216 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



and in some cases they have been confessedly fatal. 

 Barege is a perfect hospital, and one is stared at for not 

 having crutches. In the evening I rode up the magni- 

 ficent pass of Les Echelles, towards Gavarnie/ 



To Miss E. FORBES. 



'Luz, July 22. 



' . . . .1 am still enjoying myself amazingly, and, 

 although I have been here ten days, I have seldom spent 

 ten days more agreeably. I have been singularly fortunate 

 in my quarters, a fact which makes me the more unwilling 

 to leave them and try my fortune in some other place. 

 I have a delightful room, and the people are attentive 

 in the extreme. They at once got into my ways and 

 my ways are pretty irregular except that I always dine 

 at four, which gives me a long evening to walk or ride, and 

 in the morning I am up at five or half-past. ... I have 

 been twice at the top of a mountain called the Pic de 

 Bergons which is 4,501 feet above my bedroom and it 

 gave me one of the finest views in the Pyrenees. From 

 it only (as yet) have I seen the famous " cirque " of 

 Gavarnie, with its cascade 1,400 feet high, although it is 

 distant no more than a three hours' ride. This may surprise 

 you, but I do not go post haste to the sights. . . . The Pic 

 de Bergons is charming, and although about 7,000 feet 

 above the sea, it is enamelled to the top with the most 

 beautiful flowers, while on one side it is clothed with 

 watered and mown grass slopes, almost to the summit . . . 



' I went to spend last Sunday in a very wild valley, 

 the Vallee d'He'as, in the upper part of which there is a 

 chapel, resorted to by " all the world " on the Eve of the 

 Assumption. It was no fete-day when I was there, so I 

 spent the hours among grand and savage scenery, with 

 only the apparatus of "a prayer-book and a conscience " 

 (as Dr. C- - would say), and I spent them much to my 

 mind. Nor did I think the occasion desecrated because 

 my geological hammer accompanied me. . . . 



'I like the people hereabouts better than any I have 

 seen ; they appear to me to have really a " bon nature!," 



