A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix

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The hospice is situated in a deep basin of mountains open only on the
Luchon side. Directly in front of it, high above us, is located the pass
referred to,--the _Port de Venasque_: the notch in the chain from which
the Maladetta is so strikingly revealed. It is itself another noted
excursion from Luchon. A great sweep of rocky ridges rises to it, not
perpendicular but sharply inclined. There is a savage black pinnacle
shooting up on the left, remarkable for its uncompromising cone of rock,
its rejection of all the refinements of turf and arbor and even of snow.
This is the _Pic de la Pique_. On the right starts up another summit,
sharp also, though less precipitous; and the short ridge between the two
has in it the notch, itself not to be seen from below, which constitutes
this pass, the gateway into Spain,--the Port de Venasque.

This is one of the most used of all these mountain portals; hundreds of
persons cross it annually, herdsmen, mule-drivers, merchants with their
small caravans of horses, Spanish visitors coming to Luchon, French
tourists seeking the view of the Maladetta,--and most often of all,
despite surveillance, the shadowy contrabandista, whose vigilance is
greater than the vigilance of the law and the custom-house. We can
plainly trace the path as it zigzags upward over the snow and debris,
and can outline its general course until it vanishes into the break in
the ridge. The line of the ridge itself is just now cut out clearly
against the sky, but soft puffs and ponpons of cloud are loitering near
it with evident intentions.

[Illustration: PIC DE LA PIQUE, AND PATH TO THE PORT DE VENASQUE.]

But our present quest is the Entecade. This mountain stands farther to
the left in the circle of the basin; its own flanks hide its summit
from the hollow, so we go forth not knowing whether into the blue or the
grey. Impedimenta are abandoned, sticks are grasped, and the guide leads
to the assault.

The path turns to the rear of the hospice and crawls up a green slope,
commanding finely the black sugar-loaf of the Pic de la Pique opposite.
As we advance, the mist has finally closed in upon the crest of the
Venasque pass at its right; the ridge is completely hidden, and we turn
and look ahead, somewhat solicitous for our own prospects. Before us, up
the mountain, long streamers of hostile vapors are swinging over the
downs, trailing to the ground and at times brushing down to our own
level; but the wind keeps hunting them off, and so far their tenure is
hopefully precarious. There is scarcely a tree above the hospice; we
have left the line even of pines.

An hour passes. We come to a table-land stretching lengthily forward,
covered with the greenish yellow of pastures, and alive with cattle
browsing on a sparse turf. The way winds on among the herds; we form in
close marching order, with the guide in front and spiked staffs ready
for use; for these neighbors are a trifle wild and not used to
strangers. They feed on unconcernedly, jangling their bells, but one or
two of the bulls cast inquiring glances upon us, and we prudently retire
to our pockets the bright red sashes bought in Cauterets until we have
passed the zone of porterhouse.

In this plateau is a boundary-stone, and we pass anew into
Spain,--stopping to cross and recross the frontier several times, with
grave ceremony, and to the unconcealed mystification of the guide. The
path slopes up again, passes a dejected little mountain tarn, and
another half hour brings us to the final cone, the summit just
overhead. The mists are still whirling down, but as often lift again;
the Pic de la Pique has disappeared under a berret of cloud, but other
and greater peaks beyond it are still cloudless; so, as we push on up
the last slope of rock and scramble upon the summit, we see that the
panorama is not gone after all and that the climb will have its reward.

For the view is a wide one from the Pic d'Entecade. The summit, 7300
feet above the sea, is an island in a circle of valleys. The hospice
basin has dwindled into insignificance. Behind is the trough of the
Luchon depression, its floor invisible but the main contour traceable
for miles. The Valley of Aran, which opens out below us on the east,
shows the fullest reach in the view; its entire course lies under the
eye, and the lines of rivers and roads are marked as on a map, while we
count no less than fourteen villages spotting its bottom and sides.
Beyond and about roll the mountains, in swells and billows of green,
roughening into grey and the finishing white.

But it is their culminating summit at the right that at once absorbs
attention; it is the monarch of the Pyrenees; we are looking at last
upon the Maladetta. It stands in clear view before us, well defined
though distant. It is rather a mass than a mountain; it shows no
accented, unified form; the wide crests rise irregularly from its wider
shoulders of granite and glacier, and fairly blaze for the moment in the
break of sunlight.

