember, by the way, if you are
+lost and if there is no path apparent, that
+a cabane even in ruins somewhere in the
+landscape means a track visible or invisible,
+and that any rude crossing of
+the stream with stepping-stones or a
+log means the same thing. But you must
+not imagine that the presence or traces
+of animals will prove a guide, for even
+mules wander wild for miles on these
+mountains in places where a man can
+only go with difficulty and along random
+tracks leading nowhere.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp46" id="illus20" style="max-width: 15.625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus20.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI<br>
+<span class="smaller">THE SEPARATE DISTRICTS OF THE PYRENEES</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>For the purposes of travel upon foot, the range of the
+Pyrenees falls into certain divisions, which are not
+very clearly marked, but which arrange themselves
+in a rough manner under the experience of travel. As
+I come to deal with each of these, it will be seen that
+there is not one which does not overlap its neighbour,
+and it will be impossible to describe any mountain
+district without admitting this overlapping to some extent,
+because any valley connected by certain local ties with the
+valleys to the east and west is also, as a rule, connected with
+the valleys to the north or south of it. Still, the districts I
+speak of are fairly distinct, and consist in (1) the Basque
+valleys, (2) the Vals d’Aspe and d’Ossau, with the valleys of
+the Aragon and Gallego to their south, which I will call “the
+Four Valleys,” (3) the Sobrarbe, (4) the three valleys attaching
+to Tarbes, to which I also attach the Luchon valley,
+(5) the Catalan valleys and Andorra—in which I include the
+Val d’Aran, (6) the Cerdagne (omitting the Tet and Ariège
+valleys), (7) the Ariège and Tet valleys, (8) the Canigou.</p>
+
+<p>These I will take in their order, and I will begin with—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="VI_I">I. <span class="smcap">The Basque Valleys</span></h3>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp88" id="illus21" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus21.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The valleys immediately adjoining the
+point which we have taken for the
+western end of the chain, that is, the
+knot of hills just to the west of Roncesvalles,
+which have for their pivot
+Mount Urtioga, form one country-side
+and should be considered together.</p>
+
+<p>They are the Baztan to the west, the first of the many
+valleys into which the main range splits up like a fan as it
+approaches the Atlantic; the valley of Baigorry, parallel to
+it and immediately to the east; the valley called that of the
+St. Jean in its lower French part, and that of Val Carlos in its
+upper Spanish one; this valley stands eastward of Baigorry,
+and unites with it before leaving the hills to join the valley of
+the Nive. The two together, and the lower valley of the Nive,
+are called by the common name of “The Labourd”; on the
+south of the range comes the valley of the Arga and the plain
+south of Roncesvalles: these make one division of the Basque
+district. The same dialect of Basque is spoken throughout
+the Labourd (there are variations upon the Spanish side),
+the same type of house and of food and of hill is everywhere
+around. The other division of the Basque valleys is the
+French district of the <i>Soule</i>, just to the east with its corresponding
+valleys south of the frontier.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Labourd and its accompanying Spanish valleys,
+the space open for camping or wandering in this corner of the
+chain is less than in the higher central part. The low round
+hills are often cultivated to their summits, the valleys are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>
+always well populated, roads and villages are many,
+and though there are one or two fine stretches of forest in
+which a man can spend as many days as he chooses (notably
+the forest of Hayra, which lies up southward at the far end
+of the Baigorry), they are not to be compared in extent or in
+wildness with the forests further east. The whole width of
+the Hayra, counting both the French and the Spanish slopes,
+is, at its greatest extent, not more than three miles. Its
+length is not six. The small lakes also that are characteristic
+of the Pyrenees throughout their length, are lacking here, and
+the prosperity and industry of the Basques press upon the
+traveller wherever he goes.</p>
+
+<p>If one would stay some three or four days in this district,
+it is a good plan to leave the train at St. Etienne, just at the
+beginning of the Baigorry valley. St. Etienne is the terminus
+of the branch line which strikes off a few miles down the river
+from the line connecting St. Jean Pied-de-Port with Bayonne,
+and one gets to St. Etienne by the morning train from Bayonne
+about mid-day.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately to the west of St. Etienne, connecting it with
+the Baztan, lies the pass of Ispeguy. It is of course very low,
+as are all these hills; it is little more than 1000 feet above St.
+Etienne, or perhaps 1500, but from the summit there is a fine
+view of the higher distant Pyrenees to the east. The frontier
+runs here north and south, passes through the summit of the
+col, down the further side of which an easy valley road leads
+down on to the main highway of the Baztan.</p>
+
+<p>This highway is the modern representative of the track
+which for many centuries connected Bayonne with Pamplona.
+It was, until recent times, a mountain way; the main Roman
+road went through Roncesvalles. It is now, as was seen when
+we spoke of roads for driving and motoring, the best approach
+from the French Atlantic coast into Navarre. From the point
+where you strike this high road, where the valley debouches
+upon it, and where the lateral stream you have been following
+falls into the river Baztan, there is a walk down to the left, or
+southward, of some 4 miles, into the town of Elizondo, which
+means in Basque “The Church in the Valley.” For the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span>
+Basques, like the Welsh, have the terms of their religion
+mainly in the form of borrowed words, and the Greek Ecclesia,
+which is “Egglws” in the Welsh mountains, has nearly the
+same sound here, 800 miles to the south, and with all those
+days of sea between. Christendom is one country.</p>
+
+<p>There is no easy journey from Elizondo down to the south
+of the hills and back east again into the French valleys, unless
+you go on to Pamplona, although of course there is nothing
+high or steep to stop you, if you have plenty of provisions,
+except the absence of maps (which do not exist for this district
+upon any useful scale to my knowledge). If you want to make
+a mountain journey of it without touching the town of Pamplona,
+go down a mile or two from Elizondo to Iruita, where
+the main road branches into two; thence going south and a
+little east up the stream which comes down from the frontier
+summits, you may go over a col between that valley and the
+valley of the Esteribar, where the Arga rises. You will find
+yourself at the first little Basque village, that of Eugui, by
+evening; the total distance from Elizondo to Eugui, if you go
+the shortest way, is only 20 miles. But, I repeat, it is a difficult
+job. Maps are lacking, the valleys have many ramifications,
+and the first part of your journey is all uphill for half the day.
+If the weather is cloudy it is more than possible that you
+will get into the wrong valley, and find at last, when you have
+got over your col, and are following the running water on the
+further side, that that running water is not the Arga at all,
+but one of the streams that lead you back again into the
+Baigorry. However, if you make Eugui in the Estribar, the
+rest is simple: there are villages all round, connected by paths,
+and not more than a mile or two from one another, and you
+may go through Linzoian to Espimal and so to Burguete,
+where you get the main road over Roncesvalles, without fear
+of losing your way; for there are people everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>It is best, however, when you have slept in Elizondo, which
+is a very pleasant little town, to take the motor-bus and get
+on to Pamplona; for the Basques, who detest as much as
+the Scotch to be behind the world, have a motor-bus along
+this mountain road. From Pamplona next day you can go by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span>
+the new road to Burguete, passing through Larrasoaña and
+Erro. It is a long journey of nearly 30 miles; it can be
+broken, if you choose, at Erro, but the sleeping accommodation
+there is nothing very grand. If you push on beyond Burguete,
+over Roncesvalles, you can, in something under 40 miles, get
+to Val Carlos, the last town in Spain, and for those who can
+walk 40 miles this is the best thing to do. If not, break the
+journey in two at Erro, desolate as the little place is.</p>
+
+<p>The object of course of this walk is the Pass of Roncesvalles,
+and the vast contrast between the slightly sloping Spanish
+plain of Burguete, running up to the summit of the Pyrenees,
+and the great chasm which opens beneath your feet when you
+have reached that summit, and which forms the entry into
+France.</p>
+
+<p>You will not easily make a camp in any part of this round,
+and it is well to remember here, where first mention is made of
+crossing the Spanish frontier, that the Spaniards will not let
+a man leave their country unless he has due permission upon
+a paper form. Why this should be so I do not know, and I
+have very often gone in and out of Spain without telling the
+authorities, as I have for that matter gone in and out of
+Germany on foot, though the German officials are more stupid
+than the Spaniards, and therefore attach much more importance
+to such things. Still, it is safer to ask for your permit,
+and it will be given you by a functionary called a “Corregidor,”
+at Val Carlos. A few miles beyond, eight to be exact,
+you are in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, which is the head of the
+railway to-day, and which has been for nearly 1000 years the
+depot town at the foot of the pass for armies and for travellers.
+On this same flat where it stands, was the Roman fort and
+depot, but not quite on the same place; it stood on the spot
+now called St. Jean le Vieux, 2½ miles up the lateral valley.
+This last was the halting place of Charlemagne in the famous
+story, and St. Jean, as we see it, is a town not of the Dark but
+of the Middle Ages.</p>
+
+<p>The next district to this of the Labourd, lying immediately
+to the east of it, we have seen to be called the Soule. It is
+also Basque, though it is Basque spoken with a different<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>
+accent, and with certain verbal differences as well. The way
+from one to the other lies through wilder and more likely land
+for camping than is to be found in Baztan, Baigorry, or Roncesvalles.
+It is a good plan, if one has the leisure, to approach
+the Soule on foot by way of St. Jean, though the more ordinary
+way is to go round through the plains by train to Mauléon
+(which is the capital of the Soule).</p>
+
+<p>If one goes on foot directly across from the Labourd into the
+Soule, he strikes that valley in its higher reaches, and well
+above Mauléon.</p>
+
+<p>The shortest line, if one does not mind sleeping in a
+mountain village, is to take the high road from St. Jean Pied-de-Port
+to Lecumberry, and to follow that way up the valley
+of the Laurhibar until the high road comes to an end. It did
+so abruptly two miles or so beyond Laurhibar, some years ago,
+but as it is being continued, one may follow it every year
+further up the dale. The high road ends (or ended) about 10
+miles from St. Jean; and Lecumberry is the last <i>village</i>
+still, however far the road may have progressed up the valley.
+When the road ceases one must continue up the valley by a
+path on the left bank of the stream. One soon finds on this
+left bank a series of precipitous cliffs; one must there cross
+over to the path upon the right bank. It is also possible to
+keep to the right bank all the way—there is a track on either
+side—but I speak of the usual way. Henceforward the path
+remains quite clear and runs close alongside the stream, with
+steep cliffs upon the further shore, until, in the last mile or
+two, before the head of the valley, one enters a wood, and it
+is here that, if you are not very careful, you will lose your way.
+The contours are complicated, the valleys numerous, and the
+alternation of wood and open land most confusing. But if
+you will go <i>due east</i> by your compass from the point where you
+entered the wood (abandoning the path where it crosses the
+stream and goes over to the south), and if you will remember
+always to turn any precipice or ledge of rock by descending
+to the <i>left</i> of it, and always to <i>descend</i> after you have made the
+first high open space, you will come upon a clear track not
+quite three miles from the point where the path enters the wood.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span></p>
+
+<p>It sounds but a vague indication, but it is a sufficient one,
+because bad precipices prevent you from going too much to
+the right, and the natural tendency of man to go downhill
+when he can will prevent you from going up on to the ledge
+upon your left. You will find yourself shepherded—if you
+always go as due east as is possible, and always turn a ledge of
+rock to the <i>left</i>—into a track which runs all along the high
+lands above the slopes that dominate the Brook Aphours; a
+little way down, that track falls into a high road, and a few
+miles further the road reaches Tardets, the central town in
+the valley of the Soule, half-way between Mauléon and the
+highest summits. The whole journey from St. Jean thus
+described is a big distance, nearer 40 miles than 30, with windings
+all the way, and you must be prepared if you become
+fatigued or have bad luck with your weather, either to camp
+out in the woods at the summit of the pass, or to sleep in the
+first hamlet upon the eastern side.</p>
+
+<p>There is, indeed, a short cut which strikes the valley much
+higher, but it is difficult to make and involves the climbing of
+two cols. For this short cut the directions are as for the last,
+until your path along the Laurhibar has struck the wood;
+there, instead of leaving it when it turns south, and instead of
+going east (as above), you must keep to the track. It will
+cross the stream, still going due south, wind up between an
+open space through the woods, and will point before you lose
+it to the climb over the shoulder of the Pic d’Escoliers; it is
+a stiff climb of nearly 2000 feet from the point where you
+crossed the stream and very steep. The 2000 feet or so are
+climbed in under two miles. When you get to the shoulder
+of the peak a steep southern slope lies before you, diversified
+and made perilous by rocks, and separating plainly into an
+eastern and a western valley. Between you and the eastern
+valley (which is that you must descend) are steep rocks;
+they can be turned, however, by going to the <i>right</i> of them,
+but the whole place is precipitous and difficult. The advantage
+appears when once you are down on the floor of the valley
+(which is but 1000 feet from the peak), for you come within a
+mile to a clear path, and once you have come to this, you are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>
+in another two miles, at the village of Larrau, which is the
+terminus of the great national road, and stands in the last
+upper waters of the valley.</p>
+
+<p>If you approach the Soule by the more ordinary way you
+will come by train through Puyoo, change there, and take the
+train for Mauléon; and Mauléon, as I have said, is the capital
+of the Soule. But the true mountain town is Tardets, half-way
+up the valley. Tardets is the market town for all the
+Basques of the hills, and you can never have enough of it,
+both of its heavenly hotel, of which I shall speak when I come
+to speak of hotels, and for its universal shops, and for its kindly
+people. It stands in an opening of the lower hills, just before
+the valley narrows and enters the high mountains, and you
+may reach it from Mauléon by a tramway which runs up the
+river as far as Tardets and then turns off to the left and goes
+round to Oloron.</p>
+
+<p>If you approach the Soule in this manner, making Tardets
+your starting-point, you will do well to equip yourself in that
+town and then to continue up the valley some five miles past
+Licq, until you come to the fork of the river. It is an unmistakable
+point, because a very definite rocky ridge comes down
+and separates the two sources of the river Saison, which is
+the river of the Soule. The branch to the right (as you go
+southward) leads up the valley to Larrau, of which I have just
+spoken, and the high road follows it; the one to the left (which
+is the main stream and is called the Chaitza) has no main
+road along it, but a good mule track, very clear and plain, and
+leading at last to the village of Ste Engrace, which lies at the
+extreme end of the valley and gives the whole district its
+name.</p>
+
+<p>Ste Engrace was a saint of the persecution of Diocletian.
+She was martyred in Saragossa, and the name of the village
+is one of the many examples of the way in which the southern
+influence overlaps these hills. I have said that the Spanish
+sandal is used to the very foot of the French Pyrenees, and so
+is the wine-skin which is common to all Spain, and so is the
+Spanish mule. Here you may see the Spanish saints as well
+reaching beyond the summits.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span></p>
+
+<p>From where you leave the main road and go up the Chaitza
+valley to Ste Engrace is a distance of 8 or 9 miles, and in this
+valley, in its upper waters, is to be found one of the wonders
+of the Pyrenees, and also one of the main passages into Spain.</p>
+
+<p>The wonder is the gorge of the Cacouette; the passage is
+the twin passage of the Port d’Ourdayte and the Port Ste
+Engrace, and near them to the west are two easier ports.</p>
+
+<p>The Cacouette is a cut through the limestone such as you
+might make with a knife into clay or cheese, with immense
+steep precipices on either side, and apart from the track above
+the cliffs there is some sort of tourist’s way along the cavernous
+ravine for those who admire such things. Of the two ports,
+the one path goes up the western side of that cleft in the limestone
+(which drops 1500 feet into the earth), and the other goes
+up the eastern side. To take the road up the western side,
+you leave the Ste Engrace road 3 miles after leaving the great
+highway, by a lane which goes off to the right and drops down
+into the valley; it is quite plain, and is the only road so leaving
+the main track, so that it cannot be mistaken. It climbs
+the opposing hill, and if you follow it through all its windings
+it will take you to the Port Belhay, or to the Port Bambilette,
+both under a mountain called Otxogorrigagne, and both easy.
+But if you continue just above the limestone precipice, you
+will come into a very striking circus of rock just under the
+watershed, up which your path perilously climbs to the summit
+and the frontier; this is the Port d’Ourdayte.</p>
+
+<p>The Port Ste Engrace, though not half a mile distant from
+it, is reached in quite a different manner, and the separation
+between the two is due to this limestone gorge, which cuts
+off one path from the other.</p>
+
+<p>If you are going to try to cross by Ste Engrace, sleep at
+the village before starting. There is a good comfortable inn
+kept by people of the same name as those who keep the inn
+at Elizondo, Jarégui. It is so steep and difficult a bit that if
+you were to attempt to do it in one day, without sleeping at
+Ste Engrace, you would hardly succeed unless you already
+knew the mountain well, and mist, which is the fatal difficulty
+of these western Pyrenees, will more commonly catch you in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>
+the early afternoon than at any other time in the day, so that
+you had better make your ascent before noon. When you
+have slept at Ste Engrace you will find the path the next morning
+winding round through the woods, at the base of the hill
+opposite the village. One must ask the way to the start of
+this path, and it is not always clear after the first two miles;
+one has now and then to cast about for it a little, but at last
+it emerges upon a high grassy slope, which runs all the way to
+the crest of the hill and the frontier. The path does not follow
+the straight ascent of the hill, it curves nearer and nearer to a
+precipice which is the same as that climbed by the neighbouring
+paths of the Port d’Ourdayte; for ten dangerous yards it
+runs on a tiny platform right along the gulf and makes over the
+crest into the further Spanish Basque valley, whose capital
+is Isaba.</p>
+
+<p>Of this valley I can say nothing, for I have not succeeded
+in crossing the Ste Engrace, though I have twice tried, but I
+am told that Isaba is among the best of these little mountain
+Basque villages or towns for entertainment and for cleanliness,
+and all Basque villages and towns are cleanly. There is a
+good posada. From Isaba also a high road runs into the
+higher valleys of Navarre and to Pamplona.</p>
+
+<p>Near this territory of the Soule, and partly included in it,
+are two great districts where a man may spend many days at
+his ease in camp there. The first is the great forest of the
+Tigra, which stretches to the west of Tardets and is full of
+rocks, rivers, and adventure. You may take it at its greatest
+width, counting one or two open spaces, to be 8 or 9 miles,
+and at its greatest length, from the Peak of the Vultures to St.
+Just, to be much the same. Its high places, some of which
+are bare peaks, some clothed with woods, range for the most
+part round about 3000 feet, but the highest point—of which
+I have never heard the name, and which is on the very south
+of the forest, just passes 4000 feet. Tardets is always at hand
+on the one hand, St. Jean Pied-de-Port rather further on the
+other; from both one may re-provision oneself.</p>
+
+<p>Another and still larger district lies on the further side of
+the valley to the north and east of Ste Engrace itself. It is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span>
+the great mass of wood, mainly beech, which stretches all over
+the hills between this last Basque valley and the Val d’Aspe,
+next to the east, which is the frontier valley of Béarn. These
+woods have no common name, they are intersected by clear
+spaces, notably round the higher peaks of the forest, but they
+make a district of their own stretching eastward and westward
+from Lourdios to Licq, northward and southward from the
+frontier nearly to Lanne, and thus measuring not much
+less than 10 miles every way, in French territory alone.</p>
+
+<p>There is no forest in which it is easier to lose one’s way than
+this great stretch of upland. This is especially true in the
+Souscousse district, due east of Ste Engrace; there is here a
+labyrinth of complicated valleys, and what seems on the map
+so easy a passage from the Soule into the Val d’Aspe is in
+practice nearly impossible to find. To camp in and to explore,
+this forest is even better than the Tigra; for its summits are
+higher, and its views more unexpected and remarkable. There
+are points in it which are more than 6000 feet in height,
+and the great Pic d’Anie, the first of the really high mountains
+of the chain, stands high above them, just beyond the southern
+limit of the trees.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="map02" style="max-width: 75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map02.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE BASQUE VALLEYS</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="VI_II">II. <span class="smcap">The Four Valleys (Béarn and Aragon)</span></h3>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp75" id="illus22" style="max-width: 21.875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus22.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Four valleys in the Pyrenees count together in travel upon
+foot. They are the Val d’Aspe and the Val d’Oussau on the
+French side, and the valleys of the rivers Aragon and Gallego
+on the Spanish side.</p>
+
+<p>These four form a unity for the reason that in one place
+(which is just to the south of the watershed) they are, without
+too much difficulty, approachable one from another.</p>
+
+<p>Many historical accidents have also served to unite these
+four valleys. One pair of them made the platform for that
+great Roman road to which allusion has so often been made in
+this book, and which ran from the French plains over what is
+now called the pass of the Somport, right down through Jaca
+to Saragossa. The parallel pair of valleys just to the east,
+the Val d’Ossau and the valley of the Gallego, on the Spanish
+side, though no highway ran along them until quite recently,
+had a similar historical unity which bound them both together,
+and bound a pair of them to the two sister valleys upon the
+west. For the eastern part of what later became the kingdom
+of Aragon, the county of Sobrarbe, stretched from the valley
+of the Gallego eastward, and was a natural line of defence
+southward against the Mahommedans; while the Val d’Ossau<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span>
+to the north of it was reached by an easy pass and must have
+formed—though we have no exact historical record of it—a
+good road for the parallel advance of armies.</p>
+
+<p>It must never be forgotten that when an army is advancing
+in great numbers it is of paramount importance for it that
+the host should be able to concentrate before action. But
+roads, especially roads over mountains, compel men to march
+in long strings, so that the head of the column will have arrived
+at a particular point hours before the tail of it; and what is
+more, the deployment of the column, that is the getting of
+it all into a front perpendicular to its line of advance, takes
+time in proportion to the length which the column had before
+it began to deploy. This accident it was, for instance, which
+destroyed the French and their allies at Crécy, for though they
+greatly outnumbered the English they had come up in columns
+too long to deploy in time. Now it evidently follows from this
+principle that armies on the march, even under the rudest
+conditions, will attempt to follow parallel roads. To find two
+roads parallel to one another and leading to the same field of
+action is to halve the difficulties of transport and of deployment.
+But it is very difficult (under primitive conditions) to
+find two parallel roads which are near to one another, and
+unless the lines by which the army advances are near to one
+another the advantage of the alternative routes will disappear
+in proportion to their distance one from the other. In
+mountain regions it is especially difficult to find two passages
+parallel to each other and yet in close neighbourhood. This
+is precisely the advantage afforded by the trench of the
+Gallego continued in the Val d’Ossau to the east, and in the
+trench of the Aragon continued in the Val d’Aspe to the west.
+Two hosts using the old mule paths could leave Sallent on the
+Gallego and Canfranc on the Aragon at dawn of one day, and
+both would meet at Oloron in the French plains before the
+evening of the morrow; on the southward march a host could
+assemble in the plains of Béarn, separate to use these two
+easy passes, and meet at Jaca at the end of the second
+day.</p>
+
+<p>It is fairly certain therefore—much more certain than a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>
+thousand of the historical guesses that are put down as truths
+in our textbooks—that the easy pass between the Gallego
+Valley and the Val d’Ossau was twin throughout the Dark
+Ages to the great Somport pass not 8 miles westward of it.
+Abd-ur-Rahman must have used both and so must the
+Christian knights when they came so often to the relief of
+Aragon in the heavy and successful fighting against Islam
+which marked the tenth and eleventh centuries.</p>
+
+<p>To appreciate how close these two parallel tracks were to
+each other one has but to remember that the gap between the
+Val d’Aspe and the next easy pass westward—right away at
+Roncesvalles—there is a matter of 40 miles. Between the
+Val d’Ossau and the next easy pass eastward there is a gap of
+indeterminate length according to the definition of the term
+“easy,” but there is at any rate no notch over which one could
+take any armed force until one gets to the Bonaigo, quite 60
+miles away. All between is the mass of the highest and most
+rugged ridges of the Pyrenees, over which certain paths have
+always existed, indeed, and over which, in two places at least,
+at Gavarnie and at Macadou, the French propose to drive
+roads, but no gap in which was ever passable in the Dark and
+Middle Ages for a great number of men.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that these two parallel trenches were not only
+twin in history for the use of armies, but were also communicable
+one from the other just south of the watershed. North
+of it, indeed, the Val d’Aspe and the Val d’Ossau, though one
+can be reached from the other, only communicate by very high
+and rocky ridges, the easiest of which is the Col des Moines.
+But on the south side there is one accidental easy passage.
+You may go all the way from the Somport to Jaca and find
+nothing but the most difficult mountains on your left, and all
+the way from the Pourtalet (which is the pass at the top of
+the Val d’Ossau corresponding to the Somport) down to Sandinies
+and find nothing but difficult mountains on the right,
+save just at the beginning of the descent where this accident
+of which I speak occurs. Its feature is a lateral valley called
+the Canal Roya which takes its name from the streak of intense
+red scoring the side of its principal peak.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span></p>
+
+<p>This lateral valley points right away eastward from the
+trench of the Aragon, it is nowhere precipitous along its
+stream (a rare advantage in the Pyrenees) save in one spot
+where a quite low precipice is easily outflanked along the
+grassy slopes above it. And the end of that valley consists in
+a sort of semi-circular ridge of grassy steep banks in three
+places of which ridge, at least, a man or a beast can walk over
+without difficulty or danger. These three places are the Port
+de Peyréguet, the Port d’Anéou, and the col of the Canal Roya.
+This last is the principal one, the easiest and the lowest. Each
+is within half a mile of its neighbour, and on the further
+side one comes down quite easily by large steep slopes of
+meadow to the valley of the Gallego. The Port de Peyréguet
+and the Port d’Anéou bring one down just on the north of the
+flat dip of the pass, the col of the Canal Roya just on the
+south of it; but whether one comes down just north or south
+of the flat Pourtalet pass is an indifferent matter. The travelling
+in all three cases is little more than a walk.</p>
+
+<p>These “gates” up the Canal Roya from the Val d’Aragon
+into the parallel valley of the Gallego knit the whole four
+valleys into one system, and to this day their customs and
+their inhabitants have very much in common, and the two
+valleys, which were the core and heart of Aragon and the
+origins of its crusade southward against the Mahommedans,
+count in history and in local geography with the two valleys
+which were the heart and origin of Béarn up to the north.</p>
+
+<p>The Val d’Aspe, which is the most important of the four,
+is that valley in the Pyrenees where the characteristics of
+the range are most strongly marked. It might serve as the
+type of all the others. You cannot see the opening of it
+southward from Oloron without appreciating that you are
+approaching something distinctive and singular in landscape.
+It is so clean-cut and so obviously an invitation to the crossing
+of the hills. The gorges which divide into separate flat steps
+every Pyrenean valley, are nowhere more marked than here.
+The village of Asasp which stands at the first of them is
+singularly characteristic of such an entry; the gap through<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span>
+which the old lake broke is so clear, the walls through which
+the Gave runs are so perfect.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat further on when yet another gorge has been
+passed there opens out one of those circular and isolated
+spaces of which Andorra is the historical example, and
+which in greater or less perfection are characteristic of all
+these hills.</p>
+
+<p>This plain, which still recalls in its contours the old lake
+which created it, and of which it is the floor, is more regular
+and more complete than any of the many <i>jasses</i> and “<i>plans</i>”
+which distinguish the other vales. It is even more striking
+than that of Andorra. It nourishes five villages which
+might easily (had not the great international road run through
+them for 2000 years) have federated to form an independent
+commonwealth as the eight villages of Andorra federated
+to form one. Indeed this circus, surrounded by almost
+impassable hills which meet at either end in narrow Thermopylæ,
+was very nearly independent at the close of the Middle
+Ages, and when it appealed against the king for the preservation
+of its customs, these were preserved by the authority
+of the king’s court.</p>
+
+<p>Of the small towns or large villages which this little secluded
+corner of the world contains, Bédous is that which will
+seem the capital to the wayfarer, for it is the only one which
+stands upon the main road; it is the terminus of a railway
+which will soon be finished, and of which nearly all the
+track is already made. Bédous, by this time, must also have
+more population, as it certainly has more wealth than any
+of the surrounding places. But Accous is the true capital
+of the five, and it is pleasurable to hear with what reverence
+the villagers of the farms around speak of Accous as though
+it were an Andorra-viella or a Toulouse. All this wonderful
+and silent plain is marked with long lines of poplars which
+enhance by their straight lines the immensity of the heights
+around them.</p>
+
+<p>If one will pass some days in this singular valley it forms
+an excellent place from which to explore the high passes
+into the Val d’Ossau, and the bases of the two great mountains<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>
+which, to the east and to the west, neither visible from the
+floor of the valley, are, as it were, its guardians: the Pic
+d’Anie and the Pic du Midi d’Ossau. The man who does
+not desire to cover much ground but who wants thoroughly
+to know some very Pyrenean part of the Pyrenees will do
+well to stop at the Hotel de la Poste at Bédous, and thence
+climb at his leisure up on to the platforms from which spring
+these isolated and dominant masses of rock.</p>
+
+<p>The Pic du Midi remains in one’s mind more perhaps than
+any of the isolated mountains of Europe. It is quite savage
+and alone, and you must fatigue yourself to reach it. There
+is no common knowledge of it and yet it is as much itself as
+is the Matterhorn. The Pic d’Anie, though it is less isolated,
+stands even more alone and has this quality that it dominates
+the whole of the seaward side of the Pyrenees for it is much
+higher than anything westward of it. Also it is the boundary
+beyond which the Basques and their language have not gone.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this plain of Bédous, when you have passed the
+southern “gate” of it, you come into a long, deep and
+winding gorge which leads you at last to Urdos, and Urdos
+is and has been since history began the outpost of the French
+in these hills. It was the Roman outpost and the mediæval
+one, and it was the outpost through the Revolutionary wars.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, who in everything recognized and imitated the
+example of Rome, and who, for that matter, caused the
+Empire to rise again from the dead, determined that a modern
+road should go again where the old Roman road had gone.
