viii.] TRAVELS, 1835. 219 



it seems to me that the Pyrenees have even more 

 peculiarities than the Italian Alps, and some advantages 

 over them, especially in the character of the people. 

 Here, almost everything is peculiar, and the flowers are 

 almost all different from ours/ 



Journal, July 29. 



' I left Luz on foot at half-past five, for Gavarnie. . . . 

 Beyond Gedre, where we breakfasted, I found, in accord- 

 ance with the accurate account of Charpentier, magnificent 

 crystallized limestone in the granite : the granite here, 

 like that of Heas, is altogether a strange rock, and often 

 passes into a slaty structure, becoming gneiss, or mica 

 slate, besides enclosing masses of these rocks, and forming 

 an absolute breccia. But where crystalline, it seems to 

 me never stratified : the fissures and the flat surfaces they 

 leave can never be traced to any distance, and when they 

 ppear, are as often at right angles to the former as 

 not. The appearance of vertical stratification is often 

 caused by the rain-courses, as in the valley of the Reuss 

 at St. Gothard, to some parts of which this valley has a 

 great resemblance. . . . 



' August 1 1. I left Gavarnie at five, on horseback, and 

 in an hour arrived at the Cirque . . . attaining the Breche 

 de Roland a little before ten. Notwithstanding that my 



n'de had pronounced the glaciers " assez mdchants," 

 bund, as I expected, that it only required a little 

 patience to make good each step with an axe, and that 

 real danger there was none. . . . Until the new snow 

 has melt.-d, it \^ \(\\ straight walking. . . . 



'I was so little fatigued, that 1 walked to Gavarnie 

 by preference, riding to (led re in the afternoon. 



* I ne\vr < njoyedan excursion more. The Breehe it.-elf 



quite exceeded my expectations, and well repaid my 



second ascent. I found that the first time I had not 



been than thirty minutes' easy walking from the 



of the Cirque from Saradetx is niaiini- 



p'.int it loses the confined l.<,k it has 



from IM-!M\V.' 