At nearer quarters, as from the Port de Venasque, the true dimensions of
the Maladetta are better realized. There one sees it from across a
single ravine, as the Jungfrau is seen from the Wengern Alp. But here
from the Entecade also, we can seize well its proportions,--

"In bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove."

The highest point of the Maladetta, the Pic de Nethou, is 11,165 feet
above the sea. The mountain has always been regarded superstitiously;
the name itself,--_Maladetta, Maudit_, the Accursed,--tells of the
traditions of the mountaineers. For long, no one dared the ascent.
Ramond finally attempted it in 1787, but failed to gain the highest
point. In 1824, a party renewed the attempt, and were worse than
unsuccessful, for one of the guides, Barreau by name, was
lost,--precipitated into a crevasse almost before the eyes of his
son,--and the body was never recovered. This added to the evil repute of
the mountain; years passed before the cragsmen would have anything
further to do with it. It was not until 1842 that M. de Franqueville, a
French gentleman, accompanied by M. Tchihatcheff, a Russian naturalist,
and by three determined guides, successfully gained the summit,--taking
four days and three nights for the enterprise. Since then the ascent has
a number of times been made.

This mountain is said to give forth at times a low murmuring sound
distinctly audible.

"There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petal from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass."

"One of the most impressive features of the scene on the ridge of
Venasque on this memorable morning," so relates one E.S., a traveler of
sixty years ago, "was the peculiar, solemn noise emitted from the
mountain. The only sound which broke upon our silence while we stood
before it without exchanging a word, was an uninterrupted, melancholy
mourning, a sort of AEolian, aerial tone, attributable to no visible or
ostensible cause.[28] The tradition of the Egyptian statue responding to
the first rays of the morning sun came forcibly to my recollection. In
her voice, this queen of the Pyrenees 'Prince Memnon's sister might
beseem,' and superstition if not philosophy might have persuaded some
that this sudden glare of brightness and warmth, glistening with
increasing intenseness on every ridge and eastern surface, might call
forth some corresponding vibrations, and therefore that the plaintive
tones we heard were in fact a sort of sympathetic music,--the
Maladetta's morning hymn."

[28] "_Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_, No. XVI; _The Peculiar
Noises Heard in Mountains_."

Far to the west, over other ranges, the guide points out the glaciers of
Mont Perdu and the Vignemale. We are looking off also from this point
upon the beginnings of Aragon and of Catalonia; there is nothing smiling
about Spain as seen from the Entecade; sterile hills solely heap
themselves to the horizon.

We linger on the small knoll, a few feet only in width, which caps the
mountain beneath us. Clouds scud over the summits and pass on, and turn
by turn we have seen the full view. Finally they come streaming in more
resolutely, and eventually defeat the breeze; then we turn downward at
last, at a brisk pace, race down the slopes and re-enter France; and
warily recrossing the long pasture of the corniculates, hasten on until
the hospice appears in sight once more below.

It is far past mid-day now, and we are more than ready for suggestions
of alimentation. There is a sheltered table with benches just out of
doors before the hospice, and here we seat ourselves, flanked by with
two massive dogs, and soon are discussing a nondescript repast which is
too late for lunch and too early for dinner but which is remarkably
appetizing in either view. An hour later, we are again in Luchon,
greeted by the deferential head-waiter of the Richelieu, whose starchy
bosom expands with hourly welcome for each who comes or who returns.

VIII.

There are divers other trips near Luchon which should be taken by the
time-wealthy. It is a centre of more excursions than any of the other
resorts; to count those which are _tres recommandees_ alone needs all
the fingers. There is the much praised drive into the Vallee du Lys,
with its white cascades, its "Gulf of Hell," its fine view of the
ice-wastes of the Crabioules. There is the ascent to Superbagneres, an
easy monticule overshading Luchon, whose view is ranked with that from
the Bergonz. There is the day's ride through the Valley of Aran, which
opened out below us from the Entecade,--a truly Spanish valley, though
in France; its natives, its customs, its inns, all Hispanian, and
unwontedly unconventional. There is the ride and climb to the Lac d'Oo,
a mate of the trip from Cauterets to the Lac de Gaube. And for a longer
jaunt, one can remount to the Port de Venasque and pierce down upon the
Spanish side to the village of Venasque itself, returning next day by
another port and the Frozen Lakes. Or this trip can be prolonged by
making the tour of the Maladetta, passing on from Venasque entirely
around that mountain system and returning within the week by still
another route to Luchon. The views on this last tour are described as
remarkable, though it is a trip seldom made; the accommodation is
doubtless uncomforting, but the tour, in outline at least, strongly
resembles the tour of Mont Blanc, which ranks with the finest excursions
in the Alps.