+He determined this in connexion with his Spanish wars, and
+decreed in 1808 that a way for artillery should cross where
+the legions had gone. But Europe, as we all know, would
+not upon any matter accept in the rush of a few years the
+constructive desire of Napoleon and of the Revolution. It
+has taken more than three generations to do not half the vast
+work they planned, and this road, which like almost every
+good road over the Alps and the Pyrenees has Napoleon and
+the Revolution for its origin, waited till past the middle of
+the nineteenth century before it reached so much as the
+summit of the port.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span></p>
+
+<p>Under Napoleon III, in the sixties if I remember right,
+the thing was done and the road reached the summit of the
+Somport, the lowest and the most practicable of the high
+passes of the central mountains. But the Spaniards still
+hung back, and it was not till the other year that the road
+upon the Spanish side was completed. Now, however, one
+may not only go all the way upon a high carriage road from
+Oloron to Saragossa straight south across the hills, but one may
+find the whole way marked with mile-stones as the Romans
+would have marked it, and saved at every difficulty by
+engineering of which the Romans themselves would have
+been proud. Once over the summit there is no resting place
+till one reaches Canfranc, 6 or 7 miles by the windings of the
+road below one. After Canfranc the valley of the Aragon,
+which one has been following, opens, and the plain of Jaca
+lies before one bounded by its great ridge to the southward,
+the Peña de Oroel.</p>
+
+<p>If one would not go all that length of high-road (from
+Oloron to Jaca is over 50 miles) there are upon the Spanish
+side two lateral diversions which a man may take. The
+first is over the Col des Moines, the other into and over the
+Canal Roya.</p>
+
+<p>The first can be seen right before one at the summit of
+the pass; for when one stands upon that summit one has,
+running eastward from the road, a great open valley at the
+head of which is clearly distinguishable a bare rocky ridge
+with a low saddle which is the Col des Moines. It is perfectly
+easy upon either side, and upon the further side it shows
+one the splendid and unexpected vision of the Pic du Midi
+standing up alone beyond the little tarns at its feet: a
+double pyramid of steep rock upon which the snow can
+hardly lie in tiny patches and whose main precipices are
+dark, to the north, away from the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The next lateral valley southward of the Col des Moines
+is that of the Canal Roya, but one can only enter it after
+going down the main road for quite a thousand feet. There
+a bridge will be seen spanning the Aragon and a little doubtful
+path leading beyond eastward up the lateral valley. It is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span>
+two hours up that valley to its head by a path going first
+on the right bank of the stream then crossing over to the
+left one. One thus reaches by a continuous ascent the cirque
+or amphitheatre which bounds it at the eastern extremity
+of the valley. Here there is a difficulty in finding the easiest
+and lowest col. The map is doubtful and the details upon
+the map are not sufficiently numerous. The Canal Roya is
+well worth camping in and returning by to the main Spanish
+road if one is inclined (and if one is, one would do well to
+camp near the wood upon the left bank of the stream not
+quite half-way up the vale for there is no timber further on).
+But if one does not camp and prefers to get over the col
+into the valley of the Gallego the rule is to note a sharp
+peak which stands exactly at the apex of the valley—it is
+the lowest of the peaks around but very distinct, forming an
+isolated steeple due east of the last springs of the stream.
+The way lies to the left or north of this peak and just under
+its shoulder up a loose mass of fallen rocks on which an eye
+practised in these things can discover from time to time a
+trace not of a true path but at least of infrequent travel.
+Upon the far side easy slopes of grass take one down in about
+an hour to the Sallent road.</p>
+
+<p>Note that these two cols and the stretch from road to
+road and from inn to inn can only with some peril be undertaken
+in one day from Urdos. In fine weather and without
+accident the thing is simple enough, but when you are baulked
+for an hour or two by the trail, or if you start a little late,
+or if you are detained by mist you may very easily not manage
+the passage from one of the great roads to the other, near as
+they look upon the map.</p>
+
+<p>With everything going well, carrying little weight and
+fresh, it is quite three hours (and more like three and a half)
+from Urdos to the bridge over the Aragon. It will be another
+two up the Canal Roya and two more over its col and down
+the other side to the high road, and even from that point
+on the high road, if you follow the road only, there are two
+more hours before you reach Sallent. It is a very heavy
+day of quite 30 miles with two cols, one of 5000 feet, the other<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>
+of 6500 feet, to be taken on the way, and it is foolish to
+undertake either the Col des Moines or the Canal Roya from
+Urdos without allowing for the chance of one night at least
+upon the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>The second pair of valleys, that of the Gallego on the
+Spanish side, and the Gave d’Ossau on the French side, are
+linked together by two very easy passes, and one difficult
+one of which I shall speak in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>The old port, now called “Port Vieux de Sallent,” or the
+“Puerta Vieja,” is easy enough, though it went over a
+higher part of the mountain than the new pass just next
+door to it. I say it is <i>higher</i> than the pass now used, and
+this contrast is not infrequently found in the Pyrenees, some
+feature or other in the topography of the ridge making it
+more convenient for a native to cross by a slightly higher
+saddle than by some lower one close by. For instance, the
+Somport itself is somewhat higher than a quite unknown
+gap four miles to the west of it, but this lower gap was never
+used because it led into a Spanish valley of a difficult and
+most isolated kind.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of the two passes from the Val d’Ossau into
+Spain, the obstacle which prevented the lower pass being
+used until quite lately, was a great mass of rock overhanging
+the sources of the Gave d’Ossau, in the highest part of the
+valley. When the new highway was made, this rock was
+blasted and cut so as to take the road round it, and thus the
+low pass beyond, called Pourtalet, was utilized. It is below
+6000 feet and exactly 1000 feet lower than the old Port de
+Sallent. But even nowadays, if you are on foot you will
+do well to cross by the old port, high as it is, for it saves time.</p>
+
+<p>While I am on the subject I must warn the reader that
+the 1/100,000 map does not accurately convey the shape of the
+last two miles of the road upon the French side, and the line
+of road mere guesswork upon the Spanish, though the shape
+of the mountains is accurately given.</p>
+
+<p>This pair of valleys is remarkable for another feature upon
+the French and upon the Spanish slopes: their wildness.
+Let me speak first of the French. The French valley, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span>
+Val d’Ossau, is one of the wildest and most deserted in the
+Pyrenees, and also it is the one most densely clothed with
+forests. The reason of this is that there is less flat ground
+at the foot of it than in any other. Nowhere does it expand
+into even a narrow circus, and about Laruns, where it debouches
+upon the lowlands, and the summit of the pass into
+Spain, a distance of perhaps 17 miles, there is but one large
+village, close to the bottom of the valley, and that owes its
+existence to Thermal Springs; it is called Eaux Chaudes—a
+dismal place, squeezed in between the torrent and the
+cliff, dirty, uncomfortable, and sad. Higher up, however,
+a tiny hamlet, the humblest and most remote in the world,
+one would think, has of recent years taken on some little
+importance through travel; this is the hamlet of Gabas,
+which may be said to consist in three inns, a ruinous chapel,
+most pathetic, and a customs station. Of the excellent inn
+at Gabas, I will speak elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>This valley of the Ossau is the base for two districts, both
+of which are very Pyrenean, and on either of which a man
+may spend a day or a month of lonely pleasure. One is the
+steep and very fine valley of the Sousquéou, the other is the
+short and extremely steep torrent bed which leads up to the
+foot of the Pic du Midi.</p>
+
+<p>This mountain dominates all this section of the Pyrenees.
+The approach to it by the Col des Moines I have already
+mentioned; this ascent by the short valley from Gabas,
+through the woods, is better, because you come right up on
+to the mountain suddenly from the depth of a vast forest,
+and you feel its isolation.</p>
+
+<p>I know of no hill which seems more to deserve a name
+or to possess a personality. Round its base there is matter
+for camping for days or for weeks, good water, lakes to fish
+in, shelter, both of rocks and of trees, human succour not
+too far off (Gabas is not three miles as the crow flies from
+the summit of the mountain), and a complete independence.</p>
+
+<p>The Sousquéou is a less human excursion, though it has a
+very fine lake at the head of it. The communication with men
+is steeper and more difficult than from the district surrounding<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span>
+the Pic du Midi, and, as I know from experience, it is not
+difficult to lose one’s way. Moreover, the exits from the
+upper end of this valley are not easy, and it is bounded
+on either side by the most savage cliffs in the whole chain.
+Should it be necessary to escape from this ravine by any
+path but that which leads down on to the high road near
+Gabas, you have no choice but the high and steep Col d’Arrius,
+which brings you down into the upper valley of the Gave
+d’Ossau, or on to the very high and most unpleasant Col de
+Sobe, which gets you into one of the most difficult parts of
+the Spanish side near the Peña Forata and so down to the
+Gallego. Its very remoteness, however, and its partial
+changes, may attract one kind of walker to the Sousquéou,
+but if he attempts it, let him go with at least three days’
+provisions. There are huts in the lower part of the valley,
+but there is no very good camping ground near the lake I
+believe, save on the side of the wood to the north. It is
+a lonely place, not without horrors, and is perhaps haunted;
+the shape of the hills around is very terrible.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish side of all this is more simply described, the
+new high road runs down 8 or 9 miles to Sallent, which
+can be turned into 5 or 6 miles by taking the old mule track
+that cuts off the windings of the graded road. The river
+Gallego runs below and increases as it goes. To the right
+or westward of the valley there is nothing in particular to
+be done, there is but one place where you can conveniently
+cross over into the valley of the Aragon, which is the Canal
+Roya I have already described; south of that crossing the
+flank of the mountain lies bare and open affording neither
+camping ground nor interest. On the left are the curious
+serrated precipices of the Peña Forata, where climbing makes
+but a day’s amusement, but where also there is no opportunity
+for camping, and once Sallent is reached, though the “valley
+of Limpid Water” which runs north of it is fine enough,
+there is little to be done but to go on to Panticosa. There
+is a path over the very high ridge of the Pic d’Enfer, and
+there is a main carriage road which goes round the flanks
+of that mountain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span></p>
+
+<p>All this part the valley of the Gallego is bounded by
+some of the highest and most abrupt peaks in the chain,
+and (as I shall presently describe) another district, meriting
+another type of description and travel, lies to the eastward,
+and constitutes those new fortresses of the hills, the roots of
+old Sobrarbe, where Christendom first began to hold out
+against Islam, and whence the men of Aragon could securely
+push southward when the advance to the Reconquest began.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp47" id="map03" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map03.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE FOUR VALLEYS</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="VI_III">III. <span class="smcap">Sobrarbe</span></h3>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp32" id="illus23" style="max-width: 9.375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus23.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>When one says Sobrarbe one means all
+that eastern and larger part of the
+original valleys of Aragon which lie between
+(and do not include) the valley of the
+Gallego and the valley of the Noguera Ribagorzana,
+that is, the valley of Broto (which
+is that of the river Ara), the valley of the
+river Cinca and the valley of the river Esera;
+for, with central ramifications, these three make up
+Sobrarbe.</p>
+
+<p>That part of it of which I shall here speak, the
+part right up against the frontier ridge, is included
+between the big lump of mountains which surrounds
+Panticosa (of which the Vignemale is the most
+conspicuous) and the other big lump of peaks which is called
+the Maladetta group.</p>
+
+<p>It has three towns corresponding to its three valleys,
+Torla in the Broto upon the Ara, Bielsa upon the Cinca,
+Venasque upon the Esera.</p>
+
+<p>The Cinca, however, receives, right up at its sources, an
+affluent longer and more important than itself, called the
+Cinqueta, and on this stream is a group of villages, none of
+them important enough to be called a town, but standing
+so close together as to make a considerable centre of habitation.</p>
+
+<p>But for these towns, the group of villages I have mentioned
+and one or two tiny hamlets, these Spanish valleys are wholly
+deserted, and they form by far the most rugged and difficult
+district of all the Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p>They also hold the highest peaks of the mountains; the
+culminating Nethou Peak of the Maladetta group, just upon
+the eastern edge of the district (11,168 feet); the Posets
+(11,047), the Mont Perdu (10,994), the Pic d’Enfer (10,109),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span>
+the Vignemale (10,820) all stand here. Most of the high
+peaks are in Spain, but it is another feature of the district
+that the frontier ridge is higher here than in any other part,
+and is also more continuous. The summit of the Vignemale
+forms part of it, and the notches by which it may be traversed
+in these 40 to 50 miles lie but very little below the surrounding
+peaks. Only 3 of the passes miss the 8000 foot line. The
+Port du Venasque, at the extreme eastern end opposite the
+Maladetta, is 7930 feet in height; the Port de Gavarnie at
+the extreme western end is 7481. These two form the chief
+thoroughfares over this high and difficult bit; that of
+Gavarnie, upon the French side, is being prepared for wheeled
+traffic. The third, the Port de Pinède, also misses the
+8000 foot line, but only misses it by 25 feet. All the other
+passes are but slight depressions in this barrier of cliff. The
+Tillon or rather the passage to the side of it, is little under
+10,000 feet, the Pla Laube is over 8000, so is the Marcadou,
+so is the better known and more used pass of Bielsa, while
+the Port d’Oo is 9846, and the Portillon d’O is 9987.</p>
+
+<p>The impression conveyed by this long line, the only line
+in the Pyrenees where even small glaciers may be found, is
+of an impassable sheer height, just notched enough at one
+point on the west to admit a painful scramble into the valley
+of the Gave d’Pau and on the east to admit one into the
+Valley of the Lys (into the basin of the Adour, that is) at
+one end, and into the basin of Garonne at the other.</p>
+
+<p>A journey through Sobrarbe can be undertaken either
+from Sallent and Panticosa or from Gavarnie, and in either
+case your exploration of high Sobrarbe begins at the hamlet
+of Bujaruelo, which the French call Boucharo.</p>
+
+<p>How to reach Bujaruelo from Gavarnie I shall describe
+later: for the moment I propose a start on the Spanish
+side.</p>
+
+<p>If you start from the Spanish side at Panticosa, a plain
+path takes you up the valley of the Caldares until you are
+right under the frontier ridge. There the path bifurcates;
+you take the right-hand branch along the chain of lakes
+that lies just under the wall of the main ridge, and you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>
+climb slowly up to the path at the head of it. The whole
+climb from Panticosa to this pass is 3040 feet, and it will
+take you from early morning until noon. Or, if you will
+start before a summer dawn, at any rate until the heat of
+the morning. For though it looks so short a distance on the
+map, and though there is no difficult passage, it is very hard
+going. The reason I mention this matter of hours is that
+when you have got down the other side into the valley of
+the Ara, you are still 8 miles by the mule path from Bujaruelo,
+and though it is all downhill, you will hardly do these 8 miles
+under two hours and a half; however early you start, therefore,
+the back of the day is likely to be broken by the time
+you come to Bujaruelo. Once there a new difficulty arises;
+for Bujaruelo is not a pleasant place to sleep in. I have
+not myself slept there, but the verdict is universal. Though
+you are coming from a Spanish town the Customs may
+bother you at this hamlet because they cannot tell but that
+you have come over some one of the high passages from
+France, such as the Pla Laube up the valley. At any rate,
+unless you are going to camp out you must push on to <i>Torla</i>,
+5 miles on down the valley, and you will pass through a
+great gorge on your way. Now at Torla the hospitality,
+though large and vague, is good enough.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, you are taking the Upper Sobrarbe with the
+idea of camping, you must not go on to Torla, but you must
+do as follows. Just at the far end of the gorge of which
+I have spoken the path crosses the river Ara by a bridge
+called the Bridge of the Men of Navarre. There you will
+see a path leaving yours to the left, and zigzagging up the
+mountain side eastward. This is the one you must take.
+It climbs 600 feet, gets you round the cascade which here
+pours into the Ara from a lateral valley, and finally puts
+you on to the level floor of that lateral valley: it is called
+the valley of Arazas. Here there is excellent camping ground
+everywhere, and it will be high time to look for a camp by
+the time you are well upon the floor of that gorge; you
+may have to go up some little way to find wood, but much
+of this valley in its higher part is clothed with forests. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>
+next day you must, as best you can, force your way to Bielsa,
+and unless the weather is fine you may very possibly have to
+sleep another night upon the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>The trouble of this difficult bit is the great height of the
+lateral ridges. At the end of this fine valley of Arazas, which
+curves slowly up northward as you go, is the huge mass of
+the Mont Perdu, and you cannot get out of the valley without
+going over the shoulder of it. In order to do this proceed
+as follows, and go along the stream until the path crosses
+over from the northern to the southern bank, at a place
+where the cliffs on either side come very close to the water.
+The path goes along under and partially upon the face of
+these cliffs in a perilous sort of way, until it comes to a lateral
+streamlet pouring right down the side of the terminal mountain.
+This lateral streamlet you must be sure to recognize,
+for upon your recognizing it depends the success of your
+adventure; and you may know it thus: The place where
+your path strikes it, is exactly 1000 yards from the place
+where you crossed the main stream. When you come to
+this lateral streamlet you will see, or should see, a transverse
+path running very nearly due east and west; and up that
+in an eastward direction, immediately above you, a distance
+of 800 yards, upon the shoulder of the great mountain is
+the depression for which the path makes. It is called the
+<i>Col de Gaulis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For all of this by the way you will do well to consult
+Schrader the whole time. What the going is like on the
+further side of this col I cannot tell for I have never come
+down it, but I know that your way descends right by a
+very short and steep gully in which a torrent makes straight
+for the valley beneath, and I know that when you have
+made that valley your troubles are over.</p>
+
+<p>You fall through a descent of just under 2000 feet in a
+distance of less than a mile as the crow flies. You must
+therefore be prepared for a very steep bit of work. Once
+in the valley, however, everything is straightforward. On
+reaching the main stream of this new valley (which runs
+north and south) you turn to the right, southward, and follow<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>
+its right bank between it and the cliff; you cross a rivulet
+flowing from a deep lateral ravine about a mile further on,
+and less than half a mile further again see a new path leaving
+your path and going to your left, crossing over the valley
+and its stream, and making up a gulley which comes down
+facing you from the opposing heights. Take this new path
+up this gulley (the path runs everywhere to the <i>south</i> of the
+water), and you will find yourself after a climb of somewhat
+over a 1000 feet on the Col d’Escuain. Thence the way is
+perfectly clear, running due south-east for 5 miles, just
+above the edge of the cliffs of the gorge of Escuain, until you
+reach the village of Escuain perched above that ravine.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever efforts you may have made, and however early
+you may have started, you will hardly have reached human
+beings again at this place until, as at Bujaruelo the day before,
+the back of the day is broken. Nevertheless, unless you are
+to camp out again upon the mountain, you must try and
+push on to Bielsa. It is more than 10 miles, however much
+you cut off the windings of the path, which takes you past
+the chapel of San Pablo, leaving the village of Rivella on
+the left up the mountain side, then across a steep cliff down
+to the profound gorge of the Cinca; from there an unmistakable
+road goes through Salinas de Sin and follows straight on up
+the valley to Bielsa just 4 miles further on.</p>
+
+<p>If you can do that in one day you will have done well.</p>
+
+<p>There is another and shorter crossing, which, though it is
+invariably used by the mountaineers, I have not described
+because most people unused to the Pyrenees would shirk it.
+When you have come down from the Col de Gaulis into the
+valley below, if instead of going southward to the right you
+go northward to the left, crossing the stream, and climbing
+up on the further side of it, the path takes you at last to a
+very high col, called in Spanish the Col of Anisclo, but in
+French, the Col of Anicle. This col is not far short of 9000
+feet high, and it is particularly painful to have to attempt
+it just after the difficult business of the Col de Gaulis. It
+means two ports within a few hours of each other, the second<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span>
+one 3000 feet above the valley, and what that is in the way
+of fatigue, a man must go through in order to know. Moreover,
+the descent on the far side from the Col of Anisclo is
+exceedingly steep.</p>
+
+<p>However, if you do this short cut you have the advantage
+of finding yourself at once in the main valley of the Cinca
+and, when once you are on the banks of that river, you are
+not more than 8 miles or so from Bielsa by a good path
+leading all the way down the stream on the left bank. You
+save in this way quite 6 miles, and reduce your whole journey
+from the mouth of the valley of Arazas to Bielsa to a little
+less than 20 miles.</p>
+
+<p>The distance you have to go before you come to human
+beings is much the same by either track. Escuain is just
+about as far from the Col de Gaulis, as is Las Cortez, the
+first hamlet in the Cinca valley. Again, by this shorter way
+you miss the gorge of the Escuain, but you see the huge cliffs
+of Pinède, which are perhaps the finest wall in the Pyrenees
+with their summits along the crest of 9000 feet, 5000 feet
+or more above the stream at their feet: it is the edge of
+this ridge of cliff which must be crossed at the Col of Anisclo.
+Either way therefore is as fine and either as deserted as
+the other. But the second much shorter and far more
+painful.</p>
+
+<p>Before I leave this passage between the first and second
+of the Sobrarbe valleys—between the valley of Broto, that
+is (as they call the valley of the river Ara) and the valley of
+the Cinca—a few notes on the road should be added.</p>
+
+<p>First, I have said that Torla, Bujaruelo (Boucharo) may be
+made from Gavarnie as well as from Panticosa. This is so;
+and if you undertake the exploration of Sobrarbe from
+Gavarnie, it is a much easier business to get to Bujaruelo
+from the French hamlet, than it is to get to it from Panticosa.</p>
+
+<p>The excellent road from Gavarnie to the top of the port
+is a very small matter, and from there down into Bujaruelo
+is an easy descent of three miles. If you start from Gavarnie,
+therefore, in the early morning, you can with an effort and
+in good weather go the whole length of the Val d’Arazas,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>
+over the Col de Gaulis, and the Col of Anisclo and sleep in
+Bielsa that same night, or you can, taking it more easily,
+make a camp at the head of the Val d’Arazas, or you can
+break your journey in the valley between the two Cols of
+Gaulis and Anisclo, camping there for the night; I am told
+the camping ground in this gorge is not very good, otherwise
+that would be the ideal place to break your journey.</p>
+
+<p>You may next remark that in the lower part of the Val
+d’Arazas, right on the path, there is a good inn, which will
+save your camping out in the valley at all, if you are not so
+inclined; but the inn is so far down the valley that it does
+not save you very much in the next day’s walk. Further,
+you should note that all this group of valleys, the Arazas,
+the Pinède (which is that through which the Cinca flows),
+the Velos, which is the stream at the foot of the Col de Gaulis,
+the Escuain, etc., are, unlike most others in the Pyrenees,
+true <i>ravines</i>. They correspond to what Western Americans
+mean when they use the Spanish word Cañons, that is <i>clefts</i>
+sunk deep into the stuff of the world and bounded by precipices
+upon either side. These not only make the whole
+district a striking exception in the Pyrenean range, but also
+make the finding of and keeping to a path necessary as it is
+throughout the Pyrenees, more necessary here than anywhere
+else. If, for instance, you lose the path at the head of the
+Arazas, where it goes up the cliffs, you will never make the
+Col de Gaulis though it is less than a mile away, and if you
+miss the path up to the Col of Anisclo you can never get
+down into the Pinède at all.</p>
+
+<p>It is worth remembering that from the foot of the Col de
+Gaulis a path of sorts leads up the flank of the mountain to
+the Spanish side of the Brèche de Roland. I have never
+followed it, but I believe it to be an easier approach than
+that over the glacier upon the French side.</p>
+
+<p>Once you are at Bielsa on the Cinca, you are in the centre
+and, as it were, in the geographical capital of the high Sobrarbe
+and it is your next business to go on eastward into the last
+valley, that of the Esera, the central town of which is
+Venasque. Between the upper part of these two valleys<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span>
+and right between these two towns lies the great mass of
+the Posets, a huge mountain which lifts up in a confused
+way like an Atlantic wave and is within a very few feet of
+being the highest in the Pyrenees. It is a mountain which,
+though it is not remarkable for precipices or for any striking
+sky line, should by no means be crossed (though it can easily
+be ascended), but must be turned.</p>
+
+<p>The straight line from Bielsa to Venasque lies slightly
+south of east and is but 15 miles in length, but it runs right
+over the mass of the Posets and crosses that jumble of hills
+only a couple of miles south of the culminating peak. Venasque
+must therefore be reached by a divergence one way or the
+other, and one approaches it from Bielsa by going either
+to the north or to the south of the mountain group of the
+Posets. The northern way is a trifle shorter but much more
+difficult and much more lonely. On the other hand, it takes
+one into the very heart of the highest Pyrenees, right under
+the least known and the most absolute part of the barrier
+which they make between France and Spain. I will therefore
+describe this northern way first, as I think most travellers
+who desire an acquaintance with the hills will take it.</p>
+
+<p>From Bielsa a path going eastward crosses the Barrosa
+(at the confluence of which with the Cinca Bielsa is built),
+runs round the flank of the mountain and goes right up to
+the Col of the Cross “De La Cruz,” 4000 feet above the town.
+You may know this pass, if you have a compass, by observing
+that it is due east of Bielsa. To be accurate, the dead line
+east and west from the top of the Col exactly strikes the
+northernmost houses of the town.</p>
+
+<p>The eastern descent of the Col is quite easy and once down
+upon the banks of the Cinqueta, you see, half a mile to the
+north of you, the hospital or refuge of Gistain. From that
+point you follow up the valley north-eastward, on the right
+or northern bank of the stream under a steep hill-side for a
+couple of miles until you come to a fairly open place where
+the two upper forks of the Cinqueta meet. You cross the
+northern fork and go on eastward and northward up the
+eastern one, still keeping at the foot of the northern hill-side.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="map04" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map04.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE PASSAGE OVER THE COL DE LA CRUZ AND THE COL DE GISTAIN</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span></p>
+
+<p>What follows is not very easy to describe and should be
+carefully noted. What you have to pick out is a particular
+col on the opposite slope beyond the stream. This col is
+three miles or so from the fork, five from the Refuge, and is
+called “the Col de Gistain.” As you go up this valley the
+opposing side is formed of the buttresses of the Posets.
+From that mountain four torrents descend to join the east
+fork of the Cinqueta, between the place where you crossed
+and the col you are seeking. The first torrent falls into the
+valley which you are climbing half a mile or so after you
+have crossed the north fork and begun the new valley; a
+second comes in about a thousand yards further on, a third
+about a mile further yet, and you may see each of them
+coming into the stream at your feet from down the opposing
+side, which consists, as I have said, in the buttresses of the
+Posets.</p>
+
+<p>Another way of recognizing these three torrents (and it
+is essential to recognize them) is to note that between the
+first and the second the slope is not violent, while between
+the second and the third it is a rocky ridge.</p>
+
+<p>When you have seen the third come in, you must watch
+<i>exactly a mile further on</i> for the entry of the fourth. This
+fourth one is your mark by which to find the col. Just
+after passing in front of the mouth of this fourth torrent,
+your path, such as it is, will cross the Cinqueta, turn sharply
+eastward, and begin to climb up the right or northern bank
+of this fourth torrent.</p>
+
+<p>The ascent is not steep, and in 1500 yards you are on
+the <i>Col de Gistain</i> between 8200 and 8300 feet above the sea,
+and almost exactly 3000 feet above the spot where you left
+the north fork of the Cinqueta to follow the eastern valley.
