222 - THE LIFE OF JAMES D.JORBES. [CHAP. 



' August 18. Started from Luchon about six for the 



Port de Venasque Its opening on Spain was 



magnificent, but the Maledetta was much clouded : 

 fortunately, however, the mists cleared away so far as to 

 let me have a complete view of this giant mountain, with 

 its prodigious glaciers, which seem to me to rival those 

 of Mont Blanc, and to vie with the ice-fields of Grindel- 

 wald. The valley of Venasque is a fitting foreground for 

 such a scene : bare rocks with only scattered pines, savage 

 in the extreme. Altogether this is far the finest thing 

 I have seen in the Pyrenees. 



1 From the Port de Venasque I descended into Spain 

 for an hour and a half to see the Trou du Taureau, a 

 most singular spot, which I wonder is not more known. 

 A river as large as the water of Leith, but incomparably 

 more rapid and deep, is lost at once in a limestone gulf 

 with precipitous banks. The river partly flows under the 

 solid rock, and is partly carried in vortices through open- 

 ings in the sand which has accumulated at the bottom of 

 the crater-shaped gulf. The river reappears in the valley 

 of Artigues de Lin, communicating with the Vallee d'Aran, 

 and I should have seen its new source but for the incivility 

 of the Governor. There can be no doubt of the identity of 

 the streams. After much rain (as my guide informed me, 

 stating that he had seen it himself) the water rises to a 

 great height in the crater from want of sufficient outlet ; 

 and when this is the case, the stream reappears in the 

 valley of Venasque at a spot which I saw, not very far from 

 the Trou du Taureau, being forced out of its subterranean 

 bed, no doubt, by the hydraulic pressure in the crater/ 



Quitting Luchon with regret, he entered the depart- 

 ment of the Arriege at St. Beat, and travelled by St. 

 Girons to Ax, from which town he dates the following 

 letter to his sister : 



To Miss E. FORBES. 



' AX, DEFACEMENT DE L' ARRIEGE, August 26. 



' . . . Here I am, in quite a new country, perhaps less 

 frequented by strangers than almost any part of Europe 



