The Pyrenees

III. Sobrarbe

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.

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.

IV. The Tarbes Valleys and Luchon

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.

V. Andorra and the Catalan Valleys

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.