+Another way of making certain that you do not miss the
+all-important turning is to count the torrents coming in
+upon <i>your</i> side, the <i>north</i> side, of the valley; that is the
+torrents, each coming in from its own ravine, which your
+path crosses.</p>
+
+<p>They also are three in number and fairly equidistant one
+from another, the first about a mile after you have crossed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span>
+the north fork, the next a mile further on, and the next just
+under a mile beyond that. It is after you have crossed the
+third and have proceeded another 500 or 600 yards that
+your path to the Col de Gistain will go off opposite to the
+right, crossing the stream at your feet, and following the
+torrent that falls from that opposing side.</p>
+
+<p>Yet another way of making sure is to watch (if the weather
+is fine) for the col itself, an unmistakable notch with a ridge
+of sharp rock just to the north of it and a less abrupt arète
+going south of it up to the summit of the Posets.</p>
+
+<p>I have written at this length of the passage not only from
+the difficulty of discovering, but also from the danger that
+will attend any delay in finding it. If you go on past the
+turning where the path to the col goes off eastward you may
+get over the wrong port on to the French side, miles from
+anywhere, or you may take the rocks of the Anes Cruces and
+find yourself on a ridge beyond which there is no going
+down either way; while if you turn off too early you may
+climb right up on to the glacier of the Posets, and lose a day
+and be compelled to pass a night in that frost.</p>
+
+<p>Once you have got to the top of the Col de Gistain, however,
+you are free. All the running water below you leads you
+down into the valley of Venasque; there is no steepness and
+no difficulty. The rudimentary path follows the stream,
+there is a little cabane on the upper waters of it, soon the
+floor of the valley widens out a trifle, and four miles on, not
+quite 3000 feet below the pass, is another cabane; that of
+the Turmo. The path from this point becomes more definite;
+it crosses the stream 2 miles down in order to avoid rocks upon
+the southern side, recrosses it again a mile later to negotiate
+a steep and narrow gorge, it comes over once again to the
+northern side by a bridge a few hundred yards further on,
+and almost immediately reaches the valley of the Esera at
+a point 9 miles or so from the summit of the pass. Here an
+ancient and remarkable bridge, the Bridge of Cuberre, crosses
+the Esera, and enables you to gain the wide mule track to
+Venasque, which town lies rather more than 2 miles down
+the road.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span></p>
+
+<p>It will be seen that the whole difficulty of this passage
+lies in making certain of the Col de Gistain.</p>
+
+<p>If I have exaggerated that difficulty I have fallen into an
+error on the right side, for to miss the col is to fail altogether
+and possibly to be in danger. If those who have approached
+the Col de Gistain from the east, or who have only seen the
+place in clear weather, imagine it to be discoverable under
+all circumstances, they are in error; indeed, if the weather
+is bad, it is just as well not to attempt the passage at all.</p>
+
+<p>This northern way from Bielsa to Venasque is, as I have
+said, the most difficult. The southern way is as follows.</p>
+
+<p>You go down the gorge to the Cinca by the road to Salinas
+de Sin, there the road branches, the main part goes on down
+the Cinca, the side road goes sharply off to the left up the
+first affluent of the Cinca, a lateral valley which points south-east,
+and is that of the Cinqueta. This road crosses the
+Cinca, follows the eastern or right bank of the lateral stream
+for some two-thirds of a mile, then crosses over and in about
+3 miles from the crossing reaches the hamlet of Sarabillo.
+Thence it proceeds, still upon the same side of the stream
+and facing a considerable cliff upon the further bank, to the
+village of El Plan, which lies somewhat less than 5 miles up
+from Sarabillo, and is reached by crossing the stream again
+just before one comes to the village.</p>
+
+<p>At El Plan one may repose. One will have walked by
+the mule paths more than 12 miles, and there is a long way
+before one.</p>
+
+<p>The main path goes on to the next village, that of St. Juan,
+and so up the Cinqueta to the hospital of Gistain, where it
+joins the northern route we have just been tracing. The
+southern way, which I am now describing, is by a path
+leaving El Plan at the end of the village and going down to
+the river (which here runs through a broad valley floor),
+across the river by a bridge, and then up the torrent valley
+of the Sentina, a little south of east. The path runs on the
+right or northern bank of this torrent, and any path or
+tracks to be seen crossing the water are not to your purpose.
+Keep always to the same side of the stream until you come<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span>
+to the col, which is more than 4 but less than 5 miles from
+El Plan and is called the Col de Sahun. From this col the
+path continues a little less clearly marked, but quite easy,
+down the sharp valley on the further side to the village of
+Sahun, which lies exactly due east of the col and just over
+3 miles from it. The whole passage, therefore, from El Plan
+to Sahun, is a matter of not more than two hours, and from
+Sahun to Venasque there is an excellent mule road following
+up the open valley of the Esera; a distance of just 4 miles.</p>
+
+<p>By this southern approach the whole distance is but a
+plain walk of under 20 miles with only one low and easy col
+to climb, but of course it tells you far less of what the Pyrenees
+can be than does the northern passage.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">With the valley of the Esera and the town of Venasque
+you have come to the end of Sobrarbe, and of all that remote
+and ill-known district which is the most savage and the
+most alluring in these great hills. Indeed, you are no longer
+properly in the Sobrarbe, but rather in the subdivision of
+Ribagorza, which had a Count to itself in the Middle Ages,
+and was the march between Aragon and Catalonia. From
+Venasque you can get back again at your ease next day, by
+one of the best known mule tracks in the Pyrenees, to the
+French valleys and to wealth again at Luchon.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="map05" style="max-width: 68.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map05.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE SOBRARBE</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="VI_IV">IV. <span class="smcap">The Tarbes Valleys and Luchon</span></h3>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp93" id="illus24" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus24.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>Three valleys, two profound, one shallow, depend upon
+and radiate from the town of Tarbes which stands in the plain
+below the mountains. Their rail system and their road
+system converge upon Tarbes, and it is from Tarbes that
+they should be explored.</p>
+
+<p>The two long valleys are the valley of Lourdes, down which
+flows the Gave de Pau and the long valley of Arreau or Val
+d’Aure (it is the longest enclosed valley of the Pyrenees). The
+short valley is the valley of Bigorre, wherein the Adour arises.</p>
+
+<p>For a man on foot these three valleys are of interest chiefly
+in their highest portions alone. The energy of French
+civilization has penetrated them everywhere with light
+railways and with roads, and has united them all three by a
+great lateral road running from Arreau to Luz over what
+used to be the difficult and ill-known port of Tourmalet;
+while it has thus done a great deal for those who only use
+the road, it has hurt the district from the point of view
+which I am taking in this division of my book.</p>
+
+<p>There is indeed one great hill which no development of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>
+roads can effect, and which is the chief interest of all these
+three valleys for the man on foot. It rises in the very centre
+of the district and is called the Pic du Midi de Begorre. This
+peak stands thrust forward from the main range, a matter
+of more than 10 miles from the watershed, and isolated upon
+every side save where the isthmus of the Tourmalet binds
+it to the general system not much more than 2000 feet below
+its summit. But the Pic du Midi de Begorre, fine as it is,
+does not afford so many opportunities to the man exploring
+the Pyrenees on foot as do other peaks. It is a bare mountain,
+all precipice upon the northern side, and steep every
+way. There is no camping ground save at the foot of it in
+the little wood above Abay. Moreover, there is a road right
+up it, an observatory upon the top, and arrangements for
+sleeping and for eating and drinking as well. No other of
+the great mountains of Europe have been put more thoroughly
+in harness. The chief use of it (for the purposes of this
+book) is that from its summit you will get a better general
+view of the eastern Pyrenees than from any other point
+reached with equal ease, and that you can see in one view,
+as you look southward, the Maladetta on your extreme left,
+the Pic du Midi d’Ossau on your extreme right, each about
+30 to 40 miles away. It is also a point from which the sharp
+demarcation between the mountain and the plain, which
+characterizes the northern slope of the Pyrenees, is very
+clear; for this peak, jutting out as it does from the mass
+of the hills, dominates all the flat country beneath.</p>
+
+<p>The roads of these three valleys are somewhat overrun—even
+in their upper portions. That from the end of the
+light railway from Luz to Gavarnie, is, in the summer, the
+only really spoilt piece of the Pyrenees; that from Arreau
+up to Vielle Aure in the furthest valley is less frequented,
+but there is no particular reason for stopping in it or for
+camping in it, especially when one considers the waste spaces
+on either side, where one may be wholly remote and at peace.
+There is, however, in one branch of this valley, that is in
+the gulley which runs due south from Trainzaygues, a good
+camping ground of woods and stream. A road runs up it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span>
+to the refuge of Riomajou at its summit, and from this two
+difficult cols can be reached by two branch paths which go
+over either shoulder of the Pic d’Ourdissettou, that on the
+right or west gets one down to Real and Bielsa; that on the
+left ultimately and with some difficulty to Gistain and El
+Plan. There is also an entry from the main valley into the
+Sobrarbe, going up the main valley through Aragnouet, and
+up the very steep pass called the Pass de Barroude; one also
+comes out by this way on to Real and Bielsa, but it is by the
+other fork of the Spanish valley.</p>
+
+<p>The pass called the Port de Bielsa proper marks what was
+once perhaps the main pass north and south over these hills.
+It leaves the valley at Leplan above Aragnouet and stands
+between the two passes just mentioned. These and all the
+difficult ports, springing from the three valleys of Tarbes and
+crossing the central part of the range, lead one into the Sobrarbe
+and the track described in the last division of this chapter.</p>
+
+<p>The valley of Arreau has an eastern fork following the
+Louron at the head of which are further high passes, all in
+the neighbourhood of 8000 feet, which lead one into the Posets
+group and the eastern end of Sobrarbe. Of these the most
+interesting is the port of Aiguestoites, which is that upon
+which one comes by error if one misses the Col de Gistain on
+the northern way from Bielsa to Venasque.</p>
+
+<p>The Cirques—the great semicircles of precipices—which
+have always been remarked as distinctive of the Pyrenees,
+are crowded in this region. The Cirque de Gavarnie is the
+most famous, and therefore, in our time at least, impossible
+for a man who really wants to wander. You cannot be alone
+there; but the Cirque of Troumouse is not hackneyed and
+should be seen once at least. You may reach it by taking
+the road up from Luz to Gavarnie, and following it as far as
+Jedre. Here the Gave branches, you go up the zigzag of
+the road, past the church of Jedre, and take the path which
+leaves the highway to the left and follows up the eastern
+Gave, or Gave de Heas on its left bank. The path crosses
+that stream 2 miles further on and follows up the right
+bank to the little hamlet of Heas (which gives the torrent<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span>
+its name). It continues getting less distinct past the chapel
+of Heas; you turn a corner of a rock and find yourself in
+this huge, bare, deserted circle of precipices with the Pic de
+Gerbats at the left end of it, the Pic of Gabediou at the
+east end, and in the midst the highest point, the Pic
+d’Arrouye, which just misses 10,000 feet. The path continued
+will take you up past some cabanes over the little glacier,
+and across that steep and very difficult ridge down into the
+Spanish valley of Pinède—which ends up, of course, in Bielsa.</p>
+
+<p>But for these ramifications of their higher ravines, the
+three valleys of Tarbes are the least suitable for a man travelling
+on foot; of the three, however, the Val d’Aure will afford
+the most variety and the most isolation.</p>
+
+<p>If, for any reason, one of these three valleys is chosen for
+a short holiday, Tarbes—where there is a good hotel, The
+Ambassadeurs—is the centre from which one should start
+and to which one should return; it faces right at the mountains,
+it is the most truly Pyrenean town of all the plain,
+and it is full of excellent entertainment. From Tarbes also
+start the three lines which take you up each valley, to Argelès,
+to Bagnères de Bigorre, and to Arreau.</p>
+
+<h4><i>Luchon</i></h4>
+
+<p>The valley of Luchon stands by itself as a separate division
+of the Pyrenees. It has character altogether its own, formed
+both by political accidents, which separate it from its twin
+valley of the Upper Garonne—the Val d’Aran—and by its
+physical conformation which thrusts the level floor of it up
+further into the hills than any other of the Pyrenean gorges.
+It is indeed made by nature to be one of the great international
+roads of Europe and to lead into Spain, for it resembles in
+many ways the trench running from Oloron southwards along
+which the main Roman road, and the main modern road
+find their way into Aragon. The valley of Luchon would
+undoubtedly have formed the platform for such a road had
+not two accidents interfered with that destiny: the first,
+the great height of the ridge at the end of this particular
+valley; the second, the lack of open country to the south.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Roman road from Oloron over the Somport finds a
+wide plain and an ancient city at Jaca, within a day’s journey
+of the central summit. But the valley of the Esera (which
+is the Spanish valley corresponding to that of Luchon) is a
+good three days’ travel in length before it gets one out of
+the hills, and the first town of the plains on the Spanish side
+(the modern symbol of whose importance is the presence of
+the railway) is Barbastro 60 miles in a straight line from the
+watershed, and not far short of 90 following the turns of the
+mule path and lower down the road which reaches it.</p>
+
+<p>But for these accidents the way through Luchon would
+undoubtedly be the great avenue from Toulouse to Saragossa,
+and even as it is the pass over the ridge here (called the
+Port de Venasque) is the most trodden and the clearest of
+all the passes, other than those followed by direct highways.</p>
+
+<p>The valley of Luchon is the very centre of the mountain
+system, for it lies just east of that division between the two
+halves of the mountains, the eastern and the western chains.
+It is a frontier also between two types of scenery and two
+kinds of travel. It is the last of the deep flat valleys running
+north and south, which are, so far eastward, the characteristic
+of the chain. Immediately beyond it, to the east, begins a
+combination of hills of which St. Girons is the capital, and
+into which still further east penetrate the much larger valleys
+of the Ariège and of the Tet.</p>
+
+<p>The Thermal Springs of Luchon, and a chance popularity
+which made it the wealthiest holiday place in all the mountains,
+have now fixed it as a sort of central spot which sums
+up all travel in the Pyrenees. For nearly a century it has
+had the character, which continually increases in it, of great
+luxury, and of a colony, as it were, of the main towns of
+Europe. But, for reasons which I mention when I come to
+speak of inns and hotels in these mountains, it is in some
+way saved from the odiousness which most cosmopolitan
+holiday places radiate around them like an evil smell. The
+influence of Paris is in some part responsible for better manners
+and greater dignity than such tourist places usually show.</p>
+
+<p>The little town is very old; it is probably the site of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>
+Baths which were mentioned as the most famous of the
+Pyrenean waters as early as the first century, and which
+certainly stood in this country of Comminges. For Luchon
+is the modern centre of the Comminges, and the Comminges
+is first historical district of the Pyrenees west of the old
+Roman province.</p>
+
+<p>For a man travelling on foot in the Pyrenees the chief
+value of Luchon lies in its being the only rail-head which lies
+close against the highest peaks. Here one can have one’s
+letters sent and one’s luggage, and to this place one can
+always return from the wildest parts of the Sobrarbe, or of
+Catalonia, which lie on either hand just to the south-west
+and south-east. It is also the best place in the whole range
+in which to change English money.</p>
+
+<p>The valley, though it has great historical interest (and
+everybody who has the leisure should see St. Bertrand at
+the mouth of it), has, like those valleys to the west of it
+which have just been mentioned, little to arrest a man on
+foot, except in its last high reach. The ridge which runs
+north for 12 miles beyond Luchon and lies west of the railway,
+is high and densely wooded; but it is not good camping
+ground and it leads nowhere, while that to the east, less
+steep and not quite so densely wooded, has but one large
+field for camping, the forest of Marignac; and even in Marignac
+there is nothing but the wood to attract one. Once
+through the wood one is back again upon a high road and
+the valley of the Garonne.</p>
+
+<p>Above Luchon, however, there spread out a number of
+valleys which are worthy of exploration in themselves, and
+one of which is the main way over into Spain. For this last
+we must continue the high road (which follows up the Pique,
+the river that waters all the Luchon district) until one comes,
+at the end of the causeway, to the hotel that was formerly
+a hospice, and is still called by that name. From this point
+a steep path takes one 3000 feet right up to the main ridge
+and to the little notch in the rock which is called the Port
+de Venasque. The path, though not so clear, is equally easy
+on the other side, bringing one down into the valley of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span>
+Esera and to the town of Venasque in the Sobrarbe. The
+whole way from Luchon to Venasque, counting this steep
+ridge, is one day’s easy going. There is no way across the
+central range more simple or less difficult (though it is high),
+and it has very fine views; as one crosses the summit one
+has right before one culminating peaks of the Pyrenees, the
+group of the Maladetta.</p>
+
+<p>Just to the east of the Port de Venasque (which is about
+8000 feet high—to be accurate, 7930) is the Pic de Sauvegarde,
+a path which is almost a road leads up to it; one
+pays a toll; it is a sort of Piccadilly. The one purpose of
+the climb is to see from the summit a very good all-round
+view of the high peaks, which crowd round this turning point
+in the chain.</p>
+
+<p>A less frequented valley, but one quite sufficiently frequented,
+is that of the Lys, which one turns into out of the
+main road by going off to the right; about 2½ miles after
+leaving Luchon, a carriage road, 4 miles in length, takes one
+up through the woods at Lys to an inn; thence forward in
+the lovely valley and the half circle of peaks above, there is
+country wild enough for every one, but no good camping ground.</p>
+
+<p>A further experiment for the man on foot, and one in
+which he will be more dependent upon himself and less in
+fear of invasion, is that of the Val Dastan, by which, and
+the high Port d’Oo, one can get down to Venasque. For this
+valley one goes up the new lateral road from Luchon as
+though one were going into the Val d’Aure and to Arreau.
+One may leave the road at any point after St. Aventin to
+follow the stream below, but it is best to go on to a village
+called Gari, which is somewhat more than 5 miles from
+Luchon. At Gari is a road going south along a valley;
+you follow that valley still going southward, till the road
+comes to an end in the neighbourhood of a wood which bars
+the upper end of the vale. A path, however, continues the
+line of the road, makes its way through the wood, and at the
+upper end of it you come out upon a fine lake. There is an
+inn to the south of this lake, and if you will go on a little north
+of the inn along the shores of the lake you will find very good<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span>
+camping ground. Indeed, it is wise to camp over-night on
+this side of the range, for the climb up from Luchon is fatiguing,
+and the country of a sort inviting one to rest and look
+about one.</p>
+
+<p>Rejoining the path it passes between two small lakes, just
+after leaving the wood, and climbs up the torrent past the
+little tarn called the Lac Glacé, immediately above which is
+the Port d’Oo. This port is a very high one, it falls little
+short of 9000 feet, and it is not more than a depression in the
+ridge around. On the further side a steep scramble marked
+by no path, gets one down into the valley beneath the Posets,
+and this valley is the same as that which I have described as
+lying to the east of the Col de Gistain and leading to the Bridge
+of Cuberre, and so to Venasque. It is a long and difficult way
+round to that town from Luchon by the Port d’Oo, but it is
+the wildest and therefore the best excursion one can make in
+the circuit of these hills.</p>
+
+<p>I should mention before I leave this district that curious
+plain, Des Etangs “Of the Lakes,” where is the Trou du Toro,
+a small circular pond.</p>
+
+<p>The main source of the Garonne lies high up as befits the
+dignity of such a river in among the very noblest peaks of the
+Pyrenees; it springs from the eastern point of the Maladetta,
+flows down in a torrent to this plain “Of the Lakes,” plunges
+into the little pond, and there wholly disappears! It
+reappears 2000 feet down at the Goueil de Jeou, on the
+northern side of the mountains, having burrowed right under
+the main range, and so runs down to Las Bordas. Sceptics
+to whom all in these bewitched mountains is abhorrent, from
+the realities of Lourdes to the legends of Charlemagne, annoyed
+by this miraculous action on the part of the Garonne, poured
+heavy dyes into the Trou du Toro, and then went and watched
+anxiously at Goueil de Jeou to see the coloured stream emerge;
+but the Garonne was too dignified to oblige them, and the
+water came out limpid and pure; as for the dye, it has stuck
+somewhere underground in the hills, and is colouring rocks
+that will never be seen until the consummation of all things at
+the end of the world.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp92" id="map06" style="max-width: 75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map06.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE TARBES VALLEYS &amp; LUCHON</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="VI_V">V. <span class="smcap">Andorra and the Catalan Valleys</span></h3>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp60" id="illus25" style="max-width: 20.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus25.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>One may consider together Andorra
+in the Spanish valley of the Segre,
+the upper valley of the Noguera
+Pallaresa and Val d’Aran, for the
+journey through Andorra down
+to Seo, thence up out of the valley
+of the Segre into that of the
+Noguera, and so over to the
+Upper Garonne, makes one
+round, in which one covers one
+whole district of the Pyrenees,
+all Catalan.</p>
+
+<p>There are two ways by which the
+curious country of Andorra can be
+reached from the north; both ultimately depend upon the
+valley of the Ariège.</p>
+
+<p>The first shortest and most difficult way is by the vale of
+the Aston, a tributary of the Ariège which comes down a
+lateral valley and falls in near the railway station of Cabanes
+as the line from Foix to Ax; the second and easier way is by
+climbing to the sources of the Ariège itself, the main river,
+and over the Embalire.</p>
+
+<p>As to the first—all the spreading rocky valleys which combine
+to feed the river Aston, form together a district of the
+very best for those who propose to explore but one corner of
+the Pyrenees during a short holiday. Even if such a traveller
+be unable or do not choose to force one of the entries into
+Andorra, he will have found on the Aston a country in which
+a man may camp and fish and climb anywhere, with a sense
+of liberty quite unknown in this kingdom. Here are half a
+dozen or more little lakes, deep forests, occasional cabanes,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span>
+good shelter, good bits of rock for such as like the risk, and
+outlines and distances of the most astonishing kind, and no
+landlords. Of the many high valleys I have seen in the world,
+there is none less earthly than the last high reaches of the
+torrent which runs between the Pic de la Cabillere and the
+Pic de la Coumette, and which is the chief source of the Aston.
+The whole basin of this river includes six main streams, and,
+of course, many smaller torrents feeding these and the names
+of the peaks alone discover their desertion and the mixture
+of fear and attraction which they have had for the shepherds
+of these highland places. You may spend a week or a month
+or a whole summer in the neighbourhood and never come on
+this enchanted pocket which is bounded on the frontier by the
+high ridge running from the “silver fountain,” the Fontargente,
+with its high peak and chain of lakes.</p>
+
+<p>The Aston has at its sources, cutting them off from Spain,
+a ridge of 8000 to 9000 feet, it is a ridge the passes of which are
+but slight notches between the higher rocks.</p>
+
+<p>The ways into Andorra across this ridge from the Upper
+Aston are as numerous as these notches are, and nearly every
+notch can be climbed with knowledge and patience, but the
+only parts where something of a track exists are the Fontargente
+on the east, and the Peyregrils on the west. It is easy
+enough to fail at either, and there is therefore merit and sport
+enough in succeeding at either.</p>
+
+<p>For the Peyregrils you must start from Cabanes and follow
+up the main stream of the Aston, by a clear path through the
+forest, taking with you the 1/100,000 map as a guide. A little
+after a point where a bridge is thrown over the river (called the
+Bridge of Coidenes), the two main streams of the Aston meet,
+one is seen flowing down from the south-east by the wooded
+gorge before one as one climbs, the other comes in cascades
+down a steep gully, pointing directly north and south. It is
+this gully which must be taken for the Peyregrils. One goes
+up over a steep rock still in the thick of the wood. On the
+far side of it one comes out into open grass country, and has
+one’s first sight of the main range. The path comes down again
+to the stream, having turned the cascade, crosses the stream and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span>
+flows along its right or eastern bank between the water and a
+range of cliffs which are those of the Pic du Col de Gas.
+About a mile from this crossing of the stream, as one goes on
+southward with a little west in one’s direction, one comes to a
+side torrent falling in from the left; the path crosses this
+torrent, and still continues up the right bank of the main
+stream. It is a difficult point—for the path appears to bifurcate,
+and by taking the left-hand branch, as I did four years
+ago, one may lose oneself in the empty valley under the Cabillere
+and be cut off for two days as I was, or for ever, as I was
+not. It is by making these easy mistakes that men do get
+cut off, and you may be certain that people who are found dead
+in the mountains under small precipices, are not, as the newspapers
+say, killed by some accident, but by exhaustion. They
+have wandered in a mist, or have been lost in some other
+fashion, until privation so weakens them that they no longer
+have a foothold; and in general, the great danger of
+mountains is not a danger of falling, but of getting cut off from
+men. Here, as in many other difficulties of this kind, your
+compass will save you; for if you find you are going more and
+more to the east, you are on the wrong path. The right one
+goes south by west along the left bank of the stream. There
+is a broad jasse or pasture which one traverses in all its length,
+one crosses another torrent coming in from a rocky gorge upon
+the left, the torrent and the path together turn more and more
+westward until one’s general direction is due west, and at last
+one comes up against steep cliffs which are those of the Etang
+Blanc.</p>
+
+<p>Thence, the way is plain, for the stream receives no further
+affluents and there is therefore no ambiguity of direction.
+The path follows the stream round a corner of rock whence
+one can see a tarn called the Etang de Soulauet, lying immediately
+under the watershed, and from that tarn the traveller
+goes straight up for 500 yards or so over the crest, straight
+down the steep further side, and finds at the bottom of the
+valley the stream called Rialb: such is the passage called the
+Peyregrils.</p>
+
+<p>Once one is down on the banks of the Rialb, one has but to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span>
+follow the trail which runs along the bank of that stream, cross
+it, reach the hamlet of Serrat, and so follow the broadening
+water to the little town of Ordino; four miles beyond is
+Andorra the Old. The whole distance from the pass to
+Andorra is somewhat over 12 miles, counting all the windings
+of the way. On this, as on so many crossings of the Pyrenees,
+the difficulty is wholly on the French side, once on the Spanish
+the broader valleys lead one without difficulty down one’s
+way.</p>
+
+<p>The other entry into Andorra from the valley of the Aston,
+that by the Fontargente, is managed thus:—</p>
+
+<p>When the Aston divides just after the bridge, one takes the
+south-eastern fork, one crosses the bridge and finds a clear
+path going up the right bank of the main stream of the Aston
+through a wood. Four miles on this path brings one out of
+the wood, and for another 4 miles it goes on still following the
+same side of the stream in a direction which is at first east of
+south, and at last curls round due south. There is a bridge
+or two crossing to the other side, but one must not take them.
+One must keep close to the eastern or right bank of the Aston
+all the way until one comes to a place difficult to recognize,
+and yet the recognition of which is immediately essential to
+success. It is a jasse rather narrow and small, lying between a
+rocky ridge upon the left or east and a line of cliffs upon the
+right or west. Here are a few cabanes, and even if one has
+missed the place on first coming to it, it can be recognized from
+the fact, that, at the further end of this jasse, the two sources
+of the Aston meet in almost one straight line, making with the
+main stream one has been following, a shape like the letter
+“T.”</p>
+
+<p>The path branches and takes either valley or arm of the
+“T”; it is that to the <i>left</i> or east down which one must turn—the
+one to the right or west leads nowhere but to the impassable
+cliffs and precipices of the Passade and the Cabillere.
