292 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZIN 



tograph by Herbert Corey 



THE PUBLIC SQUARE OF ELI VI A 



On the first floor of the house facing the square the mules are stabled, while the family lives 

 above; in the bitter cold gf a Pyrenean winter the arrangement has its advantages 



entrance to the only vulnerable side, ill 

 which the great old door is set, by climb- 

 ing a flight of steep stone steps, in their 

 turn flanked by a tower which alone re- 

 mains of the original defensive works. 

 The courtyards, in which oxen are kept 

 under their owners' windows, much to 

 the injury of the village sanitation, are 

 thick-walled inclosures whose gates are 

 great affairs of plank, well barred against 

 aggression, and always overlooked by a 

 window from which they can be defend- 

 ed. The town breathes age and a state 

 of arms. One learns to look with dis- 

 taste upon the parvenu Cafe del Progreso 

 on the Plaza de la Constitution-. It is a 

 mere newcomer, this cafe, with its date 

 of 1 791 carved above the lintel. It is 

 only when one learns this marks the time 

 of its reconstruction that it is received 

 into favor. 



EIEE OE EEIVIA CENTERS UPON THE 

 PUBLIC SQUARE 



It is upon the public square that the 

 visible life of Llivia centers in the day- 

 time. Now and then a wanderer called 



at the Cafe del Progreso for one of the 

 mild and sugared drinks to which the 

 Spaniard is partial. A man shrouded in 

 a great cloak and wearing a wide black 

 hat pulled well down over his eyes passed 

 and repassed. He had been a cart pas- 

 senger and the carter had quite gratui- 

 tously assured me that he was a traveler 

 in commerce. He was the breathing 

 image of an operatic conspirator. 



A small boy led a pig by a cord at- 

 tached to a foreleg, and at intervals gra- 

 ciously permitted other small boys to hold 

 the cord while he instructed them in 

 the technique. A yoke of oxen swung 

 slowly by, hauling a cart piled high with 

 hay. But of the male residents of Llivia 

 nothing was to be seen. If one smuggles 

 by night, it is to be assumed that one 

 sleeps by day. 



The town crier was making his rounds 

 when we returned to Puigcerda. He 

 seemed as wholly out of date to an Amer- 

 ican as though a megatherium had been 

 found strolling through these placid 

 streets. He was an old man, most lei- 

 surely in his movements, and with an ex- 



