424 BOTANICAL INFORMATION'. 



round the loins, and a handkerchief tied round the lower 

 part of the head, allowing the hair of the crown to stand 

 hristling out at the top. The articles of their illicit traffic 

 were certainly not less strange than their costume ; fancy 

 three of these men carrying enormous back-loads of empty 

 glass bottles, over frozen snows and down the rocky face of 

 all but perfect precipices, where even with the aid of my pole, 

 and with nothing to embarrass me, it was often a matter of 

 difficulty to preserve my balance. Our fourth companion, a 

 veritable Sancho Panza for size and build, carried a smaller 

 but perhaps much heavier load of various fancy articles of 

 ladies' wear, besides umbrellas, &c. 



A walk of seven hours, herborizing by the way, brought 

 us to the extremity of the Valine de Marcadaou, and to the 

 foot of the last mountain in France. We were now in a 

 cirque, such as terminates all the valleys of the Pyrenees, and 

 on entering it, I cast around a wistful eye for some opening 

 through the mass of frowning mountains which seemed to be 

 closing round us ; but nothing met my eye save tiers of snow 

 alternating with masses of black rock, and foaming cascades 

 issuing from one tier of snow to lose themselves under a 

 succeeding one. I demanded of our guide, with some anxiety, 

 which was the " Port de Cauteret ?" " Le voila !" said he, 

 pointing out a scarcely perceptible dimple between two peaks 

 on the very summit ! Assuredly, I had little hope of ever 

 attaining it, especially when he added, that we had yet two 

 hours of toilsome ascent. However, there was no time for 

 delay, and we commenced our upward course. Sometimes 

 there was the semblance of a path, and sometimes there was 

 none, and great part of the ascent was a genuine escalade, 

 the projecting edges of nearly perpendicular strata forming a 

 sort of steps. We were obliged to pause about every ten 

 minutes to take breath, and it cost us an hour to reach the 

 margin of the first field of snow, where we sat down on some 

 rude blocks of granite, the debris of the cliffs above, and took 

 a little refreshment. We gave the Spaniards of our eau de 