+The eastern or right-hand path then must be followed in a
+direction just south of east for exactly 1 mile, during all of
+which it keeps to the north of the stream. At the end of that
+mile it crosses the stream, turns gradually round a high lump<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>
+of rocky hill, going first south, then in a few yards south-west
+until it comes, at about a mile from the place where it crossed,
+upon the large tarn or small lake of Fontargente, “The Silver
+Water.” The port lies in view just above the lake not 500
+yards off. Once over it, it is the same story as the Peyregrils,
+a trail following running water which leads one through the
+upper villages to Canillo, the first town, to Encamps, the
+second one, and so down to Andorra the Old. The distance
+from the main range to Andorra by this trail is 2 or 3 miles
+greater than by the Peyregrils.</p>
+
+<p>These are the two difficult and mountain ways of making
+Andorra from the north.</p>
+
+<p>The easier and much the commoner way is to approach it
+from the upper waters of the Ariège.</p>
+
+<p>One takes the main road from Ax to Hospitalet up which
+there is a public carriage or “diligence”; it is as well to go
+on foot, for one will get to Hospitalet before the diligence if
+one starts at the dawn of a summer’s day, and it is important
+to get there early as there is no good sleeping place between the
+French side and the town of Andorra itself. At Hospitalet
+the main track for Andorra runs down in a few feet to the
+torrent of the Ariège, crosses it, and follows its left bank. It
+goes over the frontier which is here an artificial line, and
+though you are still on the French side of the range, you are
+politically in Andorra, upon this deserted grassy slope which
+forms the left bank of the Ariège.</p>
+
+<p>At the second torrent which comes down this slope into the
+river—or rather the second stream, for they are quite small—the
+telegraph wire, which has hitherto followed the path, will
+be seen going over to the right, up a somewhat steep side
+valley. This is at a point about 4 miles from Hospitalet.
+You have but to follow that line if it is fine weather, and you
+will come right over the ridge and down on to the Spanish
+side of the Andorran hamlet, Saldeu. If it is misty on the
+heights you will almost certainly lose the line, and possibly
+your life as well. Nevertheless the crossing can be made
+even in bad weather by going somewhat further south to the
+point called the Port d’Embalire. To find this needs a certain<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span>
+care. Note with your compass the trend of the Ariège; it
+curves round more and more as you follow it, and when it
+begins to point <i>due south</i> (which it does after a perceptible
+bend) you may note a fairly plain track coming down from the
+opposite side of the valley: it comes down and strikes the
+Ariège at a spot almost exactly 2 miles from the place where
+the line of the telegraph left the stream. Here opposite the
+road turn sharp up away from the Ariège (which is now but a
+tiny brook) and go <i>due west</i> by your compass right up the
+mountain, which is here nothing but a steep grassy slope, and
+you will strike the Embalire.</p>
+
+<p>It is one of the few crossings which can be made in any
+weather, because you will find upon that slope, a little way up,
+the beginnings of a made road; that road was never completed.
+It has never been metalled, but it is culverted and
+graded, and is as good a guide as the best highway in the
+Pyrenees could be. Probably it never will be finished, for
+the Andorrans are opposed to an easy entry into their country;
+but so long as its platform remains, one can never lose one’s
+way upon the Port d’Embalire. The further side is a steep
+and easy descent over a sort of down, and one finds Saldeu
+by this longer route about 4 miles from the summit. Whether
+one has followed the telegraph line or come over by the Embalire,
+the two tracks join at Saldeu, and the rest of the way is
+identical with that which you will come to by Fontargente,
+that is, through Canillo and Encamps to Andorra the Old.</p>
+
+<p>Easy as the way is, however, it should be remembered that
+it is a long day from Ax, for counting every turning, it is not
+far short of 30 miles, and more than half of that is uphill.
+Ax stands at about 2000 to 2400 feet (according to the part
+of the steep town one measures from) and the summit of the
+Embalire is almost exactly 8000 feet. There is no break in
+the rise from one to the other.</p>
+
+<p>The interest of Andorra lies in its survival, and the recognition
+it receives of being an Independent European State.
+All these enclosed valleys of the Pyrenees led a more or less
+independent life for centuries; from a decline of the Roman
+power until the union of Aragon and Castille on the Spanish<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>
+side, and on the French side in some places, up to the Revolution
+itself, they boasted their own customs and could plead
+their own law.</p>
+
+<p>The violent quarrel between Madrid and Aragon, in which
+the independence of Aragon was fiercely destroyed, affected
+the greater part of the Spanish valleys, and killed their independence;
+but it did not attack the Catalan valleys—of
+which Andorra was the most secluded and remote, and therefore
+Andorra survives.</p>
+
+<p>One may study in Andorra what all these valleys were in
+the long period of local and natural growths between the very
+slow death of the Roman bureaucracy, and the rapid rise
+of the modern. The French, through the Prefect of the Ariège
+(as representing the Crown of France, which in its turn
+inherited from the county of Foix) claim a partial control
+over the Andorrans who pay to the Government in Paris £40
+a year in fealty. The Spaniards have a hold on it through the
+Bishop of Urgel, who is not only their Ordinary but also their
+Civil Suzerain: he gets only £18 a year from the embattled
+farmers.</p>
+
+<p>The Andorrans have all the vices and virtues of democracy
+clearly apparent. They are very well-to-do, a little hard,
+avaricious, courteous, fond of smuggling, and jealous of interference.
+Also in Andorra itself one great shop supplies their
+external needs, and conducts all their international exchanges.
+Catalan, a provincial dialect in Spain, is here the national
+language. They are divided, as are all Catholics, into Clericals
+and Anti-Clericals, the Clericals making, I believe, a working
+majority, and there is not among them, so far as one can see,
+a poor man or an oppressed one.</p>
+
+<p>From Andorra the Old, a good open path leads through the
+narrow gates of the country, down on to the valley of the Segre,
+and so to Seo de Urgel.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">Though it is but a few hours’ walk from Andorra to Urgel,
+it is as well to pass the remainder of the day and the night at
+Urgel, especially if it is the first Spanish town you have seen,
+as it is the first for many people who cross the mountains at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span>
+this place. You will certainly find nothing more Spanish
+along the whole range. This lump of a town with its narrow
+oriental streets was the pivot of the Christian advance into
+Catalonia. The Carolingian armies came pouring through
+that easiest of the passes, the Cerdagne, enfranchised Urgel,
+first of all the Mozarabic Bishoprics, and may be said to have
+refounded its Christian existence. For some reason difficult
+to discover Urgel fossilized quite early in the Middle Ages.
+No line of travel, no road linked up the long valley of the Segre,
+the armies and the embassies of the French knew nothing of
+Lerida, and it is characteristic of Urgel to-day that even to-day
+there should be no great road beyond it up the valley.</p>
+
+<p>From Urgel your road back into France through the upper
+valley of the Noguera Pallaresa, and the Val d’Aran is difficult
+to discover in its earlier part, unmistakable in the high
+mountains; which is the reverse of the rule usual in other
+crossings of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>You must go down the high road which runs south of Urgel
+until you come, in something over a mile, to Ciudad, which
+is that hill-pile of white houses, once fortified, which rises over
+against the Cathedral city.</p>
+
+<p>There you must ask the way to Castellbo, which is two or
+three hours away up a torrent bed, and you must go up this
+torrent bed by way of a road.</p>
+
+<p>If you start early from Urgel you will be at Castellbo well
+before noon, and the hospitality of the place is so great that
+you will wish to stay there. There is only one drawback to
+eating at Castellbo which is that you have after it to make a
+passage of the mountains which, though here not very high,
+well wooded and fairly inhabitated, do not bring you to proper
+food and shelter until you have gone close on 20 miles and have
+reached Llavorsi in the further valley of the Noguera; and so,
+if you stop to eat your mid-day meal at Castellbo, it is quite
+on the cards that you will have to camp out in the hills and
+that you will not make Llavorsi until noon of the following
+day; for the col in between, though it is very easy, is higher
+above the sea than the Somport.</p>
+
+<p>From Castellbo you have but to ask for the village of St.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>
+Croz, which is perched upon a height just up the same valley,
+but from there to the port the way is difficult to find for the
+very reason that there are no <i>physical</i> difficulties. It is all
+one long ridge of wooded grass like a down, with rather higher
+peaks to the right and to the left and with more than one
+indication of a path several directions. A good rule, however,
+for finding the exact place where you should cross, is to make
+for a spot due north-west from the village of St. Croz, and this
+spot is further distinguished by the fact that it is on the whole
+lowest upon the whole saddle. It is a mile and a quarter or
+a mile and a half from the village, and as you go to it over the
+easy grass you get a superb vision of the Sierra del Cadi barring
+your view of Catalonia and standing up against you much
+higher than ever it seemed from the floor of the Cerdagne.
+No hills in Europe look so marvellously high.</p>
+
+<p>As the saddle of this port, which is called the port of St.
+John, is so long and easy it might seem indifferent at what
+point one crossed it; it is on the contrary very important to get
+the <i>exact</i> place and for this reason, that on the further or north-western
+side of it there is a profound ravine densely wooded,
+if one does not make the <i>exact</i> spot one has no path
+through this wood. That means hours of delay and one may
+very well come out upon the right instead of the left bank of
+the ravine; in which case in order to find the trail for Llavorsi
+at the bottom of the valley one may have a precipitous descent
+into the ravine and a bad climb out of it on the other side.
+Look, therefore, carefully for the path which begins to be
+clearly marked the moment the saddle is crossed, and follow
+down it until you come to a steep rock which overhangs the main
+stream at the bottom of the valley. This main stream is the
+Magdalena and runs not quite 2000 feet below the summit of
+the port. The trail is very distinct when once one has
+reached the valley; small villages are passed; it climbs up
+on the left bank to avoid a precipitous place and comes down
+to the water again at a place where the Magdalena falls into
+the main stream of the Noguera.</p>
+
+<p>Here you must descend to the floor of the valley and take
+the road which is being made and which will in a few years<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span>
+form another great international highway up the valley of the
+Noguera. The road runs all the way on the left or eastern
+bank of the stream, which is broad and rapid and confined by
+very high steep hills upon either side. Three miles from the
+place where the path descended to the junction of the Magdalena
+and the Noguera, you will find another large river
+coming in. The road crosses by a wooden cantilever bridge
+where one pays a toll (I think of ½d.), and once across one is
+in the unpleasing village of Llavorsi.</p>
+
+<p>The valley opens somewhat and is called Anéu, having on
+the left the exceedingly rugged and tangled chain of the Encantados,
+a wilderness of rocky peaks and lakes—and on the right
+a clear ridge which cuts off this country-side from the Val
+Cardos and the Val Farreira, both wild districts at whose
+summits is a bit of country as lonely as the Upper Aston.</p>
+
+<p>All the way from Llavorsi up this Anéu valley the new road
+runs. I have not visited it for four years, and by this time it
+must be nearly finished, at any rate it is perfectly straight
+going and in all between 10 and 12 miles, with the exceedingly
+filthy village of Escaló about half-way.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to give advice about sleeping in this walk from
+Urgel to Esterri. The distance between the two towns in a
+straight line is less than thirty miles, but the perpetual turning
+of the path makes it quite forty by the time one has reached
+Esterri, and what with the casting about for the right crossing
+on the port and the height of that crossing, it is too much for
+anyone to try and do in one day. Even if one were to sleep
+at Castellbo it would not mend matters much, for Castellbo
+is but a sixth of the distance, if that, and I would not recommend
+sleeping at Llavorsi. I have said that if one ate at
+Castellbo in the morning, it would mean camping out in the
+woods below the port of St. John and this is perhaps the best
+plan after all: to leave Urgel on the morning of one day, to
+camp in the deep woods above the Magdalena and to sleep
+at Esterri, on the night of the second day. There is a good
+inn at Esterri, where everything is comfortable and clean, and
+the whole place is more civilized than any other town or village
+in the Pallars.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span></p>
+
+<p>The next day you will go over the Pass of Bonaigo into the
+Val d’Aran, unless you prefer the much less amusing walk by
+the new road up over the Port de Salau to St. Girons. It is
+less amusing because it gets you into France almost at once,
+whereas the walk into the Val d’Aran keeps you in Spain and
+shows you a very interesting geographical and political accident
+of the Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<p>The town of the Val d’Aran is called Viella, and it lies 20
+miles west by north of Esterri, between the two there is no
+obstacle but a high grassy saddle called the Port of Bonaigo
+the summit of which is exactly 3283 feet above the floor of
+the Noguera at Esterri, and the interest of which lies in this,
+that it stands right upon the junction of that “fault” which
+was mentioned in the first division of this book.</p>
+
+<p>The Bonaigo is the exact centre of the Pyrenean system.
+On your left as you cross it, to the south that is, is the
+Saburedo, which is the last peak of the western branch. To
+your right upon the north the hills lift up to the Pic de
+l’Homme, which is the terminal peak of the eastern branch,
+and the ridge uniting these two branches runs in a serpentine
+fashion north and south with the saddle of the Bonaigo for
+its lowest point.</p>
+
+<p>You will reach the summit, going easy from Esterri, in
+about three hours, and thence you will see, if the weather is
+clear, the distant snow of the Maladetta to the west, and in
+the vale at your feet, the first trickling of the Garonne. For
+by the twist the watershed here takes, you are crossing geographically
+from Spain into France, though the valley of the
+Garonne before you is still politically Spanish. The descent
+upon the Val d’Aran is somewhat steeper than the ascent from
+the Noguera, a path of sorts begins at the foot of it, and runs
+down the Garonne to the first hamlet, the name of which is
+Salardú. At Arties, a road begins, and 5 miles further on you
+come to Viella and to rest.</p>
+
+<p>In Viella there is nothing but oddity to note: the oddity
+of a French valley governed by Spain. You are quite cut off,
+you will hear no news, and the only sign that you are on the
+north of the mountains will be the great and excellently<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span>
+engineered road leading down the Garonne from gorge to gorge
+and reaching at last the French frontier at a narrow gate where
+is the “King’s Bridge.” Some miles further on is the French
+railway-head at Marignac. An omnibus starts in the early
+morning from Viella at whatever hour it pleases and gets down
+to the French railway in time for the mid-day train, but
+whether you take it or walk down on foot, you had better
+stop at Bosost, not half-way down, and there take the whittle
+woodland road westward over the frontier by a very low gap
+called the Portillon and so saunter into Bagnères de Luchon,
+the noisy and wealthy capital of luxury. To come into
+Luchon suddenly after such a journey is as sharp a change
+as you can experience perhaps in all Europe. Do not forget
+before you reach Bosost to look up the gully which comes in
+from the left at a place called Las Bordas, some six or seven
+miles from Viella. This gully is that of the true Garonne, the
+fork of the river which we saw having such strange adventures
+rising on the wrong side of the main watershed of the mountains,
+burrowing right through them in a tunnel and coming
+out upon the northern side; surely the only river in the world
+which behaves in such a fashion.</p>
+
+<p>The walk which I have just described will have shown you
+most thoroughly all the wild north-western corner of Catalonia,
+and have taught you Andorra as well. Whether you take
+Cabanes for your starting place, entering Andorra by the difficult
+passes of the Aston, or whether you take Ax for your
+starting place and enter by the easy pass of Embalire, you will
+not make the whole round to Luchon in the best weather under
+six days, and indeed a man who has but a week in which to
+begin to learn the Pyrenees, might very well choose this little
+square of them for his first introduction.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="map07" style="max-width: 75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map07.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE CATALAN VALLEYS &amp; ANDORRA</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="VI_VI">VI. <span class="smcap">Cerdagne</span></h3>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp100" id="illus26" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus26.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The Cerdagne forms a district quite separate from the rest
+of the Pyrenees. Its scenery differs from that of the rest of
+the range, its facilities for travel, its politics, everything in the
+place is different; and though both valleys are Catalan, it is
+well not to include in the same summary a description of the
+Cerdagne and a description of the Roussillon.</p>
+
+<p>The Cerdagne is the only broad valley in the Pyrenees, and
+it is a broad valley held in by walls of high mountains. All the
+other trenches which nature has cut into the range, are, without
+exception, profound and narrow. They expand occasionally
+into enclosed circles of flat land, the floors of ancient lakes,
+with a circle of steep banks all around, first wooded, then
+rocky, and reaching almost to Heaven. But these solemn
+circuses of secluded land, held in by narrow gates at either
+end, and small compared with the rocks around them, have a
+totally different effect upon the mind from those produced by
+such a landscape as the Cerdagne. You here have a whole
+country-side as broad as a small English county might be, full
+of fields, and large enough to take abreast a whole series of
+market towns. This is the sort of plain, which, were it
+bounded by hills, rather low like our English downs, would
+seem a little country by itself: a place large enough to make
+up one of our European divisions, like the counties of
+England, or the minor provinces of France. A broad river
+valley, such as decides a score of places scattered over Western
+Europe, here binds many households all united historically<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span>
+and defines a corporate condition for a fixed community of
+men.</p>
+
+<p>This picture is framed in two great lines of hills roughly
+parallel to each other, and the effect when one comes upon it
+out of the last of the narrow valleys, may be compared to the
+effect upon a child’s mind when he first sees the sea.</p>
+
+<p>In order to perceive the full contrast of this exception in
+the Pyrenean group, it is best to approach it from the west;
+whether you are coming on foot over the foothills of the
+Carlitte groups down on to Mont Louis or Targasonne, or
+whether you are coming by the high road over the pass of
+Porté, there comes a point in your journey where, after so
+many gorges and narrow cliffs, the hills here suddenly cease at
+your feet and you see the whole sweep of the Cerdagne as
+broad as a field of corn; you will have seen nothing like it
+all your way from the first foot hills of the Basque and the
+shores of the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>On the eastern side, beyond the plain, you see the long ridge
+which is among the highest of the Pyrenees, and which stands
+steeply out of the flat. It stretches, as it were, indefinitely
+away into Spain and was called for centuries by the Mohammedans,
+and still is, the Sierra del Cadi. At its feet are a
+group of villages and towns, Saillagouse, Odeillo, Bourg
+Madame, Puigcerdá (with its curious little isolated hill),
+Angoustrine, Palau, Osseja, Nahija, Err, and Caldegas, and
+that fascinating territory Llivia, which stands enclosed,
+making a little island of Spanish territory in the midst of
+French.</p>
+
+<p>The structure of the Cerdagne explains its history. It is
+a slightly sloping shelf upon the Spanish side of the watershed,
+but the watershed here is not as it is everywhere else a steep
+ridge with rocks, it is a large imperceptible flat which, for the
+first few miles upon the northern side, slopes quite gently down
+towards the valley of the Tet, and on the south side slopes
+still more gently and easily away towards Spain. The Segre,
+the last and largest tributary of the Ebro, rises in this gentle
+plain in innumerable rivulets, which joins innumerable other
+rivulets at Llivia, and then receives the river of Val Carol,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span>
+the river of Angoustrine, and the little river of Flavanara below
+Puigcerdá. There is in the whole extent of this plain no
+natural feature to form a frontier, and (as its upper waters
+form the only approach to the province of Roussillon) Mazarin,
+when the treaty of the Pyrenees submitted the Roussillon to
+the French Crown, claimed as a sort of right of way, the upper
+stretch of this wide plain.</p>
+
+<p>The negotiations were not difficult, the frontier was drawn
+just so as to give the French Government everywhere the road
+down the Val Carol and up by Mont Louis to Perpignan. It
+was not the frontier between two civilizations or languages,
+the few square miles of the French Cerdagne, which is
+geographically Spanish, are Spanish also, Catalan Spanish,
+in customs, hours, architecture, and even cooking. It is
+Spanish in everything save the functions of government;
+and here you see just what differences government can and
+cannot make in a country-side. Government, where it exists
+against the will of the governed, effects nothing; but here
+there is no such friction, and you may compare the contented
+Cerdagne, which takes its orders from Paris, with the contented
+Cerdagne that takes them from Barcelona and Madrid.
+The subtle effect of the contrast is sufficiently striking; it
+is seen in the type of roadway, the paving of courtyards, in
+clocks that keep time upon one side and not upon the other,
+and in a certain hardness, which French assurance breeds,
+and which the Spanish ease avoids. It is a good plan as one
+enters the Cerdagne to take the by-road which leads straight
+across the plain from Urgel to Saillagouse. This by-road,
+when you have pursued it for about a mile, enters the isolated
+Spanish district of Llivia, and when you reach that town you
+find yourself in Spain, although all the villages round you in a
+circle are French villages. You have the Spanish delay, the
+Spanish tenacity, and the Spanish disorder. On coming out
+of it again, and immediately over the stream on the first
+village, the influence of the distant prefecture and of a strong
+hand upon the local community is apparent.</p>
+
+<p>The Cerdagne has one bad drawback that, for all its beauty
+and wealth, its entertainment is bad. There is not, I think,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span>
+one good inn in the whole of it, and at Saillagouse, where the
+exterior looks most promising, the people are so hard-hearted
+that there is no comfort to be found under their roofs. If you
+are thinking of food, the best place perhaps for your head-quarters
+is the little village of La Tour Carol. But if you are
+thinking of sights, your best head-quarters is the town of Puigcerdá,
+just beyond the Spanish frontier, 3 miles or so from
+Latour.</p>
+
+<p>Puigcerdá is the capital of the Cerdagne, and there the
+people gather as to a fair. It was the capital of the Cerdagne
+long before the people knew or cared whether they were
+governed from the north or from the south. One and a half
+miles away, over the river in French territory, the tiny hamlet
+of Hix marks the place where the old capital was before Puigcerdá
+was founded and ousted it in the early Middle Ages.
+From many points in Puigcerdá, from the terrace in front of
+the Town Hall, from the northern end of one of its streets,
+but especially from its church tower, you take in one view
+the whole of the Cerdagne. As one gazes upon that view,
+one should remember that this was the principal highway of
+organized Christendom against the Mohammedan, and through
+this went Charlemagne and his son.</p>
+
+<p>The Carolingian tradition is nowhere stronger, strong as it
+is throughout the Pyrenees, than in this fruitful plain. The
+very mountains perpetuate it with the name Carlitte, and
+the valley of Carol and the popular songs perpetuate it also.
+It was this broad floor, full of provisions and free from ambuscade
+that allowed Christendom to dominate Catalonia, and
+render free the country of Barcelona, first of all Spanish territory,
+from the weight of unchristian government. It is the
+Cerdagne, therefore, to which we owe the later segregation of
+the Catalonians from the rest of Spain, their forgetfulness of
+warfare, their active commercial unrest, their modern submission
+to Jews, their great wealth. The Cerdagne should
+possess a great road throughout, for it is all of one type and
+all of one valley. By some historical accident it is not yet
+(I believe) so served throughout. After Puigcerdá there
+is a good new road all the way to Urgel. Another from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span>
+Puigcerdá turns out of the valley of the Segre and runs off
+south and east to Barcelona. Certainly Urgel—that town
+we spoke of in connexion with Andorra—every one travelling
+in this part should see: Seo, the “Bishopric,” the “See”;
+a sort of Bastion first thrown out against the Mohammedans
+by Charlemagne. It is more intensely Spanish perhaps
+than any other large town in these hills, and that
+because it has long been so thoroughly cut off from communication
+with the north. Here also you can find good
+hospitality. The people are kind, and local travellers are
+common. Urgel is, however, more easily approached from
+Andorra than from Puigcerdá. And upon that account I
+dealt with it in connexion with the little republic.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="map08" style="max-width: 56.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map08.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE CERDAGNE</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="VI_VII">VII. <span class="smcap">The Tet and Ariège</span></h3>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp64" id="illus27" style="max-width: 18.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus27.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The valley of the Ariège is a basis
+for going either southward into Andorra
+by the tributary valley of the
+Aston or westward into Roussillon
+around the flanks of the Carlitte.
+Of the former journey
+I have spoken in connexion
+with Catalonia. The latter
+takes one into the valley of the
+Tet, and so to the Canigou which
+is the principal mountain of that
+valley. The high road up the Ariège
+and over the Puymorens Pass into
+the Cerdagne and so into the
+Roussillon does not concern us here. It is designed for travel
+upon wheels. For going on foot the district is concerned with
+the Carlitte and the Canigou.</p>
+
+<p>If one means to spend some time in the big group of the
+Carlitte, one’s head-quarters must be Porté, the little village
+just over the Puymorens Pass. It is from here that the ascent
+of the highest peak is made and from here the fishermen start
+for the lakes that surround that peak. If, then, one proposes
+to spend some days camping in the mountain and going
+nowhere in particular, it is from Porté that one must start,
+as the nearest point to the summits. On the other hand,
+nothing can be bought at Porté nor for miles around, and if
+one ascends the mountain from Ax, though the distance is
+greater, one is more in touch with provisions.</p>
+
+<p>The Carlitte group is remarkable for the number of lakes,
+some quite large, which are to be found in the hollows just
+under its highest ridges. On the north is the large Lake of
+Noguille with the two little tarns of Rou and Torte just above<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span>
+it on one side; on the other, two little tarns lie under the
+Pic d’Ariel. The main lake is 6000 feet above the sea, not
+far short of a mile long, 500 or 600 yards across, and very little
+visited. On the south of the highest ridge and to the east of
+the summit of the Carlitte, just above Porté, lies the still
+larger lake of Lamoux. A good mile and a half in length,
+but narrower than its twin upon the north. Besides these
+two is the little group of lakes at the source of the Tet, another
+group at the sources of the Ariège, and another of half a dozen
+and more just under the eastern cliffs of the Carlitte which
+feed the big marsh of the Puillouse.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately all this district, which is so wild and open for
+travel, and so full of good fishing, has but few camping
+grounds. The forest on the east of the Carlitte is one of the
+largest in the Pyrenees, and one may camp anywhere within
+it; but for a lake as well as wood one can find but four spots:
+one, the Camporeils; the other, the little pond just above
+Langles; the third, a whole group of lakes a mile south and
+a little west of the marsh of Puillouse. It is by these last that
+one will do well to camp if one is making one’s way over the
+mountain eastward to Mont Louis, for they are within 5 miles
+of that town, and just beyond it is the valley of the Tet.
+The best camping ground in the neighbourhood of Ax is the
+fourth spot, at the northern end of the lake of Noguille. Here
+the lake, the stream flowing from it, and the wood are all close
+together and as good a camping ground as any in these mountains
+can be chosen. The way to reach this is to leave Ax
+by the western road which branches off from the great national
+road and runs up the valley of the Oriège to Orgeix. Beyond
+this little village of Orgeix is another little village, Orleu, and
+beyond that again at the head of the high road and not quite
+5 miles from Ax is the point where you must turn off for the
+lake. It is not easy to find because the whole distance is very
+similar for miles. I will describe the way as best I can.</p>
+
+<p>After the road leaves Orleu you have upon the left very
+precipitous steeps, rising to a height of some 6000 feet (or
+more than 3000 above the dale) covered with a forest which
+comes down very nearly to the road. On the right is a stream,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span>
+and beyond it another belt of wood, less steep, with bare and
+high rocks above. Somewhat over an English mile, from the
+Church of Orleu, a path leaves the road to the right and crosses
+the stream, taking its way upwards through the opposing
+wood; this path will lead you to the lake, but it is not the
+best way. The best way is to go on further, somewhat over
+half a mile to a group of huts called “The Forges.” Here you
+will see on the other side of the stream a valley running
+towards you from the mountain and coming from due south
+as you look up it. The valley, or rather ravine, is that of
+the torrent called Gnoles, and this is the gully you must follow.
+It falls into the Oriège just by the forges. You must go some
+yards beyond this junction of the streams and a path will be
+seen going right off at a right angle to the road and making for
+the gulley opposite. It crosses the Oriège at once, crosses
+the torrent almost immediately after, climbs up the steep on
+its left bank, crosses again on its right bank, and thence keeps
+on due south between the rocks and the stream, through the
+wood, until, at a point the height of which I cannot discover
+but well over 2000 feet above the road, it comes out suddenly
+upon the lake.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the best camping ground within a reasonable
+distance of provisions and succour, and yet quite remote
+enough for a hermit. Here with the aid of the 1/100,000 map, one
+may wander and take one’s luck in the whole of this district
+of high peaks, rocks, and tarns, which stretch every way for
+8 or 10 miles around.</p>
+
+<p>If one’s object is to make one’s way into the valley of the
+Tet, instead of spending one’s time in the mountains, the
+direction is straight and the way apparently easy, but it contains
+one difficult passage.</p>
+
+<p>Your business is to make from Ax to the village of Formiguères,
+which is politically in the Roussillon, and lies south-east
+by a trifle east from Ax, and, as the crow flies, barely more
+than 15 miles away. You will, however, hardly get there
+under 20 miles of going, and it is unlikely that you will do it
+in one day.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of the road is plain enough. You follow up<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span>
+the valley of the Oriège, as though you were going to the lake
+of which I have spoken, but instead of crossing over at the
+forges and going south towards the lake, you go straight on up
+the valley. Your path is not always distinct, but your main
+direction is to stick to the Oriège as it gets smaller and smaller
+in the high valley, and to look out for a path which runs along
+that stream on its left or southern bank.</p>
+
+<p>For about 4 miles from the Forges you continue climbing
+up the high valley of the Oriège, which is wooded upon either
+slope, until you come to a place where the wood recedes upon
+either side (though there is wood in front of you), and the path
+crosses the torrent to the opposite or right bank. It is here
+that the difficulty of the way begins.</p>
+
+<p>The path, you will notice by your compass, is at this point
+going due south, for the Oriège has curled round in that direction.
