CHAPTER II 



A HILL PASS OF THE PYRENEES 



AN April morning at an altitude of 4,000 feet above sea 

 level. In the hollows the winter's snow still lingered, 

 '■reflecting from its surface the rays of the early 

 morning sun, and even on the wind-swept slopes where the 

 snow had melted the grass was brown and devoid of the 

 beginnings of growth. Southward a giant corrie or "cirque " 

 shut out all distant view, the rocks rising almost sheer to a 

 height of 9,000 feet. It is down these rocks that during the 

 months of summer a hill burn falls in a white cascade, blown 

 to and fro by the mountain winds. Now its waters were 

 firmly held in the grip of the frost and the course of the falls 

 was marked by large expanses of blue-green ice. 



It was early morning when a companion and I left the 

 village of Gavarnie. For the season the temperature was 

 warm beyond the ordinary, and though the south wind reached 

 us after a passage over snow-clad tops, there was no Bite 

 in its breath. It brought with it, rather, a taste of the great 

 arid Sahara, whence it had its origin, and where is drought 

 and an absence of living things. Our way first led across a 

 steep hill face, so steep that the snow had already been 

 dispersed by the sun's heat. In places Saxifraga oppositi- 

 folia — that Alpine plant known to the lovers of Scottish 

 hills — only a few days released from its covering of snow, 

 was already opening its rich red flowers, careless of the frost 

 or snow which would surely cover the hills again before the 

 arrival of summer. At one point a gentian had forced its way 

 through the grass and had opened a flower of the deepest 

 blue — a flower that, amongst the arid grass wastes, com- 

 pelled attention and admiration. 



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