In short, there is a bewilderment of alternatives, each of the first
rank in interest and heavily endorsed. Luchon is as easily the belle of
the spas in location as in beauty; and one might strongly suspect that
the charms of its climbs cure quite as many ills as its springs. Good as
the waters may be, one does not become well by drinking merely, and
sitting in wait for health; it needs precisely the invigoration of these
tempting outings to quicken languid pulses and inspire sluggish systems.

Even in winter, many of these Pyrenees mountain-trips are entirely
practicable. The Cirque of Gavarnie is reputed a double marvel under a
winter robe, when its cascades are stiffened into ice and the eye is
lost in the sweep of the snow-fields. Cauterets is hospitable throughout
the winter, and so are both of the Eaux. Even the Vignemale has been
ascended of a February, and the more ordinary excursions can be
undertaken in all seasons. One cannot help thinking that the invalid of
Pau's winter colony could better tell over the benefits of this Pyrenees
climate if he would but test it,--if he would seek its pure, sharp,
aromatic stimulus in in-roads upon the mountains themselves, in place of
his mild promenadings along the Terrace in view of them with a heavy fur
coat on his back and another on his tongue.

The mountains are nearer him, besides, than they formerly were. They
have been opened to approach. Once there was no Route Thermale over the
cols; no facile pass to Venasque or the Lac de Gaube; no iron bars in
the difficult spots en the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. That day is gone by.
Parts at least of the wild mountains are tamed; danger has been driven
back, hardly the daunt of difficulty remains. D'Etigny and Napoleon and
the Midi Railroad have smoothed all the ways; there is no longer reason
to dread the lumbering diligence, the rough char-roads, the pioneer
cuttings through the pine-brakes. The buoyant mountain trips we have
touched upon, and more, are within almost instant call of every
dispirited Pau valetudinary, and of farther travelers as well. They have
but to go forth and meet them.

That this is becoming known is shown by the yearly increasing tide of
visitors. The cultured modern world enjoys reading the book of
nature,--especially so, provided some one has cut the leaves.

IX.

In the evening, we repeat the stroll down the Allee d'Etigny. The lights
twinkle brightly down upon the street; the shops are open, the hotels
lit up, the cafes most animated of all. Here on the sidewalks, around
the little iron tables, sits Luchon, sipping its liqueurs and tasting
its ices. It is the cafe-life of Paris in miniature,--as
characteristically French as in the capital. To "_Paris, c'est la
France_," one might almost add, "_le cafe, c'est Paris_." France would
not be France without it. It is its hearthstone, its debating-club, the
matrix of all its national sentiments.

There is an "etiquette" of Continental drinks. By the initiate, the code
is rigorously observed; each class of beverages has its hour and
reason, and your true Frenchman would not dream of calling for one out
of place and time. In the cafe-gardens of the large hotels you will see
the waiters' trays bearing one set of labeled bottles before dinner and
another after; one at mid-day, another in the evening. There is also a
ritual of mixing; syrups and liqueurs all have their chosen mates and
are never mismated.

From, an intelligent waiter in Lyons, a double fee extracted for me on
one occasion some curious if unprofitable lore on the subject, since
expanded by further queryings. The potations in-demand divide
themselves, it appears, into two main classes: _aperitifs_ and
_digestifs_. The former are simply appetizers, usually of the bitters
class, and are taken before meals. The latter, as their name shows, come
after the repast, for some supposed effect in aiding digestion. These
liquors are often, exceedingly strong, but it is to be remembered that
the quantities taken are minute; when brought not mixed with water or
syrups, a unit portion might hardly fill a walnut shell.

The favorite _aperitifs_ are:

Price in
centimes.[29]

Absinthe, mixed with Orgeat and seltzer-water, 50
Bitter, " " Curacao " " " 50
Vermouth, " " Cassis " " " 40
" " " Curacao " " " 40
" " " Bitter " " " 40
" " " Gomme " " " 40
Amer Picon, " " Curacao " " " 50
" " " " Grenadine" " " 60
" " " " Sirop ordinaire " 50
Madeira, Malaga, Frontignan, Byrrh, Quina or
Ratafia, unmixed 60

[29] A centime is one-fifth of a cent.