+Five hundred yards in front of you is a wood for which
+it makes. Now, if you were to pursue the path through that
+wood you would go clean out of your way, and either get
+tangled up in the rocks that overhang the sources of the Oriège,
+or get down into the marshy sources of the Tet. Neither of
+these districts are what you want. When you get to the edge
+of the wood, which, as I say, is about 500 yards from the point
+where the path crosses the stream, you must turn sharp to your
+left and go due east up a little watercourse, which here runs
+down beside the trees. As you do this facing due east, and
+looking up this watercourse you will see before you a ridge
+like any other of the Pyrenees, with peaks upon it. This ridge
+is the watershed between the County of Foix and the
+Roussillon, and is to-day the frontier of the department of
+the Eastern Pyrenees, which is the modern representative of
+that ancient province. The ridge is plain enough, but to cross
+it is not so simple a task as it looks. You must not attempt
+to go across it by the depression which lies immediately before
+you between two peaks. It <i>can</i> be done, but the chances are
+you will lose your way in the great forest upon the further side.
+The right way is to go on due eastward up the stream until
+you are right under the ridge, from which point you must bear
+to your left up the bank which encloses the gully upon that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span>
+northern side. You will notice two peaks of rock at the point
+where this bank branches from the main ridge. You must
+so bear up that you leave them both to your right, and turning
+round the base of that one which lies furthest west of the
+two, you will see (when you are round the base and over the
+bank) a saddle just east of you and about 600 or 700 feet below
+the rocky peaks in question. This is the <i>Porteille</i>; you will
+go across it, come into the dense wood on the other side, and
+there the path follows running water all the way throughout
+what soon becomes a profound gorge, until you reach open
+country and a few small buildings 3 miles further down;
+though the open country, it is true, is only a small stretch of
+meadow between the wood and the river (a stream called the
+Galbe). The way is clear between the wood and stream for 2
+miles more to the hamlet of Espousouille. There you must
+leave your path and take one which branches straight off to
+the right, goes down to the stream, crosses it, rises through the
+wood beyond, and in less than a mile from Espousouille,
+brings you into the considerable village of Formiguères.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that you would not easily manage this
+crossing in a day, even in fine weather. The Porteille is over
+7000 feet high, and you may quite possibly lose your way for
+an hour or two in the difficult bit, but luckily there is no difficulty
+about camping. There is good camping ground with
+wood and water in every part of the journey, except the last
+mile of the steep going over the ridge. And you have only to
+choose where you will pass the night.</p>
+
+<p>This is the shortest cut by far from the County of Foix into
+the Roussillon. If you are going down into the Cerdagne a
+great national road takes you from Formiguères to Mont
+Louis, and the distance is about 9 miles, but if you are going
+down into the valley of the Tet in order to climb in the Canigou
+you must make for Olette, for that cuts off a corner. Olette
+is just under 10 miles in a straight line from Formiguères,
+but the county road which joins them has to cross a pass and
+is full of windings, so that the whole distance, even if you take
+short cuts to cut off the long turns, is more like 14 miles. The
+pass, which is nearer 6000 than 7000 feet high, is 1200 feet<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>
+above Formiguères, and stands just opposite that town in full
+view, the summit of it about 2 miles away to the south-east,
+but there is no need to describe the road, as it is an ordinary
+carriageway from the one place to the other. At Olette you
+are on the Tet, about 5 miles from the old rail-head at
+Villefranche (the new rail-head is at Bourg Madame on the
+Frontier).</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="map09" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map09.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE ARIÈGE &amp; TET VALLEYS</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="VI_VIII">VIII. <span class="smcap">The Canigou</span></h3>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp60" id="illus28" style="max-width: 18.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus28.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>The Canigou, whichever way one
+looks at it, is a separate district
+and must be separately approached
+and separately travelled in. It
+stands apart from the rest of the
+range, it has a different character,
+and travel in it is of a different sort
+from other Pyrenean travel. It is
+not only physically cut off from the
+rest of the Pyrenees, indeed, its
+physical isolation has been a good
+deal exaggerated by people who have
+looked up to it from the plain and
+have not carefully noted its plan;
+it is rather morally cut off by the
+way in which it dominates one particular province and one
+famous plain to the exclusion of every other peak; so that
+when you are going through the Roussillon, especially along
+the sea coast, the only thing you can think of is the Canigou,
+which seems to be as much the lonely spirit of the district,
+as Etna does of the sea east of Sicily, or as Vesuvius does of the
+Bay of Naples. It will perhaps sound surprising or unlikely
+to those of my readers who know the Pyrenees, when I say
+that the Canigou is not physically isolated from the chain,
+it is indeed less isolated in its way than is the Pic du Midi de
+Bigorre, or even the Pic du Midi d’Ossau, for it is connected
+with the south by a high ridge which one can hardly ever see
+at full length from the plain, and which is, I think, only clearly
+observable from the frontier heights south of Arles upon the
+Tech. How thorough is the connexion, however, what
+follows will show.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Canigou is somewhat over 9000 feet in height, to be
+accurate 9135, yet it is but the terminal point <i>and not the
+highest point</i> in a long ridge which runs south-westward to the
+frontier at the Roque Couloum. It next forms that frontier
+for 15 or 20 miles, and is then continued past the Port de Col
+Toses into Spain, where it forms the magnificent wall of the
+Sierra del Cadi.</p>
+
+<p>A man without heart or vision would see in the Canigou
+nothing but the last northern point of that long range, but the
+political accident which makes the Roussillon French, the
+cross chain which springs from the Pic de Couloun and runs
+to the Mediterranean, and above all the aspect of the mountains
+from the civilized wealthy plain to the north and east
+(where the connecting ridge cannot be seen), and its false
+appearance of isolation when one observes it from the sea, all
+make of the Canigou one of the most individual mountains in
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>There are, as I have said, many heights in its own ridge,
+further to the south and west, which surpass it. The Donyais
+is within a few feet of it, the Enfer or Gous and the Pic du
+Géant next door, above the valley of the Tet, are higher; the
+Puigmal just on the watershed is much higher. The summit
+of the Canigou is but 1500 or 1600 feet above the crest of the
+ridge in its own immediate neighbourhood, and even the lowest
+point in that ridge (the Col de Boucacers) is not 2000 feet
+below it. Nevertheless, it produces, as I have said, an effect
+of unity and of isolation, and there is not only the illusion
+of its outline as seen from the north and east, but also the fact
+that the mountain spreads out in a fan of ridges from its
+summit to the lowlands all around, and stands upon a broad
+expanded base, more or less circular in shape, spreading from
+the Tech upon the south to the Tet upon the east, north, and
+west.</p>
+
+<p>The Canigou is not a mountain that gives one any climbing
+to speak of, or that affords any problems or difficulties. There
+is even, nowadays, a carriage road most of the way up on the
+northern side, but it is the best place for camping and changing
+camp that you can find anywhere. All the flanks of it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span>
+are covered with a series of dense woods; they form a belt
+2 or 3 miles deep (in places nearly 5) and running almost
+continuously round the whole mountain, a circuit of at least
+30 miles. Your choice for halting and camping places in these
+woods is infinite, there is water everywhere and you are nowhere
+too far from provisions. If you will take the road from
+Villefranche up to Vernet you will, at that village, be near the
+steepest side of the mountain and a wood which everywhere
+affords excellent camping ground. By following up the
+path to Casteil and taking the track which leads south and
+east from that hamlet, you are at the inhabited point nearest
+to its summit, and you have wood and water up to the last
+mile in distance, or the last 2000 feet in height; but remember,
+if you wish to make for the summit by this trail, that you
+must always bear to the right as you walk, choosing always
+the right-hand trail when there is a diversion, and coming
+out on the south side of that ridge which has the summit at
+one end and the Peak de Quazémi at the other. On the open
+part of this steep bit there is a definitely marked path which
+follows the left bank of the stream until it is right under the
+last rocks of the Canigou and then makes straight up by
+zigzags. If you would go the easier way which everybody
+takes, you must start from Prades, which is the town of the
+mountain, and in which anyone will show you the house where
+the local agent of the French Alpine Club is ready with
+information.</p>
+
+<p>Your road goes through Taurinya (or if you start from
+Villefranche, through Fillols), and the new carriage road
+runs up the ridge between the two valleys—the valley of the
+Fillols and the valley of Taurinya—first over open country,
+then through wood until you come to quite the upper part of
+the Taurinya, where the road turns round the steep corner
+overhanging the sources of the torrent. This particular
+wood is called the wood of Balatag, a word that is not so hard
+to pronounce in Catalan as in French, for the Catalans add
+an “e” at the end of it.</p>
+
+<p>The road does not go to the actual summit, but comes out
+on to the shoulder of the mountains, an open space looking<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span>
+to the north, north-west and east, where stands the hotel
+which has been put up by the French Alpine Club. This hotel
+is not quite 2000 feet below the highest summit which lies
+exactly to the south of it. The other summit to the north-east,
+the ridge of which comes round behind the hotel, is the
+Pic Puigdarbet. You must allow five or six hours to get to
+the hotel without haste from the valley of the Tet, and the
+road is somewhat shorter if you start from Villefranche, than
+if you start from Prades, but of the two ways, much the more
+interesting for a man on foot is the old way by Casteil and the
+Brook Cady which I first described. Here you can camp half-way
+up the mountain without fear of disturbance from travellers,
+choosing, for preference, the end of the wood just under
+the summit, and so make that summit at dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Unless you are in a hurry to get on to Perpignan, one of the
+best ways of treating the Canigou is to go across it from the
+valley of the Tet into the valley of the Tech, and from Arles
+on the Tech to take the railway through Ceret and Elne to
+Perpignan.</p>
+
+<p>It is of course a long way round, but it shows you both
+sides of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>You could hardly get right across the main ridge from the
+hotel; but you can take the path that goes round the northern
+flank of the mountain, that is, through the wood that clothes
+the buttresses of the Pic Bargebit, and that comes out in the
+valley of the Dalmanya, a torrent running down north-eastwards
+from the summit. If you are afraid of losing your way
+you can go down into the village of Dalmanya and up thence
+by a clear path from the church of the village to the iron mines
+under the Col de Cirere; from that col there is a very winding
+high road (of which of course you can cut off most of the turnings)
+which gets you down to Corsady and so to Arles. On
+the southern side of the mountain you can go down the path
+which follows the Brook of Cady, and do your best to note the
+Peak of the Thirteen Winds which is the peak precisely due
+south of the main summit and 3000 feet from it at the end of
+the long ridge. When you have made quite certain which is
+the Peak of the Thirteen Winds, cross the brook, and work up<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span>
+if you can to the saddle immediately south-west of it, and
+between it and the Pic de Routat, which is a trifle lower and
+rises a thousand yards to the south-west of the Peak of the
+Thirteen Winds.</p>
+
+<p>This col is called the Portaillet, and the valley on the further
+side is called “The Old or Abandoned Pass.” When you have
+got across you will know why. A wood covers its lower part,
+and a little brook called the Cambret runs through it, but there
+is no regular path, and it is a business to find the first huts,
+which are at an open space upon the stream between it and
+the wood, and quite 4000 feet below the col.</p>
+
+<p>The descent is exceedingly steep, and there I leave it.</p>
+
+<p>From these huts (which are called St. Duillem) is a good
+plain path down to the Tech, and to the little hamlet which
+has the same name as the river (Le Tech) whence the national
+high road takes one in 6 miles to Arles, the more usual crossing
+(which is not really a crossing of the mountains at all, but a
+crossing of the ridge to the south of it) is by the Pla de Guillem,
+so called because it does not go near Guillem, and this way is
+as plain as a pike-staff. You take the road from Villefranche
+to Fuilla, which is not quite 3 miles off, first up the Tet, then
+to the left southwards up a lateral valley, you follow that
+lateral valley and the high road up it from Fuilla to Py, rather
+more than 5 miles on, and southward all the way from Py a
+path goes south-west up the right bank of a torrent which
+comes in there. The track is quite clear and carries you up
+to the sources of the stream, and to the saddle in the final
+ridge which is called the Pla de Guillem. It is a steep climb
+of nearly 4000 in rather more than 4 miles. Py at the junction
+of the streams is just over 3200 feet above the sea. The pass
+is about 7000.</p>
+
+<p>On the further side also the track is quite plain, pointing
+down due south-east through a little wood and then over the
+open country. It takes you down to Prats de Mollo, a jolly
+little town, the last on the great national road and the highest
+in the Tech valley. Above it the national road becomes the
+local road leading to the baths and waters.</p>
+
+<p>So late as the Revolutionary Wars Mollo was of importance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span>
+and may be again, for the Spanish armies could come over
+(but not with guns) from the other Mollo, which lies beyond
+the frontier 7 or 8 miles off south-east, over the Col of Arras.
+Mollo is a little lower than Py, but the descent upon it is far
+less steep than was the ascent upon Py. From Mollo it is
+somewhat more than 10 miles to Arles by the national road
+down the valley.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">The Canigou is so particular a thing that if a man has but
+little time before him, or if he already knows the other Pyrenees—he
+might do worse than go to Perpignan and spend
+a week upon that mountain. It should be remembered that
+you have a better chance of fine weather there than in any
+other part of the Pyrenees, and you will usually have dryer
+days upon the Tech side than upon the Tet side.</p>
+
+<p>With these eight divisions I have roughly covered the chain
+of the Pyrenees for those who may, like myself, think that all
+travel on these mountains should be on foot. It is, of course,
+but a very rough and general survey, but it would give one,
+all taken together, a comprehensive knowledge of the chain.
+My limits have necessarily excluded very many valleys, some
+of which are unknown to me, such as the valley of Isaba.
+Among those which I have not dealt with should be considered
+especially the Ribagorza, which is the boundary between the
+Aragonese and the Catalan tongues, and runs parallel to Pallars
+or the valley of Esterri, and can be reached from the valley
+with some difficulty by Espot and the high Portaron above it,
+or much more easily from Viella in the Val d’Aran, by the high
+Port de Viella, which leads straight into the Ribagorza and
+down to Bono. There are also entrances in and out of Andorra,
+of which I did not speak, notably the Porte Blanche, which
+you make from Porta in the Val Carol, a mile or two south
+of Porté. This way involves two cols, one very high one,
+the Porte Blanche, another lower one immediately after, the
+Port de Vallcivera. It is, however, the shortest way from a
+French high road to Andorra the Old. There is another way
+in and out of Andorra, very little used, by the Col de la Boella
+from Ordino to the Val Farrera. All the Basque valleys<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span>
+besides those I mention, and notably that of the Isaba, are
+places that should be known, and of the passages over the
+range, which I have not dealt with in detail, one, the road from
+St. Girons to Esterri by the Port de Salau, will soon be an
+international highway. It presents no difficulties and no very
+considerable interest. But if the traveller finds himself by
+some accident in St. Girons with but a day or two in which
+to see Spain, here is a very easy way of getting over into
+what is still one of the remotest parts of that country.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="map10" style="max-width: 56.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/map10.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE CANIGOU</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII<br>
+<span class="smaller">INNS OF THE PYRENEES</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowp51" id="illus29" style="max-width: 17.1875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus29.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p>There is nothing more
+necessary to the knowledge
+of a district if one desires to
+enjoy travel in it, than to have some
+directions upon its inns. I cannot pretend
+in what follows to give any complete
+list of the inns which the traveller
+will find in the Pyrenees, but I will try
+to do what the guide-books do not do,
+and that is to indicate what an
+Englishman, especially one
+on foot, may expect in the different
+valleys. The foreign
+guide-books rarely do this well:
+the Scotch and English guide-books
+never; for the general
+phrases which they use about
+inns and hotels leave one as
+full of doubt and terror as though nothing had been
+said about them, and they always fail to speak good or evil
+of the <i>people</i>, the <i>cooking</i>, and <i>the wine</i>—which are the three
+main things one wants to hear about.</p>
+
+<p>First then, as to the difference between the Spanish and the
+French side.</p>
+
+<p>Though the Basques are one race upon either side of the
+frontier, and the Catalans also, yet a single rule governs the
+whole length of the chain, which is that French cooking and
+French hours are to be found to the north of the political
+frontier, and Spanish to the south. This is a matter in which
+the difference of Government has, in the course of some generations<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span>
+of travel, produced a very marked effect. The Val
+d’Aran, for instance, is geographically and racially French.
+Its river is the Upper Garonne, there is no obstacle between it
+and the French plain, but only one good descending road to
+unite them both; yet your experiences of an inn in the Val
+d’Aran will in general resemble your experiences of an inn
+beyond the mountains in the purely Spanish valley of the
+Noguera.</p>
+
+<p>Similarly the neighbourhood of Saillagouse and all the
+French Cerdagne is geographically and racially Spanish, the
+river running through it is the Upper Segre (a tributary of the
+Ebro), and one road with no obstacle at the frontier, unites the
+French to the Spanish portion of the valley, yet the hours,
+habits, cooking, and everything in the inns of the French
+Cerdagne are French, in those of the Spanish Cerdagne,
+Spanish; and generally you must be prepared, when you
+cross the frontier, for a different kind of hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>The French rule of an inn is probably well known to all who
+will read this. The coffee in the morning, the first meal at or
+a little before mid-day, the second at six or seven at the
+latest, and so forth. In Spain they will give you
+chocolate for your first meal. Your mid-day meal
+will be at the same hour as the French, but your last
+meal much later: eight is a usual hour. In France, if you
+ask for food at an odd time it will be prepared for you; in
+Spain also but only with incredible delays, and you find
+universally upon the southern side of the frontier, this
+difference from the French that the table d’hôte or common
+meal is prepared only for a fixed number of guests. Newcomers,
+even if they reach the place two hours before the hour
+of the supper, have it separately cooked for them, and will
+suffer a corresponding delay. Here is a national custom which
+nothing can change, and which is as old as the hills. It was
+even once universally the habit to have a separate little cooking
+pot for every guest, and in certain inns that habit is still
+continued. It is in the last degree inconvenient, and when
+one has pushed on to the end of some very long day, to shelter
+and food, it is exasperating. One sees the local people who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span>
+have done nothing, eat a hearty meal; and one waits an hour
+or two hours before one is served with a crust. But you can
+no more change it than you can change any other national
+habit, and you must be prepared for it on the Spanish side
+wherever you go. All the details of the cooking are different
+too; notably these: that for some reason or other, the
+Spaniard is careless of his oil, or perhaps prefers oil to have a
+taste of carelessness about it: in places of rancidity. His
+wine is quite different from the wine of the French. It comes
+up to him from the hard plains of the Ebro; it has been kept
+in wine skins and tastes of them. As a rule drink water with,
+or better still after, Spanish wine. The French wine in these
+hills (save in the Roussillon) comes from the plains of the
+Garonne, and has been kept in wood. It has the taste with
+which we are familiar in this country; the Spanish wine has a
+roughness, a strength, and a memory of goat’s skin, with
+which, until he comes to Spain, no northern man can have any
+acquaintance at all.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be imagined that Spanish accommodation is
+cheaper than French; comfort for comfort, it is, if anything,
+a little dearer. But the Pyrenees are cheap everywhere, save
+in one or two watering-places. Nearly every inn upon either
+side, however small, can furnish you with a guide, but not
+every inn with mules, and still less can you depend upon a
+horse or a carriage, even in places which stand upon the few
+great highways. If you must hire mules, you will always be
+able to find one in the village where the inn stands, but, for
+some reason connected with their local economics, the people
+of the inn are sometimes actively opposed and often indifferent
+to your hiring one, and if they tell you that there is no mule
+to be had (which is their way of opposing you) you must then
+saunter out and bargain for one with some rival, but remember
+that you can always get one: all these mountains are covered
+with herds and droves of mules. Yet mules are expensive,
+from 1000 to 2000 francs to buy, or even more; from 30 to 50
+francs per day to hire, with the man who accompanies you.
+Remember also, if you have a choice where to hire, that they
+are better by far upon the Spanish than upon the French side.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span>
+As for horses and carriages, I will, when I speak of particular
+inns, mention the few places where I know they can be hired.</p>
+
+<p>A further difference between the French and Spanish side
+is that, on the whole, an inn upon the Spanish side is less
+likely to be clean. This does not mean that they are generally
+uncleanly, very far from it; the houses of the whole of the
+Basque country on either side are excellently kept, and this
+is generally true of Catalonia also, but the little hamlets, in
+the highest valleys which are doubtful upon both sides, are
+usually worse upon the southern. In every case, of course,
+you must ask the price of rooms, they expect it, and it is best
+to ask the price of meals as well. If you do not bargain in
+this manner, they think of you as of some one who is deliberately
+throwing money away and they very naturally hasten
+to pick it up. I remember one meal in the very unsatisfactory
+town or village of Llavorsi, which was as unsatisfactory as the
+place itself, and for which a violent Catalonian woman would
+have charged us the prices of Paris because we did not bargain
+beforehand, and this, note you, in a place where no one ever
+comes, which is on the road to nowhere, and which does not
+see tourists perhaps, or even travellers, once in six months.</p>
+
+<p>In every valley there is some one inn which, if you are wise,
+you will choose, and which it is worth one’s while modifying
+one’s plans to visit. I will set down those which I know,
+beginning as I have done throughout this book, at the western
+end of the chain, and following it to the east.</p>
+
+<p>In the Baztan, a Basque word for tail, for the valley
+resembles in shape the tail of a rat, though the other <i>Bas</i>tans
+in the Pyrenees, out of the Basque countries, derive their
+name from the Arabic word for garden, Elizondo should be
+your halting-place. Here there are two hotels, one old and
+one new, the old one in the very middle of the town on the
+high road, the new one a little to the north, just off the high
+road. This new hotel is kept by one Jarégui, and in the chief
+feature of all good hotels (I mean the courtesy and zeal of the
+management) it is far the best, not only in Elizondo, but in
+the whole valley. If you should wander on to Pamplona, I
+can give no advice, but it is a large town where a man<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span>
+may have pretty well what he wants according to the price
+he pays. My own experience of it is of lodging in small eating-houses,
+not in a regular hotel, but I understand that the
+Perla and the Europa are the two best hotels, and of these
+two, people, as one travels, single out the Europa. On the
+road from Pamplona to Roncesvalles, there is no good
+stopping-place. At Erro, as I have said above, there is but
+one inn and that a very bad one. Burguete is, however, a
+very pleasant village, and the Hotel des Postes is praised by
+those who have stopped there. Unless one is caught by night,
+or in some other way impeded, it is unwise to eat or to sleep
+at Val Carlos, the contrast between French and Spanish
+methods is nowhere more violent whether in the matter of
+cooking, or of delay, or of wine, or of any other thing, than at
+this corner of the frontier; but it is to be remembered that if
+you need a horse and carriage you can always have it at Val
+Carlos for going on into France, and at St. Jean Pied-de-Port
+you are in the best halting-place for the valley of the Nive
+and the whole Labourd, just as Elizondo is the best halting-place
+for the Baztan. St. Jean Pied-de-Port is large enough
+and frequented enough to have some choice of hotels. You
+had much better go to the best, which is the Central. The
+reason it will be worth your while to do this is, that though it
+is the best hotel in a town to which many rich people come, it
+is as cheap as it is good. It will always have a carriage for you
+if you want it, it has a garage, and it is the best centre from
+which to start upon any of the roads around; and if
+you should be coming from the north and going south there is
+a public service from this hotel through the pass as far as
+Pamplona.</p>
+
+<p>In the next valley, that of the Soule (the river of which is
+the Saison, and the chief town Mauléon) let Tardets be your
+head-quarters. It has one of the most delightful inns in all
+the mountains, remarkable among other things for having
+various names, like a Greek goddess. Sometimes it is called
+the “Voyageurs,” sometimes the “Hotel des Pyrenees,”
+and it is entered under the arcade of the north-west corner of
+the market square. There you may dine in a sort of glass<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span>
+room or terrace overlooking the river, and every one will treat
+you well. It is, I say, one of those places that would make
+one hesitate to go on further into the hills the same day, but
+if one does, one will find the unique inn at St. Engrace, which
+I have already mentioned, one of the best that the smaller
+villages have; it must always be remembered, of course, that
+these upland hamlets give one nothing but their own fare, and
+usually a bedroom that is reached through some other, but
+the beds here are good and the cooking plain. This is the
+first house in the village on the right as you come in, and as
+in Elizondo, Jarégui is the name. Remember that they have
+various sorts of wine, and ask for their best, for even their
+best costs very little, and their worst is not so good. In
+the valley between Tardets and St. Engrace, before you leave
+the main road, you pass by the hotel of Licq, “Hotel des
+Tourists.” Licq itself you leave to the right beyond the river,
+but this hotel is built upon the high road. Here is a good place
+for one meal, though there is no point in sleeping there, yet
+if one is caught by some accident, one will find it comfortable
+enough; a little bothersome in pressing one to take guides.</p>
+
+<p>The next valley, the Val d’Aspe, and its prolongation on the
+Spanish side, the Val d’Aragon, contain many inns, the more
+important of which should be known before one approaches
+them.</p>
+
+<p>In Oloron itself, there are two good hotels of which the
+Voyageurs is perhaps the best, and there is, of course, every
+opportunity, in such a town, of hiring horses and carriages.
+There is also, it must be remembered, a public service
+twice a day up the pass as far as Urdos, not expensive
+but very slow: no rail yet. It will be possible also at
+Oloron to hire a pair of horses and a carriage if one wants
+one for several days to go into Spain and back by way of the
+Val d’Assau.</p>
+
+<p>There is no occasion to stop, whatever be your mode of
+travel, between Oloron and Bédous, but should you take up
+your head-quarters at Bédous (which, it will be remembered,
+is in the midst of the enclosed plain which characterizes this
+valley), make the Hotel de la Paix your head-quarters. You<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span>
+will be best treated there, and it is the best centre for information
+upon the surrounding mountains. Accous is slightly
+larger than Bédous, but it is off the road and therefore less
+used to travellers; also it is less comfortable. So if you stop
+in this plain at all, stop at Bédous.</p>
+
+<p>Your next point will be Urdos, there is nothing of consequence
+between.</p>
+
+<p>Urdos, having been, for so many centuries between Roman
+civilization and our own, the end of the proper road over this
+chief pass and the jumping-off place for the mule tracks and
+for Spain, has many inns for its size—(it is no more than a
+hamlet)—but of these I will unhesitatingly recommend the
+<i>Voyageurs</i>, which is one of the last houses on the left of the
+village, having at the south end of it over the road a jolly little
+terrace where one dines. The drawback of Urdos is that one
+<i>may</i> get bitten, and speaking of this the sovereign remedy is
+camphor, or rather I should say, the sovereign preventive,
+for all animals that bite hate the smell of camphor. But
+for that little drawback, Urdos is delightful and nothing is
+pleasanter in Urdos than the Hotel de Voyageurs, also if you
+go to this hotel you are following the line of least resistance,
+for it is in some mysterious way related to the man who drives
+the coach. Remember that Urdos is accustomed to every
+form of halt, and though it is difficult to buy things there,
+there is a barn for motors—and also, I believe, relays of horses
+for carriages.</p>
+
+<p>Your next village on this main international road is Canfranc
+in Spain. It is just over 14 miles off with nothing but a refuge
+and the pass of the Somport between. The hotel is the Hotel
+Sisas, from which a public coach starts for Jaca daily,
+still, I believe; the cooking is doubtful, the wine so-so, and
+the people are a little spoilt, but they are very ready with
+horses and used to hiring them, and you can always hire a
+carriage or get a relay for Jaca, which is 16 miles further down
+by a road with no steep hills, and for the most part nearly
+flat. At Jaca the hotel (which I have already spoken of) is
+the Hotel Mur; it is excellent in every way, clean, cheerful,
+and not too simple in its customs, with various wines, and a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span>
+knowledge of more than the Castilian tongue. The mention of
+this leads me to add to what I said above that the language
+stops very suddenly at this central frontier, or at least south
+of it. There will be people who will understand Spanish
+almost anywhere in Béarn because the local dialects are
+Spanish in character, but the common French of Paris means
+nothing to the people of Aragon and Sobrarbe; you may be
+in quite a big place and find no one for a long time who will
+understand you, while in the small hotels and inns right up
+against the frontier, they do not follow a word of the language.</p>
+
+<p>Of the inns of Biescas I cannot speak from experience, nor
+of those of Panticosa, though they say that the only useful
+one in Biescas is the Hotel Chauces, while Panticosa has any
+number of places with such names as “Continental” and
+“Grand,” and masses of lodgings as well, among which I
+imagine the only choice is to take the best; nothing is really
+dear there, except in the month between the middle of July
+and the middle of August. Of Sallent, however, I can speak.
