The Pyrenees

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 10s.; 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.