After meal-time come the _digestifs_:

Price.
Curacao Fokyn, unmixed, 60
Maraschino, " 60
Kuemmel, " 30
Kirschwasser, " 50
Chartreuse, " (yellow or green,) 60 or 80
Anisette, with seltzer, 80
Menthe, (Peppermint,) unmixed, or with seltzer, 50
Mazagran, or goblet of black coffee, with water, 40
Cafe noir, or small cup of black coffee, 35
" " with Cognac, 50
Limonade gazeuse, 40
Biere, bock or ordinaire, 30

Later in the evening, the ices come into play; returning from concert or
promenade, one can choose from the following to recruit the wasted
frame:

Price.
Sorbet au Kirsch, 80
" " Rhum, 80
" " Maraschino, 80
Bavaroise au lait, 60
" a la vanille, 70
" au chocolat, 70
Glace vanille or other flavors, 50 and 75
Cafe glace, 50
Grock or Punsch, 60

And last, the inevitable

Eau sucree, with orange-flower, 35

The above sketchy division may perhaps add to the visitor's alien
interest in Continental cafe-life, showing something of its system and
rationale. These elaborate and varied concoctions, noxious and
innoxious, are not, it must be understood, tossed off in the frenzied
instantaneity of the American mode; before a tiny glassful of Curacao
or sugar and water, the Gallic "knight of the round table" will sit for
hours in utter content, reading the papers, talking, smoking, or
clicking the inoffensive domino. Intoxication is almost unknown in the
better cafes; their patrons may sear their oesophagi with hot
Chartreuse, derange the nerves with Absinthe, stimulate themselves
hourly with their little cups of black coffee and brandy; but they never
get drunk. Frenchmen are temperate, even in their intemperance. An
English gin-mill and probably an American bar causes more besotment than
a dozen French cafes.

CHAPTER XVII.

OUT TOWARD THE PLAIN.

"How the golden light
On those mountain-tops makes them strangely bright."

--_The Pyrenees Herdsman_.

We revolve an unhappy fact, as we ramble on along the brilliant Allee,
this clear summer evening. We are no longer among the time-wealthy. With
Barcelona and the Mediterranean in prospect, we cannot draw further in
Luchon upon our reserve of days. The evening is flawless; the stars
blaze overhead like the burst, of a rocket; the promise of the morrow is
beyond doubt, and the Col d'Aspin is yet to be reconquered. We come back
across the park to our pleasant rooms in the Richelieu; and a conclave
ends in a summons to a livery-man and the order for carriages for a
to-morrow's return to Bigorre.

Early rising is therefore enforced, without regard to resentment, the
next morning, for we are to drive through within the day, not making a
night's break as before at Arreau. There are thus the two hard cols to
cross, one in the forenoon, the other in the afternoon; and the horses
must have a long mid-day rest to accomplish the task. So the
Allee-d'Etigny is just taking down, the shutters, as we prepare to drive
away from the hotel; the dew is still dampening the walks; domestics are
scouring entrance-ways and windows, a few early guides and drivers look
wistfully at the departing possibilities. We are unfeignedly sorry to
leave Luchon. But we exult in compensation over an unclouded day for the
Col d'Aspin.

By the usual mysterious Continental system of telegraphy, the fact has
spread that we are going, and even at this unseasonable hour the entire
working force of the Richelieu, portier, waiter, head-waiter, maids,
buttons, boots and bagsman line up to do us reverence. We pass from hall
to carriages through a double row of expectants. It is a veritable
running of the gauntlet, save that in running it we give rather than
receive. Unlike recipients in most other parts of Europe, however, the
servants here have the air of expecting rather than of demanding, and
take what is given more as a gift than as a right. So we depart in the
comfortable glow of benefaction, rather than in the calmer consciousness
of indebtedness baldly paid.