+There is but one inn in the place; it has many names but is
+best known by the name of the man who owns it, and his name
+is Bergua. It is an astonishing mixture. The owner is
+wealthy and good natured, but you do not hear the truth
+about things for it is coloured by self interest. The place is
+clean, but slow even beyond the ordinary of a Spanish inn.
+The cooking is neither one thing nor another, the wine is not
+bad. It is a place where you may spend one night, but not
+two. You will leave it without enthusiasm, and without
+regret.</p>
+
+<p>Next, following the itineraries I have given, comes Gabas,
+and here is as pleasant an inn as you will find in the whole
+world, it is called the Hotel des Pyrenees, and of the several
+hotels it is the dearest. The family of Baylou keep it and have
+inherited this soil for generations. It is an ancestor of theirs
+that planted the delightful Mail outside and set up the charming
+little fountain there. They are used in this house to every
+sort of gentlemanly habit, they pay no attention to the clothes
+in which one comes, and they understand all those who love
+to wander in the hills. Everything is clean and good about<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span>
+the place, they will give one well-cooked food in many courses
+at any hour. There is but one criticism to make and that is
+in the matter of horses and carriages; these are dear, and the
+good and the bad cost the same money, for there is here a
+monopoly of the valley, and if you do not take their vehicle,
+you must walk to the rail-head, 8 miles lower down. Also if
+for some reason you must drive or get a relay of horses, the
+longer notice you give the better, for there are few animals to
+be had.</p>
+
+<p>Further down the valley is Eaux Chaudes, a dreary place,
+incredible from the fact that it was here that much of the
+Heptameron was written! If a man must stop there, let
+him; of the sad gloomy barracks, take the largest and the
+dearest, which is the Hotel de France. Laruns, at the foot
+of the valley, where again you are unlikely to stop, but where
+you may be caught, has the Hotel des Touristes, where also
+horses and a carriage may be hired, and whence the omnibus
+goes to Eaux Chaudes and to Eaux Bonnes. This last place,
+like Panticosa, is a place one can make no choice in, it is
+crowded with the rich, and where the rich have spoilt
+things, the only rule I know is to plunge and take the dearest—which
+is the Hotel des Princes—if you will not do that you
+must choose for yourself.</p>
+
+<p>The next valley, that of the Gave de Pau, has in it
+four towns, Lourdes, Argelès, Cauterets, and Luz. Lourdes,
+like all cosmopolitan towns, is detestable in its accommodation,
+and to make it the more detestable there is that
+admixture of the supernatural which is invariably accompanied
+by detestable earthly adjuncts. Were it not so the
+world would be perfect: but it is so, and honestly one cannot
+say that any one hotel at Lourdes is better than another,
+only here again if one is compelled to stop for a night, one
+cannot do better than the best which is nominally the Angleterre.
+Avoid the hotels that have Holy names to them, they
+are usually frauds. If you go to Lourdes as a pilgrim, prefer
+the religious houses (which take in travellers). If the Angleterre
+is too dear for you, the Hotel de Toulouse is not to be despised;
+it should take you in at 25 to 35 francs a day. Argelès,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span>
+up the valley, is a very different place, it is a little hurt by
+the neighbourhood of Lourdes, and by the stream of travellers
+who pour up and down its main road to Cauterets and to the
+sights of Gavarnie. Nevertheless it remains a French country
+town, and the fairly dignified capital of a district. The Hotel
+de France is excellent and, by the way (a thing always to be
+mentioned when one is speaking of hotels in the Pyrenees),
+it is ready at any time to furnish horses, and has, of course,
+a garage. At Luz stand two hotels facing each other on either
+side of the road, I cannot remember the names, or rather I
+cannot remember which is which, but anyhow take the one
+on the right of the road as you look up the valley, or as you
+come up from the station, that is, the one upon the western
+side. They are polite, and that makes all the difference
+in one’s relations with people whom one does not often
+meet.</p>
+
+<p>Gavarnie, overrun as it is (and it is hideously overrun), has
+a very tolerable hotel, clean, and not too dear. The reason
+is that the people who come to the place usually go away on
+the same day, and that therefore there is some anxiety to
+please those who stop. Another inn, up under the mountain,
+is not so much to be recommended. Of Cauterets everything
+can be said—and much more—that was said of Eaux Bonnes,
+you are at the mercy of a place which the rich choose to have
+ruined, and apart from their vulgarity you will have that noise
+which accompanies them in all their doings, this sort of place
+in the Pyrenees is luckily not common, and when it is tolerable
+is tolerable in proportion as it is national. Cauterets is
+almost as international as Lourdes, and for anyone using the
+Pyrenees as I use them in this book, it would be madness to
+stop there. Bagnères-de-Bigorre is better, though it is something
+in the same line. It is better because it has something
+of a past and a history, and is, like Argelès, the chief town of
+its district. The Hotel de Paris is the best, but it is very
+expensive, and I believe, though I do not know, that the
+Hotel des Vignes in the Rue de Tarbes is good among the
+moderate places. But the rule holds here, as everywhere,
+that where rich people, especially cosmopolitans, colonials,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span>
+nomads, and the rest, come into a little place, they destroy
+most things except the things that they themselves desire.
+And the things that they themselves desire are execrable to
+the rest of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Arreau, in the next valley, merits a more particular attention.
+It is thoroughly French, and here you will find side by
+side with the expensive places (for even Arreau has its Hotel
+d’Angleterre which, however, to tell the truth, is not ruinous) a
+most delightful little place called the Hotel du Midi, where
+sensible people go. I am speaking on the testimony of others,
+but on good testimony. It is a place smelt out by the infallible
+nose of the French professional class. It has a garage,
+and will tell you where to get carriages, though I believe it
+has nothing but an omnibus of its own. It is—or was—really
+cheap and good. But for some odd reason this
+excellent house charges you extra for your coffee.</p>
+
+<p>Right high up this valley is Vielle where there is one hotel,
+the Hotel Mendielle, this is the one you must ask for if you
+find yourself caught here, and it is just the place at which one
+might be caught if one got into the wrong valley from a col
+in the Sobrarbe, or, if, in coming up the Gave, one had not
+made way enough by night; I know nothing for or against
+this hotel, and I believe it to be the only one. The little
+village of Aragnouet, which is at the very end of the road
+under the last precipices, has an inn of the quality of which I
+know nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The next valley is that of Bagnères-de-Luchon. Now it
+might be imagined, seeing what rich places are in the way of
+hotels, that Bagnères-de-Luchon (being by far the richest
+place in the Pyrenees) would be hopelessly the worst, and that,
+as nothing good could be said about Cauterets, and as there
+was precious little choice in Eaux Bonnes, Luchon would be
+a place to despair of in the matter of hotels, but on the contrary
+it is a place to discuss.</p>
+
+<p>Even if Luchon were as detestable as the Riviera, one would
+have to come to it because it is the knot and reservoir of all
+mountain travel. The valley strikes so deep into the hills,
+brings the railway so near their summits, and is so exactly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span>
+situated at the “fault” spoken of so frequently in this book
+(the break in the Pyrenean line where the landscapes and
+peoples of the chain meet) that it is difficult not to pass
+through Luchon at one time or another during any length of
+days passed in these hills. Even if you make a vow to clear
+Luchon, you may find yourself caught in any one of twenty
+surrounding barbarisms with a bad foot or no money, and
+compelled to set a course for this harbour. Moreover Luchon
+is by no means the vulgar place its riches ought to make it.
+The fashion for it was first made by reasonable people, many
+Spaniards come and help to give the place its tone, and perhaps
+the very extremity of evil corrects itself, and Luchon,
+being so crammed with wealthy people, knows its own vices
+better than places just a little less rich, and it is therefore more
+tolerable. At any rate the problem of sleeping at Luchon is
+easily solved in July and August because all prices are pretty
+much the same, and you cannot depend upon the printed prices
+at all. For pension it is otherwise. There are fixed prices
+and they are not exorbitant for such a place. A very clean,
+decent, rich hotel is the Hotel d’Angleterre, where, if you stop
+some days, they will charge you, I believe, about 40 francs a
+day. There is a place for poorer people called the Hotel de
+l’Europe; all its prices are cheaper, but it has this drawback
+that you get nothing national. It is clean and there is a roof
+over your head, but you get neither French comfort nor French
+discomfort, and you are paying a little less for things a great
+deal worse, notably in the matter of food. The bold who fear
+nothing will go and stop at the village little inn called the
+Golden Lion, which is near the old church and existed before
+wealthy Luchon was born or thought of. Here the bold will
+consort with Muleteers and the populace in some discomfort.
+One of the best uses to which one can put Luchon is to eat in
+it, and for sleeping to go outside and camp in the woods:
+and the best place for the passer-by to eat is the Café Arnative
+on the main street; its cooking is very good indeed, and the
+wine really remarkable; it is such good wine that one wonders
+why they give it away, and every year as one returns to the
+place one fears it may have ceased, but it continues. Speak<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span>
+to the manager in English for he knows and loves that tongue,
+or in Spanish or in French. In the use of the hotels and
+restaurants of Luchon, however—always excepting the Golden
+Lion—remember that they are snobbish about clothes, and
+that even two days in the hills puts you well below the
+standard which they can tolerate. I confess that when I
+have had to use Luchon, I have depended upon clothes which
+were waiting for me at the station; and it is not difficult to
+use Luchon as a sort of half-way house in this matter, leading
+the right life in the western mountains, coming down to
+Luchon to find one’s luggage, dressing up, plunging into
+worldly pleasure at Luchon, sending one’s luggage off again
+to Ax or Perpignan, and then taking to the eastern
+hills for another bout of poverty.</p>
+
+<p>In the Val d’Aran, next to the valley of Luchon, there
+is but one place where one is likely to stay, and that is in the
+town of Viella, which is the capital; for the Val d’Aran is a
+small place, and there is no advantage in stopping anywhere
+else. The Posada Deo is that which I know best and is good
+but of course Spanish; the cooking is a sort of mixture of
+Spanish and French, but the time you have to wait for it and
+in the manner in which it is given you is wholly Spanish. The
+wine also (oddly enough!) is Spanish. It ought, on the
+Garonne, to be of the Garonne, but the customs interfere.</p>
+
+<p>The Catalan valley, south and east of the Val d’Aran, the
+valley of Esterri, has, in that town, a good little hotel, the
+Hotel Pepe. The people are thoroughly Catalan in their
+love of money and therefore you must bargain. Whatever
+you do, do not stop at any of the other places in the valley,
+it is even better to go through a storm than to risk Llavorsi,
+or worse still Escaló, but on the far side of the hill and of the
+port called St. John of the Elms there is a most delicious inn,
+with an old innkeeper of the very best, at Castellbo.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the French side; if you go by train to St.
+Girons you may likely enough change at Boussens, the station
+has not (or had not) any buffet, but there was (and I hope is)
+an hotel opposite it where people travelling by train ate;
+the cooking here is the best in the whole of the Pyrenees, which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span>
+is saying a good deal. At St. Girons itself there is not only
+good cooking, but the wine which Arthur Young admired, and
+which was well worthy of his admiration. Do not go to the
+best hotel (which is the hotel of the Princes and of the Alpine
+Club), but to the next cheapest which is called the Hotel de
+France; at least I have found this last to be excellent and
+cheaper for its quality of food and drink and repose than any
+other in all this chain. These things change quickly, what was
+true so short a time ago may not be true now; but so, at least,
+I found it.</p>
+
+<p>In the valley of the Ariège it is always well to make Ax your
+sleeping-place, for Ax, though there are waters and though
+the baths make the prosperity of the place, is a very pleasant
+little town and the right beginning for the mountains, whether
+you are going by the main road into the Roussillon, or up the
+Ariège in the Carlitte group, or again over the main range into
+Andorra. At Ax there are two rival hotels, the Hotel de
+France, and the Hotel Sicre. The latter is a little cheaper
+though both are cheap, and while I know the second one best
+I should recommend the first; it will take you in as cheaply
+as any, and seems the more carefully kept; both have
+garages. The Hotel Sicre suffers somewhat from being
+directly attached to its Thermal Baths. If you are going to
+explore the wild country of the Upper Aston, you must start
+from Cabanes lower down on the railway. There is no need
+to sleep there. The valley above it has some of the best
+camping places in the Pyrenees. But it is worth knowing the
+name of the hotel, which is “Du Midi.” The whole place
+is, of course, quite small and cheap.</p>
+
+<p>On the high road into Roussillon choose Porté, primitive as
+it is, and avoid <i>Hospitalet</i> (on the hither side of the pass of
+Puymorens) like the plague. Hospitalet and the village just
+before it, Merens, are for some reason or other quite spoilt;
+I fancy tourists come up so far as these two without going
+over the pass which they find too much trouble, and that their
+coming and going has spoilt the two places: at any rate they
+are detestable. They overcharge you and treat you with
+contempt at the same time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span></p>
+
+<p>Porté, though it is but a few miles further on, is quite different.
+Here is one rude inn, as cheap as the grace of God, and
+kept by the most honest people in the world; Michet by name.
+It is thoroughly Spanish in character (for remember that
+Porté, though politically in France, is on the Spanish side
+of the main range, and that the pass just above is on the watershed);
+the animals live on the ground floor, the human beings
+just above them. You will never regret to have slept at
+Porté.</p>
+
+<p>As you go on into the plain of the Cerdagne you will find a
+good inn at La Tour Carol: not exactly enthusiastic in their
+greeting of the traveller, but polite. It is quite a little place
+of only half a thousand inhabitants, and you cannot expect
+much from it, but it is better than Saillagousse where they
+are most unwilling.</p>
+
+<p>Up the road to France from Saillagousse, at Mont Louis, is
+a hotel of which I can speak but little because my own experience
+of it was late on a holiday night when everything was
+very full, but it is substantial, it is cheap and I have heard it
+praised. It is called the Hotel de France, and it is a starting-point
+for the omnibus down to the rail-head at Villefranche in
+the valley above which rise the flanks of the Canigou.</p>
+
+<p>On the Canigou itself, standing upon a platform a few hundred
+feet below the summit facing the Mediterranean and one of
+the greatest views in this world, there is now an inn which you
+must not despise though it does happen to be somewhat
+tourist. It is only open for the end of June, July, August, and
+September, though one can sleep there at other times of the
+year if one asks at Prades for the housekeeper; he comes down
+to that town through the winter and is known there.</p>
+
+<p>In Perpignan (by the way) go to the chief hotel, for
+the hotels of that plain can be very vile when they try. This
+hotel is called “The Grand” and it stands on the quay of the
+smaller river just within the old fortifications. There is a
+delightful little restaurant in Perpignan called the Golden
+Lion, it is well to order what one wants some hours beforehand,
+and to take their own recommendation about wine. Perpignan
+is so twirled and knotted a town that I can give no<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span>
+directions for finding that Golden Lion, where it lies in its
+little back alley called the Rue des Cardeurs, save to tell you
+that it is but 200 yards from your hotel, and that the Rue des
+Cardeurs is the second on the <i>left</i> as you walk away from the
+main front of the cathedral; or again, the <i>first</i> on the left
+after you have crossed the Place Gambetta. Anyhow, Perpignan
+is a small place and anyone will show you where this
+eating-house is, and it is a good one. Down the Cerdagne
+in Spain, at Seo de Urgel, there are two or three hotels, and
+one of the second class called the Posada Universal or
+Universal Inn which merits its name; you will do well to
+stop there for it has a pleasant balcony overlooking the valley,
+with vines trained about it; and the people look after you.</p>
+
+<p>As to the inns of Andorra your best plan is to stop in the
+capital, that is, in <i>Andorra The Old</i> itself, where the Posada is
+called the Posada <i>Calounes</i>, and is quite a little and simple
+place. The entry into Andorra, however, is not always easy.
+If you make it from the north, mist may delay you, even on
+the grassy Embalire Pass, and may keep you for hours on the
+higher crossings of the range, even when it does not defeat
+you altogether. You may therefore have no choice but to
+stop at one of the little villages; but it is a poor fate, for they
+are full of bugs and fleas and appalling cooking, though the
+people are kindly enough. The inn at Encamps is the only
+one with which I am myself acquainted among these smaller
+places; there also it is vile.</p>
+
+<p>I have omitted so far to speak of the inns in the Sobrarbe.
+That of Venasque is the largest and most used to travellers.
+Like all Spanish inns the life of the people is upstairs and the
+life of the animals below. It is clean and seems to be continually
+full of people, for there is quite a traffic to and from this
+mountain town. The inn has no name in particular that I
+know of, but you cannot miss it. Guide books call it “Des
+Touristes,” but I never heard anyone in Venasque give it that
+name. You have but to ask for the Posada, however, and
+anyone will show it you. It is in the first street on the left
+out of the main street as you come into the town. As to the
+cost of it, it is neither cheap nor dear; but (as I have said is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span>
+common to the Spanish inns) it is a little on the side of dearness.
+A friend of mine with three companions and two
+mules found himself let in for over £3 for one night’s hospitality;
+on the other hand, I myself, some years after, with two
+companions, passed two nights and the day between with
+everything that we wanted to eat, smoke, and drink, and we
+came out for under £2. The mules perhaps consume.</p>
+
+<p>In all Sobrarbe there are but the inns of Bielsa and Torla
+(I mean in all the upper valleys which I have described)
+that can be approached without fear, and in Bielsa, as in
+Venasque and in Torla, the little place has but one. At
+Bielsa it is near the bridge and is kept by Pedro Perlos; I
+have not slept in it but I believe it to be clean and good. El
+Plan has a Posada called the Posada of the Sun (<i>del Sol</i>), but
+it is not praised; nay, it is detested by those who speak from
+experience. The inn that stands or stood at the lower part
+of the Val d’Arazas is said to be good; that at Torla is not
+so much an inn as an old chief’s house or manor called that of
+“Viu,” for that is the name of the family that owns it. They
+treat travellers very well.</p>
+
+<p>This is all that I know of the inns of the Pyrenees.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII<br>
+<span class="smaller">THE APPROACHES TO THE PYRENEES</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>A traveller from England, on considering his
+approach to the Pyrenees, must first appreciate the
+road heads or starting-places whence his travels to the
+Pyrenees may be made, and it is convenient to regard that one
+to which access can be had by rail. These points are eleven
+in number—St. Jean Pied-de-Port, Mauléon, Oloron, Laruns,
+Argelès, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Arreau, Bagnères-de-Luchon,
+St. Girons, Foix, and Villefranche, which last is the highest
+point to which the rail will take one from Perpignan.</p>
+
+<p>One can get nearer the main range by light railways in
+certain places. Thus from Mauléon a steam tramway will
+take one some miles nearer the hills, to Tardets. From
+Lourdes the train goes up the valley several miles, and light
+railways go to Cauterets and Luz, and from Foix there is a
+considerable reach of rail, as far as Ax-les-Thermes, all up
+the valley of the Ariège, from which lateral valleys on every
+side enter the high mountains. Nevertheless, if one knows
+how to approach these eleven stations, and something of the
+hours of arriving at them, the slight extensions in the three
+cases named can easily be looked up, and there is no need
+to burden these pages with them.</p>
+
+<p>Of these eleven, the first four, St. Jean Pied-de-Port,
+Mauléon, Oloron, and Laruns, belong to the western section
+of the range, and are approached from Bordeaux. Another
+four, Arreau, Bagnères-de-Luchon, St. Girons, and Foix belong
+to the central and eastern section of the range, and are
+approached by way of Toulouse, while the two intermediate
+ones, Lourdes (and its extension up the valley) and Bagnères-de-Bigorre,
+may, according to the convenience of trains, be
+approached with equal facility from either direction.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span></p>
+
+<p>There remains Villefranche, the chief station under the
+Canigou, and the centre for the extreme eastern end of the
+range. The approach to this short and distant part of the
+Pyrenees is through Perpignan.</p>
+
+<p>By whichever road one approaches the Pyrenees, and from
+whatever town at their base one proposes to make the ascent
+of them, one leaves Paris by the Orleans line, choosing for
+preference the great new station on the Quai-d’Orsay, though
+if one is driving across Paris with no time to spare, it is better
+to catch the train at the Austerlitz station a mile or two
+further down the line where all the expresses stop, as the
+departure from that station is ten minutes later than from
+the Quai-d’Orsay. But the Austerlitz station is old-fashioned;
+all the conveniences of travel are gathered at the
+more recent terminus, and if one has any time to spare it is
+always from the Quai-d’Orsay that one should start.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived whether at Bordeaux or at Toulouse, one changes
+from the Orleans system to the Midi. This is not an absolutely
+accurate way of putting it, because, as a fact, the Orleans
+only enjoys running powers to Toulouse, along the main
+express line, but this is roughly the best way of putting it to
+make the reader understand the way in which the systems
+join.</p>
+
+<p>With these connexions, the first journey is made to
+Bordeaux, to Toulouse (or, in the exceptional case of the
+extreme east end of the Pyrenees, to Perpignan), and the
+journey forward from each of these towns is calculated upon
+another time table, and is often taken on a different train.</p>
+
+<p>To reach St. Jean, one goes on from Bordeaux to Bayonne
+and changes there. To reach Mauléon, one goes on from Bordeaux
+to Puyoo and changes there; to reach Oloron or
+Laruns, one goes on from Bordeaux to Pau and changes
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Roughly speaking, those who want to take the journey
+easily, without night travel, will find it necessary to sleep in
+Paris, to sleep again at Bordeaux (or somewhere further down
+the line, as at Bayonne or at Pau) and only on the third day
+to proceed to the towns from which they will begin to climb,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span>
+whether that town be St. Jean, Mauléon, Oloron, or Laruns.
+For this purpose they must take the morning train which
+leaves Paris (Quai-d’Orsay) at an hour which changes but
+approximates eight to half-past, and gets to Bordeaux well
+before dinner. It is then possible to go on the same evening
+to Bayonne, and, if one goes first class, to get on the same night
+also to Puyoo or to Pau, but in all cases arrival at the foot of
+the mountains will not be possible until the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are content to suffer night travel will find an
+excellent and convenient train leaving Paris in the evening,
+reaching Bordeaux in the early morning, and putting them
+at any one of the mountain towns at, or a little after, noon.
+Thus, a person leaving London upon Saturday morning, will,
+if he travels only by day, reach any one of the western
+approaches to the Pyrenees on the mid-day of Monday, but
+if he will consent to a journey by night, he will save exactly
+twenty-four hours and arrive at noon (or in the early afternoon)
+of Sunday. The gain of twenty-four hours, by an
+apparent sacrifice of only twelve, is due to the nature of the
+connexions between the small mountain lines and the main
+lines. His return tickets, going in the cheapest manner,
+second class from London to the mountains and back will
+vary according to the mountain town chosen, from a little
+under £10 to £12, of which the French second class return
+fare from Paris is about or a little over £4 and the rest second
+return London to Paris and incidental expenses.</p>
+
+<p>The approach to the intermediary towns of Lourdes and
+Bagnères-de-Bigorre, is of the same sort and is usually better
+done through Bordeaux than through Toulouse, but one gets
+in a little later. Unless one takes the early night train from
+Paris just after eight one does not reach Lourdes until the
+late afternoon, nor Bagnères-de-Bigorre until night.</p>
+
+<p>The approach through Toulouse involves a longer train
+journey, and is made both by a night and a day train, as in the
+case of Bordeaux, and from the same station as I have said
+above. You can lunch on the day train, but you cannot
+dine upon it. Sleeping at Toulouse, one goes on next day by a
+morning train, starting a little after nine, and going through<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span>
+Tarbes, will get to Lourdes at about half-past one, or to Bagnères-de-Bigorre
+a few minutes earlier. Similarly, starting
+from Toulouse by the same morning train, one can get to
+Bagnères-de-Luchon just after noon, or to St. Girons at a
+little before one. It will be seen that these arrivals towards
+the centre of the chain are much at the same time as by the
+western approaches through Bordeaux. One gets in towards
+the middle of the third day in either case.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, going through Toulouse resembles the journey
+through Bordeaux; if one undertakes to travel by night,
+one saves time in much the same manner, save that the night
+train is earlier. One must leave Paris about half-past eight
+in the evening, reach Toulouse at much the same hour the
+next morning, and one will find oneself at the foot of the
+Pyrenees about mid-day of the day after leaving London,
+changing at Toulouse for the morning train to Lourdes,
+Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Luchon, St. Girons or Foix, respectively.
