290 DBVAaTATIONS AND BESTOEATIONS. 



pibturesque villages, and a great number of churches and ruined castles, 

 can be said to constitute an earthly paradise, the Val d'Argelez has these 

 in perfection. 



"At Pierrefitte the road bifurcates ; that to the right leads to the Cauterets, 

 and the left to Luz. The Pio-du-Midi-de-Viscos, a bold mountain, rising 

 7030 feet above the sea, divides the two gorges thrbugh which the roads 

 are carried. The entire distance from Pierrefitte to Cauterets, five miles, 

 presents a succession of wild mountain scenery, which, thanks to the road 

 engineer, you are enabled to see to great advantage as you journey along. 

 Beneath beetling buttresses glowing with lichens, — over the foaming Gave, 

 — now surmounting seemingly impassable rocks, and then plunging deep into 

 the gorge — -joui wonder increases as you proceed, until a turn of the defile 

 discloses Cauterets." 



It is a peculiar feature of nearly all the Pyrenean brunnens to be nearly 

 buried in ravines. Cauterets is overhung by mountains which almost meet, 

 leaving only a small triangular-shaped piece of ground on which the houses 

 are built. The vicinity of Cauterets abounds with subjects for the land- 

 scape painter ; but more to our purpose is the account given of the scenery 

 enjoyed on an excursion to the Lac de Gaube, said to be one of the most 

 interesting excursions to be made in the Pyrenees. Leaving Cauterets, 

 the path, after a little way, leads to a point where the mountains seem to 

 close, and the path winds up the defile of the Marcadaou, among huge 

 boulders by the side of the foaming Gave. One spring after another is 

 passed ; that of Le Bois is the highest. " And here (says our traveller) I 

 came upon a group of Spaniards, wrapped in their mantas ; five stalwart 

 fellows, with huge legs and feet cased in rough hempen sandals. They 

 "were drinking the water with much gravity ; presenting a great contrast in 

 this respect to the French, who gulp the nasty stuff amidst music and 

 ■laughter. 



" Now, however, you bid farewell to the springs and their votaries, and 

 the scenery changes. The trees relieve the wrinkled face of the granite 

 precipices ; the Gave plunges down the gorge in a series of cascades ; one, the 

 Cerizet, is of great beauty ; and the mountains on either side tower to a 

 prodigious height, crowned by peaks. Higher still, you enter a pine forest, 

 which clothes the summit of the lofty mountains — every ledge is fringed 

 with pines, and only where the rooks are actually vertical are they bare. 

 I rode slowly through the forest, being animated frequently by the exquisite 

 views appearing between the pines. These, steeped frequently in the 

 glowing prismatic hues of minature rainbows, formed by the water-falls— the 

 underwood, matted by lovely creepers, shaded by even lovelier flowers — the 

 trees, sturdier and more varied as the elevation increases — occasional 

 glimpses seen through their branches of the peaks far above — such are the 

 features of the ride to the Pont d'Espagne, six miles from Cauterets. 



" This bridge, leading to the Marcadaou Pass into Spain, is a frail-looking 

 structure of rough pines, thrown across a deep gulley, down which thunder 

 the waters from the Lac de Gaube, and the snows and glaciers of the 

 Marcadaou. The torrents, leaping together from the precipice, meet in 

 mid-air, and plunge roaring and foaming down the gorge. Compared to 

 the falls in Switzerland, these in the Pyrenees are diminutive, but the 

 setting of the Pyrenean cataracts is, in my opinion, more picturesque. The 

 rocks amidst which the water falls are invariably massive, and the vegeta 

 tion displays a luxuriance unknown in more northern Helvetia. The Pont 