We reach the foot of the first col, the Peyresourde, with views at the
left of the distant glaciers above the Lac d'Oo, wind up to the crest as
the morning wears on, and by noon have scudded down by the other side
and are again at Arreau. It is a fete-day throughout France, and as we
drive into the town we find the plain little street transformed into a
bloom of flags and flowers and tri-colored bunting. On every side, as we
stroll out later from the inn, the shops and houses are fluttering the
red, the white and the blue, colors as dear to the American eye as to
the French. Boughs and garlands festoon the archways; the neighborhood
has flocked to the town in holiday finery, the _cabarets_ or taverns are
driven with custom, the nun-like town is become a masquerader. The scene
is so different from that of the cold, grey morning on which we left for
Luchon, that we vividly see how impressions of place as of person may
change with the change of garb and mood.

The air is warm, even sultry, but not oppressive. In fact, the
thermometer has not throughout the tour given any markedly choleric
displays of temper. The Pyrenees, lying as they do so far toward the
south, had held for us vague intimations of southern heat: linked
closely in latitude with the Riviera and with mid-Italy, we had half
feared to find them linked as well with Mediterranean and Italian
temperatures, and so far ill adapted for summer traveling. But the fear
was uncalled for. The weather has, on infrequent days, been undeniably
warm, but no warmer than the summer heat of the valleys of the Alps or
the Adirondacks. In fact, as a matter of geography, the Pyrenees lie in
the same northerly latitude as the Adirondacks themselves. In point of
elevation above the sea, the belt, even in its lowlands, is everywhere
higher than the neighboring parallels of Nice or Florence; the air is
fresher, shade and breeze are more abundant, as always among mountains;
our trip, aiding, to verify this, convinces us that apprehensions as to
excess of heat will here find gratifyingly little fulfilment.

II.

We beguile the three hours' wait with a lunch, a walk, and an idiot
beggar with an imposing wen or goitre. This creature crouches
persistently by the carriages while the horses are reharnessed and we
are taking our places. The form is misshapen, the face distorted and
scarcely human; we can get no answer from the mumbling lips save a
sputter of gratitude for our sous; it is cretinism, hideous, hopeless, a
horror among these beautiful valleys, yet as in the Alps pitifully
common.

In the presence of this frightful disease, destroying every semblance of
fair humanity, one can see some reason also for the belief in
witchcraft and diabolism once so intense in the Pyrenees. If the body
and mind of an "innocent" can thus come to part with the last vestige of
its holy lineage, the soul of a "wicked" might with good reason seem to
be capable of growing into full fellowship with the devil himself. So
late as 1824, not far from this spot, they nearly burned an old woman
for alleged sorcery; and in 1862, one was actually so burned, in the
town of Tarbes, a few leagues away. This superstition of witchcraft has
here been strong in all eras, but it is at last becoming extinct;
cretinism, as anachronous and as horrible,--a fact, not a
superstition,--remains unaccounted for and unlessened.

III.

By four o'clock, we are at the base of the Col d'Aspin and commence on
the long curves that lead to its top. The valley behind extends as we
rise; new breaks and depressions appear, branching off right and left on
all sides. After a half hour, peaks begin to peep over the hills at our
rear; they come up one by one into sight, each whiter and sharper than
the last, until the southern line is a serrate row of them, gradually
lifted wholly above the nearer hills. The promised panorama is truly
taking shape. We near at length the crest of the col. The Pic du Midi de
Bigorre will loom up beyond it, unclouded to-day, the drivers assure us,
and we watch for a glimpse at last of that mythical peak, which we have
skirted in cloud from Bareges to Bigorre and never yet once seen. We are
just below the top of the col; twenty feet farther will place the
carriages on the summit, when lo a huge rounded dome begins to rise
slowly up beyond the edge, and as we advance lifts itself into the full
form of the long sought Pic,--ten miles away to the west, yet looming
out as clearly as if but across the valley. It stands alone against the
horizon; there is no summit near to rival it; the sides are dark and
steep and almost snowless; the summit is looking down upon
Gavarnie,--upon Pau,--upon the wide march of the plains of France,--as
upon us on the Col d'Aspin, eying us with its stony Pyrenean stare.

Behind, the southern view is now in its entirety. The full line of the
Arreau and Luchon depressions is traceable, and of all their tributaries
as well; the giant humps of the hills marshaled to form their walls. The
separate pinnacles beyond them are countless. The chief array is
compacted directly south, a fraise of bristles numbering the white
Crabioules, the Pic des Posets, the Monts Maudits,--and at the left the
summits of the Maladetta, a "citadel of silver" in a sky of gold, its
glaciers fierce against the late afternoon sun.

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