+There is, however, an exception to this apparently general
+rule that the shortest journey to the Pyrenees, even if one
+travels by night, must take well over the twenty-four
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>As to the approach from Perpignan, this is useful for that
+little corner of the range which overlooks the Roussillon which
+is less than one-tenth of the total length. Only one important
+height is to be found here, the Canigou. The railway journey
+is very long. If one goes by day, it is imperative that one
+should break it somewhere. It would be more accurate to
+say that one can make it by day only if one breaks it somewhere,
+and if one makes it by night, one must leave Paris in
+the evening in order to get to Perpignan for lunch, or at half-past
+eight to get in at two. It is no way to approach the
+Pyrenees, unless one happens to be taking a journey down
+France for other purposes which will lead him towards the
+districts of Narbonne and Perpignan. It must be noted that
+since the war there is an excellent cross-country train from
+Bordeaux and Toulouse to Narbonne, where change for
+Perpignan.</p>
+
+<p>No other approach to the Pyrenees save these by railway<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span>
+from the north will be of use to most travellers from
+England.</p>
+
+<p>The new, good and fast day train from Toulouse is now
+at eleven in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>The approaches from the south, in the rare case of a traveller
+who may take the Pyrenees on the way back from Spain, are
+all difficult with the exception of the line from Saragossa to
+Jaca. A main line leads of course from the capital to Saragossa,
+there one must cross the Ebro to the station upon the
+northern bank. The train to Jaca goes by Huesca and it
+takes all day, but it is worth doing in order to get within a
+day’s walk of the main range.</p>
+
+<p>From every other centre, except from Pamplona, the
+Pyrenees are hopelessly distant. Seo and the Catalan valleys
+depend upon Barbastro as does the valley of the Cinca in
+Aragon, but it is a most tedious journey in stuffy omnibuses
+followed by an equally tedious day and a half or two days upon
+a mule before you find yourself in the high Pyrenees. Pamplona
+is, roughly speaking, one day’s walk from the heart of
+the mountains, and no other town, excepting Jaca, upon the
+railway on the Spanish side is worth considering as a rail-head.</p>
+
+<p>It should be noted that there is during the summer months
+a motor car service between Pamplona and Jaca, which goes
+along the valley of the Aragon and covers the distance in the
+better part of a day.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li class="ifrst">A</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Accous or Bédous, plain of, <a href="#Page_159">159-160</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Agra, river, mentioned, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">valley of, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aiguestoites, Port de, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Albigenses, crusade against, its meaning and results, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alfonso el Batallador, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Alpargatas">Alpargatas, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alps, contrasted with Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_25">25-26</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Andorra, history and character of, <a href="#Page_192">192-193</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— forms with Catalan valleys a district of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_187">187-198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— how reached from Ariège, <a href="#Page_187">187-193</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— posada of, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Anicle, Col d’, <a href="#Page_171">171-172</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Anie, Pic d’, its position on first axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— boundary of the Basques, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aphours, brook of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aragnouet, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aragon, river, mentioned, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— valley of, easy connexion of, with valley of Gallego, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— kingdom, named after river, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">and Béarn, their position on the range, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aran, Val d’, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Val">Val</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arazas, valley of, <a href="#Page_169">169-170</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">Inn there, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ariège, sources of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— valley of, position of on axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">forms old county of Foix, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">in connexion with that of the Tet, <a href="#Page_204">204-209</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ariel, Pic d’, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arles, on Tech, <a href="#Page_213">213-214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arras, Col d’, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arreau, hotels at, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arrouye, Pic d’, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aspe, Val d’, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aston, upper, adventure of author upon, <a href="#Page_108">108-112</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— river, advantages of district of, <a href="#Page_187">187-188</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ax, way from, to valley of Tet, <a href="#Page_206">206-208</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">hotels and baths of, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">B</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bagnères-de-Bigorre, hotels at, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">de Luchon, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Luchon">Luchon</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Baigorry, valley of, <a href="#Page_145">145-146</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Balatag, wood of, on Canigou, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bambilette, port, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bargebit, Pic de, on Canigou, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Barrosa, stream of, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Barroude, pass of, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Basque, place names found throughout Spain and Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_38">38-39</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Valleys, a district of the Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_145">145-154</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Basques, their position on the range, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">Pic d’Anie, boundary, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— no Roman record of, <a href="#Page_45">45-46</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bathing, dangerous when fatigued, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Batallador, surname of Alfonso, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bayonne, road from, to Pamplona described, <a href="#Page_96">96-99</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span>Béarn and Aragon, their position on the range, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Béarn, Roman name of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">with Navarre and Roussillon, last exceptions to French sovereignty north of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bédous, Hotel de la Poste at, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bédous, hotel of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— or Accous, plan of, <a href="#Page_159">159-160</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Belhay, Port de, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Belver, head of Urgel road, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Benarnensium Civitas</i>, modern Béarn, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bicycling in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_104">104-105</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bielsa, Port de, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— second stage in way from Panticosa to Venasque, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">inn of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Biescas, mentioned as example of a town in a Spanish valley, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bigerriones, original name of inhabitants of Bigorre, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bigorre, originally land of “Bigerriones,” <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">Pic du Midi de, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Pic">Pic</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blankets, <a href="#Page_122">122-123</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Boella, Col de, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bonaigo, Pass of, nature of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bota, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Gourd">Gourd</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Boucacers, Col de, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Boucharo, French name for Bujaruelo, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Boussens, amazing cooking at, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bread, proper rations of, <a href="#Page_125">125-126</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Brèche de Roland, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bujaruelo (Boucharo) in Sobrarbe, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Burguete, hotel at, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">C</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cabanes, use of, as shelter, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— village and station of, starting-point for passes of Peyregrils and Fontargente, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cabillere, Pic de, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cacouette, gorge of, alluded to, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cadi, Sierra del, mentioned, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">aspect from St. Croz, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">aspect of, from Cerdagne, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cady, brook of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cambret, brook of, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Camphor, sovereign against bugs, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Camping, rules for, <a href="#Page_128">128-133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Canal Roya, example of difficulty of finding a col, <a href="#Page_110">110-113</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— valley of, and col, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— entrance to, <a href="#Page_161">161-162</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Canfranc, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">poor hotel of, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Canigou, hotel near summit of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">district of, <a href="#Page_210">210-216</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">peaks of, ways up to, <a href="#Page_211">211-215</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Canillo, village of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Carlitte, group of mountains, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Casteil, hamlet on way up Canigou, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Castellbo, first stage in way from Urgel to Esterri, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">delicious inn of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Catalans, their position on the range, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Catalonia, origins of, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cauterets, hotels of, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cerberus, Cape, eastern limit of second axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cerdagne, political anomaly of, <a href="#Page_57">57-58</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_199">199-203</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">why annexed by Mazarin, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chaitza, stream of, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Christians, reconquest of Spanish slope by, <a href="#Page_50">50-54</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cinca, valley of, with Broto and Esera make up Sobrarbe, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cinqueta, affluent of the Cinca, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cirere, Col de, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Climate of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_33">33-35</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coidenes, bridge of, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Col, or pass, <i>see</i> under particular names</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Comminges, modern name of district of Convenæ, <a href="#Page_43">43-45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Compass, variation of, in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">necessary in equipment, <a href="#Page_127">127-128</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Consevanni, modern Conserans, <a href="#Page_44">44-45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Conserans, Roman “Consevanni,” <a href="#Page_44">44-45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Convenæ, <a href="#Page_43">43-44</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coumette, Pic de la, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cruz, Col de la, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span>Cuberre, bridge of, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">D</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dalmanya, torrent of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">village of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dastan, Val, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Distance, best reckoned in mountains by time, <a href="#Page_76">76-78</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Double Col,” most dangerous example of ambiguity in a pass, <a href="#Page_137">137-140</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Driving in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">E</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Eaux Bonnes, chief hotel of, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Chaudes, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— hotel of, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Elizondo, <a href="#Page_147">147-148</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— hotels of, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Elloronensium Civitas</i>, modern Oloron, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Elne, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">El Plan, posada of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Embalire, pass of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">easiest entry into Andorra, <a href="#Page_191">191-193</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Encamps, village of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">inn of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Equipment, description of necessary, <a href="#Page_115">115-124</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Erro, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— inn at, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Escaló, village of, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Escolier, Pic d’, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Escuain, Col de, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Espousouille, hamlet of, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Esterri, hotel of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— mentioned as example of a town in a Spanish valley, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">way to, from Urge, <a href="#Page_194">194-198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Europe, grouping of peoples unchanged in, during recorded history, <a href="#Page_1">1-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">F</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fillols, on way up Canigou from Villefranche, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Foix, county of, identical with valley of Ariège, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fontargente, tarn of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— pass of, into Andorra, <a href="#Page_190">190-191</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Forata, Peña, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Formiguères, village of, on way from Ax to Tet valley, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">French measurements, English equivalents, <a href="#Page_74">74-77</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— slope of Pyrenees, formation of, <a href="#Page_10">10-12</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">names and character of valleys on, <a href="#Page_10">10-15</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">multiplicity of roads on, <a href="#Page_79">79-82</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Frontier, political, its present connexion with watershed, <a href="#Page_54">54-58</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">G</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gabas, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— excellent hotel of, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gabediou, Pic de, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Galbe, stream of, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gallego, valley of, position of, on axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— valley of, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— valley of, easy connexion of, with valley of Aragon, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gari, valley of, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Garonne, curious source of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gas, Pic du Col de, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gascon, name of, supposed to be Basque, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gaulis, Col de, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gavarnie, example of a high-valley village, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">town of, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Port de, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Cirque de, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gerbats, Pic de, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gistain, Col de, <a href="#Page_175">175-176</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Glacé, lake, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Glaciers, absence of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gnoles, torrent of, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Gourd">Gourd, or bota, description of, <a href="#Page_117">117-120</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">H</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hayra, forest of, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Heas, stream and village of, <a href="#Page_181">181-182</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span>Heights and distances, French, way of turning into English feet and miles, <a href="#Page_74">74-77</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Helena, original name of Elne, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Henry IV and Mazarin complete French sovereignty north of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hix, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hospitalet, of Ariège, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">of Luchon, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Huesca, Sancho’s attempt on, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">road to, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">I</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Illiberis, old name for Elne, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Inns, of the Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_217">217-233</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">Spanish and French, contrasted, <a href="#Page_218">218-233</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Iraty, Spanish valley, head-waters in France, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Isaba, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ispeguy, pass of, between Baigorry and Baztan, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">J</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jaca, mentioned as example of town in Spanish valley, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">one of three mountain bishoprics on Spanish slope, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">counted as French during Mahommedan occupation, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">early independence of, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">excellent hotel of, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Jasses,” nature of these flats, <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Jeous,” local name, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">K</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Kilometre, estimate of, by time, <a href="#Page_141">141-142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Knapsack, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Pack">Pack</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">L</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Labourd, valley of, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lakes, character of, in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">of Maladetta, Encantados, etc., <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lakes of the Carlitte, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lamoux, lake of, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Larrasoaña, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Larrau, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Laruns, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">hotel of, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">La Tour Carol, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">inn of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Laurhibar, village of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">stream and village of, <a href="#Page_149">149-150</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lecumberry, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Le Tech, hamlet of, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">L’Homme, Pic de, western limit of second axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Licq, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Llavorsi, village of, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Llivia, <a href="#Page_200">200-201</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lourdes, hotels of, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Luchon">Luchon, valley of, with valleys of Tarbes, makes separate district in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_179">179-186</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— hot springs of, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— way to Venasque from, by Port d’Oo, <a href="#Page_185">185-186</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— valley and district of, <a href="#Page_182">182-186</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">road to, from Val d’Aran, <a href="#Page_197">197-198</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">wealth and hotels of, <a href="#Page_228">228-229</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lys, valley of, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">M</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Magdalena, river of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maggi, provision of, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">method of using, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maladetta, view of, from Port de Venasque, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Maps, for the range, <a href="#Page_59">59-78</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marignac, forest of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mauléon, capital of the Soule, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mazarin annexes Roussillon to France, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— annexes Cerdagne, <a href="#Page_56">56-58</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mediterranean, civilization of, in connexion with Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_42">42-43</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Merens, example of a high-valley village, <a href="#Page_17">17-18</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Metres and kilometres, way of reducing to feet and miles, <a href="#Page_74">74-76</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Midi, Pic du, d’Ossau, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">de Bigorre, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span>Moines, Col des, <a href="#Page_157">157-161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mollo, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Prats">Prats</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Monsech, Sierra of, distance of, from main range, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mont Louis, pass of, mentioned, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">hotel of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Motoring in Pyrenees, by the “lower road,” <a href="#Page_84">84-87</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">by the “upper road,” <a href="#Page_86">86-93</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">across the range, <a href="#Page_93">93-99</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">from Pamplona to Jaca, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">to Saragossa, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Mountain">Mountain, ranges of, often regarded too simply, <a href="#Page_2">2-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mules, not always obtainable in inns, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">N</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Names, fantastic, of Pyrenees mountains, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Napoleon III, makes Somport road from Urdos, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Navarre with Béarn and Roussillon, the last exceptions to French sovereignty north of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Navas de Tolosa, battle of, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Nive, French river, rises in Spain, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Noguera Pallaresa, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Noguille, lake of, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Novempopulania, Roman district north of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_41">41-45</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">O</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Olette, town of, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Oloron, Roman name of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">main road from, to Saragossa, described, <a href="#Page_93">93-96</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">hotels at, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Oo, Port d’, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ordino, town of, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Orgeix, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Oriège, valley of, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Orleu, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Oroel, Peña d’, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ossau, Val d’, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">Pic du Midi de, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Pic">Pic</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Otxogorrigagne, Mount, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Ourdayte">Ourdayte, or “Urdayte,” Port d’, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ourdissettou, Pic d’, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">P</li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Pack">Pack, type of, in equipment, <a href="#Page_121">121-122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pallars, name of Esterri valley, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pamplona, Roman bishopric on Spanish slope, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">road to, from Bayonne described, <a href="#Page_96">96-99</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">hotels of, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pannikin, description of, <a href="#Page_115">115-116</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Panticosa, way to Venasque from, through Sobrarbe, <a href="#Page_167">167-178</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">numerous hotels of, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Passes over Pyrenees, nature of, <a href="#Page_27">27-32</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Path, importance of faint indications, so called, in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_113">113-115</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pau, Gave de, valley of, position of, on axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pelayo, heads the Reconquista, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Peña, Sierra de la, mentioned, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Perpignan, hotel and restaurant of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Peyregrils, pass of, into Andorra, <a href="#Page_188">188-190</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Pic">Pic du Midi d’Ossau, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">approach from Gabas, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— de Bigorre, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pinède, cliffs of, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pique, river of, in Luchon valley, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pla de Guillem, pass of, in Canigou, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Place names, Basque, in Spain and Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_38">38-39</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Plan, El, village of, <a href="#Page_177">177-178</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Plans,” larger form of Jasses, <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Port Vendres, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Portaillet, Col of, on shoulder of Canigou, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Porte Blanche, pass of, into Andorra, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Porté, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">inn of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Porteille, notch between county of Foix and Roussillon, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span>“Ports,” or passes, over Pyrenees, nature of, <a href="#Page_26">26-30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Posets, Pic de, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pourtalet, pass of, mentioned, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">modern road over, <a href="#Page_163">163-164</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Prades, town of, way up Canigou from, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Prats">Prats de Mollo, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Puigcerdá, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Puigdarbet, peak of, on Canigou, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Puillouse, marsh of, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Puymorens, Col de, limit of the Catalans, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— pass of, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Py, on Canigou, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pyrenees, physical nature of, <a href="#Page_1">1-35</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">double axis of, <a href="#Page_3">3-8</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">length of chain, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">original formation of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">contrast of northern and southern slope of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">climate of, <a href="#Page_33">33-35</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">political character of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, etc.;</li>
+<li class="isub1">form the bastion against Islam, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Treaty of, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Q</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Quazémi peak of, on Canigou, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">R</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Railways, start far from main range on Spanish side, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rain, distribution of, in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_33">33-35</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ranges, mountain, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Mountain">Mountain</a>”;</li>
+<li class="isub1">secondary, perpendicular to main range on northern, parallel to it on southern slope, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Reconquista, <a href="#Page_50">50-54</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rialb, stream of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rivers, shape of their course on Spanish slope, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Roman advance on Spanish slope, <a href="#Page_45">45-47</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Romans, make watershed of Pyrenees a boundary, <a href="#Page_40">40-41</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">their advance north of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_41">41-45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Roncesvalles, pass of, mentioned, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">high road through, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">road to, from Pamplona, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Roque Couloum, mountain, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Roscino, gives name to Roussillon, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rou, tarn of, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Roussillon, formed round valley of Tet, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">with Navarre and Béarn, last exception to French sovereignty north of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">S</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sabouredo, Pic de, eastern limits of first axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sahun, Col de, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Saillagousse, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">a place to avoid, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Bertrand de Comminges, origin of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Croz, village of, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Duillem, huts of, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ste. Engrace, <a href="#Page_151">151-153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Port de, position of, on axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">passage of, <a href="#Page_152">152-153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— inn at, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Etienne, in Baigorry, <a href="#Page_146">146-147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Girons, hotel of, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Jean le Vieux, site of Roman town, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Jean Pied de Port, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">road from, to Soule, <a href="#Page_148">148-151</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">hotels at, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Jerome, his story of Convenæ, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. John, Port of, <a href="#Page_195">195-196</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">St. Lizier, originally Glycerius, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Salau, pass of, distance of, from plains, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Port of, mentioned, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Saldeu, pass and hamlet of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Salinas de Sin, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sallent, way to, from, Urdos, <a href="#Page_161">161-163</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sallent, character of inn of, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Port Vieux de, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Salpichon, value of, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sancho, killed before Huesca, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span>Sandales, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Alpargatas">Alpargatas</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sarabillo, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Saragossa, the main road over Pyrenees to, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sauvegarde, Pic de, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Schrader, his map of central Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-74</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Secondary ranges, perpendicular to main range on northern side, parallel to it on the southern, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sentina, torrent of, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Serrat, village of, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Snow, perennial, absence of in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sobrarbe, name of Eastern Aragon, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">district in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_167">167-178</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Socks, folly of wearing, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Somport, pass so called, position of, on axis of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">nature of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">main road over, from Oloron to Saragossa, described, <a href="#Page_92">92-95</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Soulauet, tarn of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Soule, district in Basque valleys, <a href="#Page_148">148-154</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— road from St. Jean de Port to, <a href="#Page_148">148-151</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Souscousse, woods of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sousquéou, valley of, <a href="#Page_164">164-165</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spanish government, contrast of, with French, in Cerdagne, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spanish slope of Pyrenees, formation of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">type of valleys in, <a href="#Page_18">18-24</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">Roman conquest of, <a href="#Page_45">45-47</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">reconquest of, by Christians, <a href="#Page_50">50-54</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">absence of roads on, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">unmapped, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">partially given in French maps, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spates, rare in Pyrenean streams, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spirits of wine, necessity of, <a href="#Page_126">126-127</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Streams, Pyrenean, spates rare in, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">T</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tarbelli, Roman name for people of Dax, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tarbes, originally Turba, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">valleys of, and Luchon, district in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_179">179-186</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">hotel at, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tardets, central town of the Soule, <a href="#Page_150">150-151</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">admirable hotel at, <a href="#Page_221">221-222</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Taurinya, on way up Canigou from Prades, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tech, valley of, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tent, folly of carrying one, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tet, valley of, forms core of Roussillon, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— valley of, with that of Ariège, makes a district in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_204">204-209</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thirteen Winds, peak of, on Canigou, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tigra, forest of, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Time, distance in mountains best reckoned by, <a href="#Page_77">77-78</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Torla, with Bielsa and Venasque, chief centres of Sobrarbe, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">first stage in way from Panticosa to Venasque, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">curious inn at, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Toro, Trou de, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Torte, tarn of, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Towns, nature of Pyrenean, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Trainzaygues, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Treaty of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Troumouse, Cirque, <a href="#Page_181">181-182</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Turba, old name of Tarbes, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Turmo, Cabane of, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">U</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Urdayte, or “Ourdayte,” port of, <i>see</i> “<a href="#Ourdayte">Ourdayte</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Urdos, example of a high-valley village, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">travel through, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Urgel (Seo de), Roman bishopric on Spanish slope, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">bishopric of, counted as French during Mahommedan occupation, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">appearance of, <a href="#Page_193">193-194</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">way from, to Esterri and Val d’Aran, <a href="#Page_194">194-198</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span>hotel at, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Urtioga, Mount, western limit of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">in Basque valleys, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">V</li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Val">Val d’Aran, political anomaly of, <a href="#Page_56">56-57</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">way to, from Urgel through Esterri, <a href="#Page_194">194-198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Val Carlos, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">accommodation at, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Vallcivera, Port de, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Valleys, nature of, on French slope, <a href="#Page_15">15-18</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">eight, on western French slope, <a href="#Page_12">12-15</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">two (Ariège and Tet) on eastern French slope, <a href="#Page_14">14-15</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">on Spanish slope, nature of, <a href="#Page_18">18-24</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— the Four, district of Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_155">155-166</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">strategical importance of, <a href="#Page_155">155-156</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Valley, “wrong,” <i>see</i> “<a href="#Wrong_valley">Wrong valley</a>”</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Venasque, mentioned as example of a town in a Spanish valley, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">way to, from Panticosa, through Sobrarbe, <a href="#Page_168">168-178</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">alternative southern way to, from Bielsa, <a href="#Page_177">177-178</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">way to, from Luchon by Port d’Oo, <a href="#Page_185">185-186</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">posada of, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">— Port de, mentioned, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184-185</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Vernet, on way up Canigou, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Viella, in Val d’Aran, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">road from, to Luchon, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">hotels of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Vielle, hotel at, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Villefranche, town of, rail-head in Tet valley, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Vultures, Peak of the, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">W</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Watershed, forms political boundary during periods of high civilization, <a href="#Page_40">40-41</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Weather, peculiar difficulty of main ridge in doubtful, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wine, Spanish, taste of, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wood, rarely found near lake in Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li>
+<li class="isub1">effect of, on streams, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Wrong_valley">“Wrong valley,” types of danger of getting into, <a href="#Page_133">133-140</a></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Printed by Jarrold &amp; Sons, Ltd., Norwich</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="METHUENS_GENERAL_LITERATURE">METHUEN’S GENERAL LITERATURE</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp64" style="max-width: 9.375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/methuen.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<h3>A SELECTION OF<br>
+<span class="smcap">Messrs. Methuen’s</span><br>
+PUBLICATIONS</h3>
+
+<p>This Catalogue contains only a selection of the more important
+books published by Messrs. Methuen. A complete catalogue of
+their publications may be obtained on application.</p>
+
+<h4>PART I. GENERAL LITERATURE</h4>
+
+<p><b>Ashby (Thomas)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Some Italian Festivals.</span> With 24
+Illustrations. <i>Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Bain (F. W.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Digit of the Moon.</span> <span class="smcap">The Descent
+of the Sun.</span> <span class="smcap">A Heifer of the Dawn.</span>
+<span class="smcap">In the Great God’s Hair.</span> <span class="smcap">A
+Draught of the Blue.</span> <span class="smcap">An Essence
+of the Dusk.</span> <span class="smcap">An Incarnation of
+the Snow.</span> <span class="smcap">A Mine of Faults.</span> <span class="smcap">The
+Ashes of a God.</span> <span class="smcap">Bubbles of the
+Foam.</span> <span class="smcap">A Syrup of the Bees.</span> <span class="smcap">The
+Livery of Eve.</span> <span class="smcap">The Substance of a
+Dream.</span> <i>All Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">An
+Echo of the Spheres.</span> <i>Wide Demy
+8vo. 10s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Balfour (Sir Graham)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson.</span>
+<i>Twentieth Edition. In one Volume.
+Cr. 8vo. Buckram, 7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Barker (Ernest)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">National Character.</span> <i>Demy 8vo.
+10s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Greek Political
+Theory</span>: Plato and his Predecessors.
+<i>Second Edition. Demy 8vo. 14s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Belloc (Hilaire)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Paris.</span> <span class="smcap">The Pyrenees.</span> <i>Each 8s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">On Nothing.</span> <span class="smcap">Hills and the Sea.</span>
+<span class="smcap">On Something.</span> <span class="smcap">This and That and
+the Other.</span> <span class="smcap">On.</span> <i>Each 6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">First
+and Last.</span> <span class="smcap">On Everything.</span> <span class="smcap">On
+Anything.</span> <span class="smcap">Emmanuel Burden.</span> <i>Each
+3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Marie Antoinette.</span> <i>18s.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">A History of England.</span> In 5
+vols. Vols. I, II and III. <i>15s. net
+each.</i> <span class="smcap">Hills and the Sea.</span> Illustrated
+in Colour by <span class="smcap">Donald Maxwell</span>. <i>15s.
+net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Birmingham (George A.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Wayfarer in Hungary.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>8s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A Wayfarer in Ireland.</span>
+Illustrated. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Spillikins</span>:
+a Book of Essays. <i>3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Ships
+and Sealing Wax</span>: a Book of Essays.
+<i>5s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Budge (Sir E. A. Wallis)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and
+Abyssinia.</span> Illustrated. In 2 vols.
+<i>£3 13s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Bulley (M. H.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Art and Counterfeit.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>15s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Ancient and Medieval Art:
+A Short History.</span> <i>Second Edition,
+Revised. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Chandler (Arthur), D.D.</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ara Cœli.</span> <i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Faith and Experience.</span>
+<i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Cult of the Passing
+Moment.</span> <i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The English
+Church and Reunion.</span> <i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Scala
+Mundi.</span> <i>4s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Chesterton (G. K.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Ballad of the White Horse.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span> <i>Each Fcap. 8vo,
+3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">All Things Considered.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Tremendous Trifles.</span> <span class="smcap">Fancies versus
+Fads.</span> <span class="smcap">Alarms and Discursions.</span>
+<span class="smcap">A Miscellany of Men.</span> <span class="smcap">The Uses of
+Diversity.</span> <span class="smcap">The Outline of Sanity.</span>
+<i>Each Fcap. 8vo. 6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A Gleaming
+Cohort.</span> <i>Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Wine,
+Water, and Song.</span> <i>Fcap. 8vo. 1s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Clutton-Brock (A.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">What is the Kingdom of Heaven?</span>
+<span class="smcap">Essays on Art.</span> <span class="smcap">Shakespeare’s Hamlet.</span>
+<i>Each 5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Essays on Books.</span>
+<span class="smcap">More Essays on Books.</span> <span class="smcap">Essays on
+Life.</span> <span class="smcap">Essays on Religion.</span> <span class="smcap">Essays
+on Literature and Life.</span> <span class="smcap">More
+Essays on Religion.</span> <i>Each 6s. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Shelley, the Man and the Poet.</span>
+<i>7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Cottenham (The Earl of)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Motoring Without Fears.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Crawley (Ernest)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Mystic Rose.</span> Revised and Enlarged
+by <span class="smcap">Theodore Besterman</span>. Two
+Vols. <i>Demy 8vo. £1 10s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Dolls’ House (The Queen’s)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Book of the Queen’s Dolls’
+House.</span> Vol. I. <span class="smcap">The House</span>, Edited
+by <span class="smcap">A. C. Benson</span>, C.V.O., and Sir
+<span class="smcap">Lawrence Weaver</span>, K.B.E. Vol. II.
+<span class="smcap">The Library</span>, Edited by <span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span>.
+Profusely Illustrated. A Limited Edition.
+<i>Crown 4to. £6 6s. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Everybody’s Book of the Queen’s
+Dolls’ House.</span> An abridged edition
+of the above. Illustrated. <i>Crown 4to.
+5s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Dugdale (E. T. S.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">German Diplomatic Documents,
+1871-1914.</span> Selected from the Documents
+published by the German Foreign
+Office. In 4 vols. Vol. I, 1871-1890.
+<i>Demy 8vo. £1 5s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Edwardes (Tickner)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Lore of the Honeybee.</span> <i>Thirteenth
+Edition. 7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Beekeeping
+for All.</span> <i>3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Bee-Master
+of Warrilow.</span> <i>Third Edition.
+7s. 6d. net.</i> All illustrated. <span class="smcap">Beekeeping
+Do’s and Don’ts.</span> <i>2s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Einstein (Albert)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Relativity: The Special and General
+Theory.</span> <i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Sidelights
+on Relativity.</span> <i>3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The
+Meaning of Relativity.</span> <i>5s. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">The Brownian Movement.</span> <i>5s. net.</i>
+<i>Other books on the</i> <b>Einstein Theory</b>.
+<span class="smcap">An Introduction to the Theory of
+Relativity.</span> By <span class="smcap">Lyndon Bolton</span>.
+<i>5s. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">The Principle of Relativity.</span> By
+<span class="smcap">A. Einstein</span>, <span class="smcap">H. A. Lorentz</span>, <span class="smcap">H.
+Minkowski</span> and <span class="smcap">H. Weyl</span>. With
+Notes by <span class="smcap">A. Sommerfeld</span>, <i>12s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Write for Complete List.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Erman (Adolph)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Literature of the Ancient
+Egyptians: Poems, Narratives, and
+Manuals of Instruction from the
+Third and Second Millennia</span> <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>
+Translated by Dr. <span class="smcap">A. M. Blackman</span>.
+<i>Demy 8vo. £1 1s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Fouquet (Jean)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Life of Christ and His Mother.</span>
+From Fouquet’s “Book of Hours.”
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Florence Heywood</span>, B.A.
+With 24 Plates in Colours. In a box.
+<i>Crown 4to. £3 3s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Fyleman (Rose)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Fairies and Chimneys.</span> <span class="smcap">The Fairy
+Green.</span> <span class="smcap">The Fairy Flute.</span> <span class="smcap">The
+Rainbow Cat.</span> <span class="smcap">Eight Little Plays
+for Children.</span> <span class="smcap">Forty Good-night
+Tales.</span> <span class="smcap">Fairies and Friends.</span> <span class="smcap">The
+Adventure Club.</span> <span class="smcap">Forty Good-Morning
+Tales.</span> <span class="smcap">Seven Plays for Children.</span>
+<i>Each 3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A Small
+Cruse.</span> <i>4s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Rose Fyleman
+Fairy Book.</span> Illustrated. <i>10s. 6d. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Letty.</span> Illustrated. <i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A Princess
+Comes to our Town.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A Little Christmas Book.</span>
+Illustrated. <i>2s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Rose Fyleman
+Calendar.</span> Illustrated. <i>2s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Gibbon (Edward)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire.</span> With Notes, Appendixes, and
+Maps, by <span class="smcap">J. B. Bury</span>. Illustrated.
+Seven volumes. <i>Demy 8vo. 15s. net</i>
+each volume. Also, unillustrated.
+<i>Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net</i> each volume.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Glover (T. R.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Conflict of Religions in the
+Early Roman Empire.</span> <span class="smcap">Poets and
+Puritans.</span> <span class="smcap">Virgil.</span> <i>Each 10s. 6d. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">From Pericles to Philip.</span> <i>12s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Gosling (Harry), C.H., J.P., M.P.</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Up and Down Stream.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Graham (Harry)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The World we Laugh in</span>: More
+Deportmental Ditties. Illustrated by
+“<span class="smcap">Fish</span>.” <i>Sixth Edition. Fcap. 8vo.
