DEFABTMENT OF THE FYBENEEB. 289 



road runs parallel to the brawling stream, retreating ocoasionally from the 

 bank into the recesses of magnificent birch and chestnut woods. 



" Few places are more singularly situated than Eaux-Bonnes. Viewed 

 from a distance, you are puzzled to understand how the houses can find 

 standing room in the wedge-like ravine containing them, and your surprise 

 will not be lessened when you reach the smart little town. Fancy a section 

 of a bustling Paris street, peopled by a curious mixture of gaily-dressed 

 women, black-robed priests, prosaic bourgeois, Spanish and French peasants 

 — the former wrapped in capacious brown cloaks, the latter wearing the 

 picturesque berrei, — cavalcades dashing to and fro, lumbering charrettes, 

 and big oxen, and you have Eaux-Bonnes. 



" Once housed, I set out for a ramble, unheeding the numerous offers 

 from guides to conduct me to the Cascades. Indeed you cannot go wrong, 

 for walks, zig-zagging up the mountains, through the woods, lead to various 

 points of view. The most picturesque fall is the Valantin, which sweeps 

 down amidst great rooks in a very striking manner. But the remarkable 

 features of the walks around Eaux-Eonnes are the mountain forms, — parti- 

 cularly that of the Pic de Ger, — the dark pines and the patriarchal beeches. 

 The huge roots of these trees assume the most fantastic shapes vying with 

 the branches in length and thickness ; you might imagine that the trees 

 had been half torn from the earth by titanic force, and that the roots were 

 writhing in agony. 



" About half-a-mile from Les Eaux-ohaudes, the Gave is crossed by Le 

 Pont d'Enfer, an undeserved name, as there is nothing infernal about the 

 structure. It leads, however, to wonderful scenery ; a short way beyond, 

 the Pic-du-Midi Ossau appears with its twin summits — a magnificent object 

 towering over a crowd of mountains. Cascades stream down the precipices j 

 and on passing the hamlet of Goust you plunge into a dark pine forest, 

 which continues to Gabas. This is the last village in France, scarcely 

 meriting that name, and consists of but half-a-dozen houses, whose inhabi- 

 tants live by the traffiic carried on between France and Spain. Nearly 

 20,000 mules pass the frontier annually." 



The traveller describes his journey from Louvie to Lestelle, as made partly 

 across a plain covered with maize, by a road frequently bordered by vines 

 hanging in festoons from apple to cherry trees, and entering LesteUe, 

 charmingly situated at the entrance to the valley of Lourdes, by a bold 

 single arch-bridge spanning the Gave de Pau, here a soft blue stream, the 

 crown of the bridge mantled with ivy hanging in long pendants below the 

 arch — and the entire structure, with its back-ground of wooded hills, being 

 highly picturesque. " Shortly after leaving Lestelle (says he) we enter the 

 department of Les Hautes Pyrenees, and are again in mountain land ; the 

 valley now contracts, the hills are higher, and we see on a precipitous rock 

 the old castle of Lourdes. Around this war raged long and fiercely. The 

 Saracens, driven from the plains of Poictiers, took shelter beneath its walls 

 from the victorious sword of Charles Martel; and our own history records how 

 long and bravely English soldiers struggled to hold this, our last possession 

 in the south of France. 



" Beyond Lourde the scenery becomes barren and mountainous, which, 

 however unpleasing, has the effect of heightening by contrast the exquisite 

 beauty of the valley of Argelez, declared to be, and justly, the paradise of the 

 Pyrenees ; and if a combination of swelling hills, crowned by forest-clad 

 mountains, clear flowing waters, deep green pasture, varied crops, orchards, 



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