+5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Strained Relations.</span> Illustrated
+by <span class="smcap">H. Stuart Menzies</span> and
+<span class="smcap">Hendy</span>. <i>Royal 16mo. 6s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Grahame (Kenneth)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Wind in the Willows.</span> <i>Nineteenth
+Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+net.</i> Also, illustrated by <span class="smcap">Wyndham
+Payne</span>. <i>Small 4to. 7s. 6d. net.</i> Also
+unillustrated. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Hadfield (J. A.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Psychology and Morals.</span> <i>Seventh
+Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Hall (H. R.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Ancient History of the Near
+East.</span> <i>Seventh Edition Revised. Demy
+8vo. £1 1s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Civilization
+of Greece in the Bronze Age.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>Wide Royal 8vo. £1 10s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Hamer (Sir W. H.) and Hutt (C. W.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Manual of Hygiene.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>Demy 8vo. £1 10s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Heine (Heinrich)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Florentine Nights.</span> Translated by
+<span class="smcap">C. G. Leland</span>. Illustrated in Colour by
+<span class="smcap">Felix de Gray</span>. <i>Fcap. 4to. £1 5s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Herbert (A. P.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Misleading Cases in the Common
+Law.</span> With an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Lord
+Hewart</span>. <i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Bomber
+Gipsy.</span> <i>3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Light Articles
+Only.</span> Illustrated. <i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The
+Wherefore and the Why.</span> “<span class="smcap">Tinker,
+Tailor....</span>” Each illustrated. <i>3s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Secret Battle.</span> <i>3s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Hewlett (Maurice)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Letters of Maurice Hewlett.</span>
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Laurence Binyon</span>. Illustrated.
+<i>Demy 8vo. 18s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Hind (A. M.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Catalogue of Rembrandt’s Etchings.</span>
+Two Vols. Profusely Illustrated.
+<i>Wide Royal 8vo. £1 15s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Holdsworth (W. S.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A History of English Law.</span> Nine
+Volumes. <i>Demy 8vo. £1 5s. net each.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Hudson (W. H.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Shepherd’s Life.</span> Illustrated. <i>Demy
+8vo. 10s. 6d. net.</i> Also, unillustrated.
+<i>Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Hutton (Edward)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Cities of Sicily.</span> Illustrated. <i>10s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">Milan and Lombardy.</span> <span class="smcap">The
+Cities of Romagna and the
+Marches.</span> <span class="smcap">Siena and Southern Tuscany.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Venice and Venetia.</span> <span class="smcap">The
+Cities of Spain.</span> <span class="smcap">Naples and
+Southern Italy.</span> Illustrated. <i>Each,
+8s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A Wayfarer in Unknown
+Tuscany.</span> <span class="smcap">The Cities of Umbria.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Country Walks about Florence.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Rome.</span> <span class="smcap">Florence and Northern Tuscany.</span>
+Each illustrated. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Inge (W. R.), D.D.</b>, Dean of St. Paul’s</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Christian Mysticism.</span> (The Bampton
+Lectures of 1899.) <i>Sixth Edition.
+Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Kipling (Rudyard)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Barrack-Room Ballads.</span> <i>246th Thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Seven Seas.</span> <i>180th Thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Five Nations.</span> <i>143rd Thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Departmental Ditties.</span> <i>111th Thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Years Between.</span> <i>95th Thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p>Four Editions of these famous volumes
+of poems are now published, viz.:—<i>Crown
+8vo. Buckram, 7s. 6d. net.</i> <i>Fcap.
+8vo. Cloth, 6s. net.</i> <i>Leather, 7s. 6d. net.</i>
+Service Edition. Two volumes each
+book. <i>Square Fcap. 8vo. 3s. net.</i> each
+volume.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Kipling Anthology</span>—Verse. <i>Fcap.
+8vo. Cloth, 6s. net</i> and <i>3s. 6d. net.</i>
+<i>Leather, 7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Twenty Poems
+from Rudyard Kipling.</span> <i>458th
+Thousand. Fcap. 8vo. 1s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A
+Choice of Songs.</span> <i>Second Edition.
+Fcap. 8vo. 2s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Lamb (Charles and Mary)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Complete Works.</span> Edited by
+<span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span>. A New and Revised
+Edition in Six Volumes. With Frontispieces.
+<i>Fcap. 8vo. 6s. net each.</i></p>
+
+<p>The volumes are: I. <span class="smcap">Miscellaneous
+Prose.</span> II. <span class="smcap">Elia and the Last Essays
+of Elia.</span> III. <span class="smcap">Books for Children.</span>
+IV. <span class="smcap">Plays and Poems.</span> V. and VI.
+<span class="smcap">Letters.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Selected Letters.</span> Chosen and Edited
+by <span class="smcap">G. T. Clapton</span>. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+net.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Charles Lamb Day Book.</span>
+Compiled by <span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span>. <i>Fcap. 8vo.
+6s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Lankester (Sir Ray)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Science from an Easy Chair.</span> <span class="smcap">Science
+from an Easy Chair</span>: Second Series.
+<span class="smcap">Diversions of a Naturalist.</span> <span class="smcap">Great
+and Small Things.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Secrets of
+Earth and Sea.</span> Illustrated. <i>Crown
+8vo. 8s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Lodge (Sir Oliver)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Man and the Universe.</span> (<i>Twentieth Edition</i>).
+<span class="smcap">The Survival of Man.</span> (<i>Seventh
+Edition</i>). <i>Each Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Raymond</span> (<i>Thirteenth Edition</i>). <i>Demy
+8vo. 10s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Raymond Revised.</span>
+<i>Crown 8vo. 6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Relativity</span>
+(<i>Fourth Edition</i>). <i>Fcap. 8vo. 1s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Lucas (E. V.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Life of Charles Lamb.</span> 2 Vols.
+<i>£1 1s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Edwin Austin Abbey</span>,
+R.A. 2 Vols. <i>£6 6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Vermeer
+of Delft.</span> <i>10s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A Wanderer
+in Rome.</span> <span class="smcap">A Wanderer in Holland.</span>
+<span class="smcap">A Wanderer in London.</span> <span class="smcap">London
+Revisited</span> (Revised). <span class="smcap">A Wanderer in
+Paris.</span> <span class="smcap">A Wanderer in Florence.</span> <span class="smcap">A
+Wanderer in Venice.</span> <i>Each 10s. 6d. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">A Wanderer among Pictures.</span> <i>8s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas’s London.</span> <i>£1 net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Introducing London.</span> <span class="smcap">Introducing
+Paris.</span> <i>Each 2s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Open
+Road.</span> <i>6s. net.</i> Also, illustrated by <span class="smcap">Claude
+A. Shepperson</span>, A.R.W.S. <i>10s. 6d. net.</i>
+Also, India Paper. <i>Leather, 7s. 6d. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">The Joy of Life.</span> <i>6s. net. Leather
+Edition. 7s. 6d. net.</i> Also India Paper.
+<i>Leather, 7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Fireside and
+Sunshine.</span> <span class="smcap">Character and Comedy.</span>
+<i>Each 6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Gentlest Art.</span> <i>6s. 6d.
+net.</i> <i>And</i> <span class="smcap">The Second Post</span>. <i>6s. net.</i> Also,
+together in one volume. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Her
+Infinite Variety.</span> <span class="smcap">Good Company.</span>
+<span class="smcap">One Day and Another.</span> <span class="smcap">Old Lamps
+for New.</span> <span class="smcap">Loiterer’s Harvest.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Cloud and Silver.</span> <span class="smcap">A Boswell of
+Baghdad.</span> <span class="smcap">’Twixt Eagle and Dove.</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Phantom Journal.</span> <span class="smcap">Giving and
+Receiving.</span> <span class="smcap">Luck of the Year.</span> <span class="smcap">Encounters
+and Diversions.</span> <span class="smcap">Zigzags
+in France.</span> <span class="smcap">Events and Embroideries.</span>
+<span class="smcap">365 Days (and One More).</span> <span class="smcap">A Fronded
+Isle.</span> <i>Each 6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Urbanities.</span> Illustrated
+by <span class="smcap">G. L. Stampa</span>. <i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">You
+Know What People Are.</span> Illustrated
+by <span class="smcap">George Morrow</span>. <i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The
+Same Star</span>: A Comedy in Three Acts.
+<i>3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Little Books on Great
+Masters.</span> <i>Each 5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Roving East
+and Roving West.</span> <i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Playtime
+and Company.</span> <i>7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">“The
+More I See of Men ...”</span> <i>3s. 6d. net.</i>
+See also <b>Dolls’ House (The Queen’s)</b>
+and <b>Lamb (Charles)</b>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Lucas (E. V.) and Finck (Herman)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Twelve Songs from “Playtime and
+Company.”</span> Words by <span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span>.
+Music by <span class="smcap">Herman Finck</span>. <i>Royal 4to.
+7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Lynd (Robert)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Little Angel.</span> <i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The
+Goldfish.</span> <span class="smcap">The Pleasures of Ignorance.</span>
+<i>Each 5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Blue Lion.</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Peal of Bells.</span> <span class="smcap">The Money Box.</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Orange Tree.</span> <i>Each 3s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>McDougall (William)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">An Introduction to Social Psychology</span>
+(<i>Twenty-first Edition</i>). <i>10s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">National Welfare and National
+Decay.</span> <i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">An Outline
+of Psychology</span> (<i>Fourth Edition</i>).
+<i>10s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">An Outline of Abnormal
+Psychology.</span> <i>15s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Body
+and Mind</span> (<i>Sixth Edition</i>). <i>12s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">Character and the Conduct of
+Life</span> (<i>Third Edition</i>). <i>10s. 6d. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Ethics and Some Modern World
+Problems</span> (<i>Second Edition</i>). <i>7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Mackenzie (W. Mackay)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Mediæval Castle in Scotland.</span>
+(The Rhind Lectures on Archæology.
+1925-6.) Illustrated. <i>Demy 8vo.
+15s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Mallet (Sir C. E.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A History of the University of
+Oxford.</span> In 3 vols. Illustrated. <i>Demy
+8vo. Each £1 1s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Maxwell (Donald)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Enchanted Road.</span> Illustrated
+by the <span class="smcap">Author</span>. <i>Fcap. 4to. £1 1s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Maeterlinck (Maurice)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Blue Bird.</span> <i>6s. net.</i> Also, illustrated
+by <span class="smcap">F. Cayley Robinson</span>. <i>10s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">Death.</span> <i>3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Our Eternity.</span>
+<i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Unknown Guest.</span>
+<i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Poems.</span> <i>5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Wrack
+of the Storm.</span> <i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Miracle
+of St. Anthony.</span> <i>3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The
+Burgomaster of Stilemonde.</span> <i>5s. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">The Betrothal.</span> <i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Mountain
+Paths.</span> <i>6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Story of Tyltyl.</span>
+<i>£1 1s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Great Secret.</span> <i>7s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Cloud that Lifted and The
+Power of the Dead.</span> <i>7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Mary
+Magdalene.</span> <i>2s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Masefield (John)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On the Spanish Main.</span> <i>8s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">A
+Sailor’s Garland.</span> <i>6s. net</i> and <i>3s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">Sea Life in Nelson’s Time.</span> <i>5s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Methuen (Sir A.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">An Anthology of Modern Verse.</span>
+<i>137th Thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Shakespeare to Hardy</span>: An Anthology
+of English Lyrics. <i>19th Thousand.
+Each Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, 6s. net.
+Leather, 7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Milne (A. A.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Not that it Matters.</span> <span class="smcap">If I May.</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Sunny Side.</span> <span class="smcap">The Red House
+Mystery.</span> <span class="smcap">Once a Week.</span> <span class="smcap">The Holiday
+Round.</span> <span class="smcap">The Day’s Play.</span> <i>Each
+3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">When We were Very
+Young.</span> <i>Sixteenth Edition. 169th
+Thousand.</i> <span class="smcap">Winnie-the-Pooh.</span> <i>Sixth
+Edition. 91st Thousand.</i> <span class="smcap">Now We
+are Six.</span> <i>Fourth Edition. 109th Thousand.</i>
+Each illustrated by <span class="smcap">E. H.
+Shepard</span>. <i>7s. 6d. net. Leather, 10s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">For the Luncheon Interval.</span>
+<i>1s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Milne (A. A.) and Fraser-Simson (H.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Fourteen Songs from “When We
+were Very Young.”</span> <i>Twelfth Edition.
+7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Teddy Bear and Other
+Songs from “When We were Very
+Young.”</span> <i>7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The King’s Breakfast.</span>
+<i>Third Edition. 3s. 6d. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Songs from “Now We are Six.”</span>
+<i>Second Edition. 7s. 6d. net.</i> Words by
+<span class="smcap">A. A. Milne</span>. Music by <span class="smcap">H. Fraser-Simson</span>.
+Decorations by <span class="smcap">E. H. Shepard</span>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Montague (C. E.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dramatic Values.</span> <i>Cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Morton (H. V.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Heart of London.</span> <i>3s. 6d. net.</i>
+(Also illustrated, <i>7s. 6d. net</i>.) <span class="smcap">The
+Spell of London.</span> <span class="smcap">The Nights of
+London.</span> <i>Each 3s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The
+London Year.</span> <span class="smcap">In Search of England.</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Call of England.</span> Each illustrated.
+<i>7s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Oman (Sir Charles)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A History of the Art of War in the
+Middle Ages, A.D. 378-1485.</span> <i>Second
+Edition</i>, Revised and Enlarged. 2 Vols.
+Illustrated. <i>Demy 8vo. £1 16s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Oxenham (John)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bees in Amber.</span> <i>Small Pott 8vo. 2s.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">All’s Well.</span> <span class="smcap">The King’s Highway.</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Vision Splendid.</span> <span class="smcap">The
+Fiery Cross.</span> <span class="smcap">High Altars.</span> <span class="smcap">Hearts
+Courageous.</span> <span class="smcap">All Clear!</span> <i>Each
+Small Pott 8vo. Paper, 1s. 3d. net.
+Cloth, 2s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Winds of the Dawn.</span>
+<i>2s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Perry (W. J.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Origin of Magic and Religion.</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Growth of Civilization.</span> <i>Each
+6s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Children of the Sun.</span>
+<i>£1 1s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Petrie (Sir Flinders)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A History of Egypt.</span> In 6 Volumes.</p>
+
+<p>Vol. I. <span class="smcap">From the Ist to the XVIth
+Dynasty.</span> <i>11th Edition, Revised. 12s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>Vol. II. <span class="smcap">The XVIIth and XVIIIth
+Dynasties.</span> <i>7th Edition, Revised. 9s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>Vol. III. <span class="smcap">XIXth to XXXth Dynasties.</span>
+<i>3rd Edition. 12s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>Vol. IV. <span class="smcap">Egypt under the Ptolemaic
+Dynasty.</span> By <span class="smcap">Edwyn Bevan</span>. <i>15s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>Vol. V. <span class="smcap">Egypt under Roman Rule.</span>
+By <span class="smcap">J. G. Milne</span>. <i>3rd Edition, Revised.
+12s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>Vol. VI. <span class="smcap">Egypt in the Middle Ages.</span>
+By <span class="smcap">Stanley Lane Poole</span>. <i>4th
+Edition. 10s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Ponsonby (Arthur), M.P.</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">English Diaries.</span> <i>£1 1s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">More
+English Diaries.</span> <i>12s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Scottish
+and Irish Diaries.</span> <i>10s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Raleigh (Sir Walter)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Letters of Sir Walter Raleigh.</span>
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Lady Raleigh.</span> Two Vols.
+Illustrated. <i>Second Edition. Demy 8vo.
+18s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Smith (C. Fox)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sailor Town Days.</span> <span class="smcap">Sea Songs and
+Ballads.</span> <span class="smcap">A Book of Famous Ships.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Ship Alley.</span> <i>Each</i>, illustrated, <i>6s. net</i>.
+<span class="smcap">Full Sail.</span> Illustrated. <i>5s. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Tales of the Clipper Ships.</span> <span class="smcap">A Sea
+Chest.</span> <i>Each 5s. net.</i> <span class="smcap">The Return of
+the “Cutty Sark.”</span> Illustrated. <i>3s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">A Book of Shanties.</span> <i>6s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Stevenson (R. L.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Letters.</span> Edited by Sir <span class="smcap">Sidney
+Colvin</span>. 4 Vols. <i>Fcap. 8vo. Each
+6s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Surtees (R. S.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Handley Cross.</span> <span class="smcap">Mr. Sponge’s
+Sporting Tour.</span> <span class="smcap">Ask Mamma.</span> <span class="smcap">Mr.
+Facey Romford’s Hounds.</span> <span class="smcap">Plain or
+Ringlets?</span> <span class="smcap">Hillingdon Hall.</span> <i>Each</i>
+illustrated, <i>7s. 6d. net</i>. <span class="smcap">Jorrocks’s
+Jaunts and Jollities.</span> <span class="smcap">Hawbuck
+Grange.</span> <i>Each</i>, illustrated, <i>6s. net</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Taylor (A. E.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Plato: The Man and His Work.</span>
+<i>Second Edition. Demy 8vo. £1 1s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Tilden (William T.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Art of Lawn Tennis.</span> <span class="smcap">Singles
+and Doubles.</span> <span class="smcap">The Tennis Racket.</span>
+<i>Each</i>, illustrated, <i>6s. net</i>. <span class="smcap">The Common
+Sense of Lawn Tennis.</span> <span class="smcap">Match
+Play and the Spin of the Ball.</span>
+Illustrated. <i>5s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Tileston (Mary W.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Daily Strength for Daily Needs.</span>
+<i>32nd Edition. 3s. 6d. net.</i> India Paper.
+<i>Leather, 6s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Trapp (Oswald Graf)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Armoury of the Castle of Churburg.</span>
+Translated by <span class="smcap">J. G. Mann</span>.
+Richly illustrated. <i>Royal 4to.</i> Limited
+to 400 copies. <i>£3 5s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Underhill (Evelyn)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mysticism</span> (<i>Eleventh Edition</i>). <i>15s. net.</i>
+<span class="smcap">The Life of the Spirit and the Life
+of To-day</span> (<i>Sixth Edition</i>). <i>7s. 6d.
+net.</i> <span class="smcap">Man and the Supernatural.</span>
+<i>7s. 6d. net.</i> <span class="smcap">Concerning the Inner
+Life</span> (<i>Fourth Edition</i>). <i>2s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Urwick (E. J.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Social Good.</span> <i>Demy 8vo.
+10s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Vardon (Harry)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">How to Play Golf.</span> Illustrated.
+<i>19th Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Waterhouse (Elizabeth)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Little Book of Life and Death.</span>
+<i>23rd Edition. Small Pott 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Wilde (Oscar)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Works.</span> In 17 Vols. <i>Each 6s. 6d.
+net.</i></p>
+
+<p>I. <span class="smcap">Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and
+the Portrait of Mr. W. H.</span> II. <span class="smcap">The
+Duchess of Padua.</span> III. <span class="smcap">Poems.</span> IV.
+<span class="smcap">Lady Windermere’s Fan.</span> V. <span class="smcap">A
+Woman of No Importance.</span> VI. <span class="smcap">An
+Ideal Husband.</span> VII. <span class="smcap">The Importance
+of Being Earnest.</span> VIII. <span class="smcap">A
+House of Pomegranates.</span> IX. <span class="smcap">Intentions.</span>
+X. <span class="smcap">De Profundis and
+Prison Letters.</span> XI. <span class="smcap">Essays.</span> XII.
+<span class="smcap">Salome, A Florentine Tragedy</span>, and
+<span class="smcap">La Sainte Courtisane</span>. XIII. <span class="smcap">A
+Critic in Pall Mall.</span> XIV. <span class="smcap">Selected
+Prose of Oscar Wilde.</span> XV. <span class="smcap">Art and
+Decoration.</span> XVI. <span class="smcap">For Love of the
+King.</span> (<i>5s. net.</i>) XVII. <span class="smcap">Vera, or the
+Nihilists.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Williamson (G. C.)</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Book of Famille Rose.</span> Richly
+Illustrated. <i>Demy 4to. £8 8s. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<h4>PART II. A SELECTION OF SERIES</h4>
+
+<p><b>The Antiquary’s Books</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><i>Each</i>, illustrated, <i>Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>The Arden Shakespeare</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>Edited by <span class="smcap">W. J. Craig</span> and <span class="smcap">R. H. Case</span>.
+<i>Each, wide Demy 8vo. 6s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>The Ideal Library Edition, in single
+plays, each edited with a full Introduction,
+Textual Notes and a Commentary
+at the foot of the page. Now complete
+in 39 Vols.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Classics of Art</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>Edited by <span class="smcap">J. H. W. Laing</span>. <i>Each</i>, profusely
+illustrated, <i>wide Royal 8vo. 15s.
+net to £3 3s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>A Library of Art dealing with Great
+Artists and with branches of Art.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>The Connoisseur’s Library</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><i>With numerous Illustrations. Wide
+Royal 8vo. £1 11s. 6d. net each vol.</i>
+<span class="smcap">European Enamels.</span> <span class="smcap">Fine Books.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Glass.</span> <span class="smcap">Goldsmiths’ and Silversmiths’
+Work.</span> <span class="smcap">Ivories.</span> <span class="smcap">Jewellery.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Mezzotints.</span> <span class="smcap">Porcelain.</span> <span class="smcap">Seals.</span>
+<span class="smcap">Mussulman Painting.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>English Life in English Literature</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>General Editors: <span class="smcap">Eileen Power</span>,
+M.A., D.Lit., and <span class="smcap">A. W. Reed</span>, M.A.,
+D.Lit. <i>Each, Crown 8vo, 6s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>A series of source-books for students of
+history and of literature.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Faiths</b>: <span class="smcap">Varieties of Christian
+Expression</span>. Edited by <span class="smcap">L. P. Jacks</span>,
+M.A., D.D., LL.D. <i>Each, Crown 8vo,
+5s. net</i> each volume. The first volumes
+are: <span class="smcap">The Anglo-Catholic Faith</span>
+(<span class="smcap">T. A. Lacey</span>); <span class="smcap">Modernism in the
+English Church</span> (<span class="smcap">P. Gardner</span>); <span class="smcap">The
+Faith and Practice of the Quakers</span>
+(<span class="smcap">R. M. Jones</span>); <span class="smcap">Congregationalism</span>
+(<span class="smcap">W. B. Selbie</span>); <span class="smcap">The Faith of the
+Roman Church</span> (<span class="smcap">C. C. Martindale</span>);
+<span class="smcap">The Life and Faith of the Baptists</span>
+(<span class="smcap">H. Wheeler Robinson</span>); <span class="smcap">The Presbyterian
+Churches</span> (<span class="smcap">James Moffatt</span>);
+<span class="smcap">Methodism</span> (<span class="smcap">W. Bardsley Brash</span>);
+<span class="smcap">The Evangelical Movement in the
+English Church</span> (<span class="smcap">L. Elliott Binns</span>);
+<span class="smcap">The Unitarians</span> (<span class="smcap">Henry Gow</span>).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>A History of England in Seven Volumes</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>Edited by Sir <span class="smcap">Charles Oman</span>, K.B.E.,
+M.P., M.A., F.S.A. With Maps.
+<i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net</i> each volume.
+<span class="smcap">England before the Norman Conquest</span>
+(Sir <span class="smcap">C. Oman</span>); <span class="smcap">England under
+the Normans and Angevins</span> (<span class="smcap">H. W. C.
+Davies</span>); <span class="smcap">England in the Later
+Middle Ages</span> (<span class="smcap">K. H. Vickers</span>); <span class="smcap">England
+under the Tudors</span> (<span class="smcap">A. D. Innes</span>);
+<span class="smcap">England under the Stuarts</span> (<span class="smcap">G. M.
+Trevelyan</span>); <span class="smcap">England under the
+Hanoverians</span> (Sir <span class="smcap">C. Grant Robertson</span>);
+<span class="smcap">England Since Waterloo</span> (Sir
+<span class="smcap">J. A. R. Marriott</span>).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>The Library of Devotion</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>Handy editions of the great Devotional
+books, well edited. <i>Small Pott 8vo.
+3s. net and 3s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Modern Masterpieces</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><i>Fcap. 8vo.</i> <i>3s. 6d.</i> each volume.
+Pocketable Editions of Works by
+<span class="smcap">Hilaire Belloc</span>, <span class="smcap">Arnold Bennett</span>,
+<span class="smcap">E. F. Benson</span>, <span class="smcap">George A. Birmingham</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Marjorie Beown</span>, <span class="smcap">G. K. Chesterton</span>,
+<span class="smcap">A. Clutton-Brock</span>, <span class="smcap">Joseph Conrad</span>,
+<span class="smcap">George Gissing</span>, <span class="smcap">Kenneth Grahame</span>,
+<span class="smcap">A. P. Herbert</span>, <span class="smcap">W. H. Hudson</span>, <span class="smcap">Rudyard
+Kipling</span>, <span class="smcap">E. V. Knox</span>, <span class="smcap">Jack
+London</span>, <span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span>, <span class="smcap">Robert Lynd</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Rose Macaulay</span>, <span class="smcap">John Masefield</span>, <span class="smcap">A.
+A. Milne</span>, <span class="smcap">Arthur Morrison</span>, <span class="smcap">Eden
+Phillpotts</span>, <span class="smcap">Marmaduke Pickthall</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Charles G. D. Roberts</span>, and <span class="smcap">R. L.
+Stevenson</span>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Methuen’s Half-Crown Library</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><i>Crown 8vo and Fcap. 8vo.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Methuen’s Two-Shilling Library</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><i>Fcap. 8vo.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Two series of cheap editions of popular
+books.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Write for complete lists.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>The Wayfarer Series of Books for
+Travellers</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><i>Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net each.</i> Well
+illustrated and with maps. The volumes
+are:—Alsace, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia,
+The Dolomites, Egypt,
+French Vineyards, Hungary, Ireland,
+The Loire, Portugal, Provence, The
+Seine, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
+Unfamiliar Japan, Unknown Tuscany,
+The West Indies.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><b>The Westminster Commentaries</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><i>Demy 8vo. 8s. 6d. net to 16s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p>Edited by <span class="smcap">W. Lock</span>, D.D., and <span class="smcap">D. C.
+Simpson</span>, D.D.</p>
+
+<p>The object of these commentaries is
+primarily to interpret the author’s meaning
+to the present generation, taking
+the English text in the Revised Version
+as their basis.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<h4>THE LITTLE GUIDES</h4>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Small Pott 8vo.</i> Illustrated and with Maps</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE 65 VOLUMES IN THE SERIES ARE:—</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Berkshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Brittany</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Buckinghamshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Cambridge and Colleges</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Cambridgeshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Cathedral Cities of England and Wales</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Channel Islands</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Cheshire</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Cornwall</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Cumberland and Westmorland</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Derbyshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Devon</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Dorset</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Durham</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">English Lakes</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Essex</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Florence</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">French Riviera</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Gloucestershire</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Hampshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Herefordshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Hertfordshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Isle of Man</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Isle of Wight</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Kent</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Lancashire</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Leicestershire and Rutland</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Lincolnshire</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">London</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Malvern Country</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Middlesex</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Monmouthshire</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Norfolk</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Normandy</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Northamptonshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Northumberland</span> 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">North Wales</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Nottinghamshire</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Oxford and Colleges</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Oxfordshire</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Paris</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Rome</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">St. Paul’s Cathedral</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Shakespeare’s Country</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Shropshire</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Sicily</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Snowdonia</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Somerset</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">South Wales</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Staffordshire</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Suffolk</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Surrey</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Sussex</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Temple</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Venice</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Warwickshire</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Westminster Abbey</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Wiltshire</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Worcestershire</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Yorkshire East Riding</span> 5<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Yorkshire North Riding</span> 4<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Yorkshire West Riding</span> 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">York</span> 6<i>s.</i> net.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Methuen &amp; Co. Ltd., 36 Essex Street, London, W.C.2</span></p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75369 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75369 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75369)
author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-13 14:21:45 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-13 14:21:45 -0800
commit	677b4ba120dc8ebff145f17035e105a2b6d56f17 (patch)
tree	97dcd711ff9ff32fffdf04054f994a113ad9feb8