A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix

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At the right above the col is a wider point of view; we ascend for some
twenty minutes over the pastures to the top, led by a herd-boy. The view
now sweeps a new quarter of the horizon,--that of the northeast; and the
full plain of Toulouse is spread at our feet, shading off in the far
distance into a faint hazy transparence where a few soft clouds seal it
to the line of the sky.

"Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains."

The Dark Ages were strangely dark in one respect: they had forgotten the
admiration for Nature. Save as to unaccustomed manifestations,--quakes
and comets and like portents,--they seem to have noticed little of her
higher or more unfamiliar moods. The sensation of the sublime was not
in their range of emotions; it is distinctively a modern growth.
Froissart traveled through this region on his way to Orthez; the
Pyrenees peaks were in sight before him, day after day, near and
distant; and they shone upon him for weeks from the hills about Gaston's
castle. Not once does he mention their presence to admire it. Scarcely
once do other writers of his or neighboring centuries notice even their
existence, except as hunting-grounds or boundary-lines; "_le spectacle
des Alpes ne dit rien a Racine, et l'aspect des glaciers fait froid a
Montaigne_." All the historian's of the time of Henry IV speak of his
having been born in "a country harsh and frightful,"--"_un pays aspre et
affreux_." Even the early troubadours and trouveres, poets and
rhapsodists, loving to admire and enlarge and extol, are silent
concerning the mountains. Despourrins, the poet of the Pyrenees, sang of
love and lyric inspiration; but he rarely looked up to seek the higher
inspiration of their hills and snows. It is inexplicable that the power
of the sublime should have been withheld from the age of romance and
poetry and nearness to nature, and bestowed in growing measure upon our
commercial and unenthusiastic era. It is not all wholly prosaic, after
all, this nineteenth century of ours, when it has so ardently this high
emotion, scorned by its intenser predecessors.

As we descend to the carriages, facing another tall Pic which shoots up
from the farther side of the col, the sun has neared the clouds in the
west; it strikes the far-off Maladetta glaciers with a light no longer
white, but rose-tinted; the snows glow softly under it like fields of
tremulous flame; the mountains gleam almost as something supernal, as we
take a final gaze before turning away down the valley.

IV.

It is the last of our midsummer drive through, the Pyrenees. We realize
it almost suddenly, and with regret. We seek to absorb and enjoy every
minute as we drive down the long hills and on through the Vale of Campan
in the evening light toward Bigorre. It is a chaotic, delightful array
of memories that our minds are whirling over and over in their busy
hoppers,--incidents and scenes, grains of legend, kernels of history,
gleanings of quick, nearer life,--all the intermingled associations now
sown for us over the region.

Instinctively we summon up recollections of the Alps for comparison with
the mountains we are leaving. And the comparison is not found to be
entirely a sacrilege. The Alps are first and preeminent among European
mountains; the repose of their immensity, the sense of power, the
indefinable, spell they exert, lesser ranges cannot in general features
attempt to rival. But this is not to say that a lesser range, is a
wholly inferior range,--that even in this effect of immensity, of power,
it may not at certain points bear almost full comparison. The Pyrenees,
we agree, are far from lacking material for a parallel. As we think of
the briefly glimpsed cliffs of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau, or of the
ice-fields seen about the Balaitous, the Vignemale, the Taillon, the
Crabioules, we set them in thought almost against the crags of the Mont
Cervin, or the Eismeer and the glaciers of the Bernina. We instance, as
Alpine impressions, the prospects, among others, from the Aubisque and
the Entecade; the snow-peaks, named and unnamed, in their sight, the
heights and depths revealed by the view. We traverse again the gorges
leading to Eaux Chaudes and Cauterets, and the winding road through the
Chaos; we confront the amazing wall of the Cirque of Gavarnie, which
has nothing of its own order in Switzerland that is even commensurate;
we rehearse the account of the scaling of Mont Perdu and of the outlook
from its summit, as first recorded by Ramond nearly a century since,
when he finally succeeded in that initial ascent; we recall the
descriptions of the illimitable desolations of the Maladetta fastnesses,
more recently explored by Packe and Russell; and while these are single
effects, and those of the Alps are beyond count, they are in character
not to be excluded from almost equal rank. And over all the lowlands we
throw that luxuriance of vegetation and of foliage, and a certain
softness and richness of landscape, which cannot be found nearer the
north, and which, in the contrast with the snow-peaks in sight beyond
adds so strangely to the height and aloofness of the latter,--as in the
view of the Pic de Ger from Eaux Bonnes, and the wider sweep from the
Pau Terrace or the Col d'Aspin behind us. In fine, as genial Inglis long
ago made summary, "the traveler who is desirous of seeing all the
various charms of mountain scenery, must visit both Switzerland and the
Pyrenees. He must not content himself with believing that having seen
Switzerland he has seen all that mountain scenery can offer. This would
be a false belief. He who has traversed Switzerland throughout has
indeed become familiar with scenes which cannot perhaps be equaled in
any other country in the world; and he need not travel in search of
finer scenes of the same order. But scenes of a different order,--of
another character,--await him in the Pyrenees; and until he has looked
upon these, he has not enjoyed all the charms which mountain scenery is
capable of disclosing to the lover of nature."

V.

Lights twinkle out everywhere over the valley, as we roll on toward
Bigorre; every village and hamlet we pass is aglow with colored lanterns
and varied illuminations, and all the Pyrenees seem to be keeping high
holiday. Stalwart songs are resounding from porches and through the
windows of the local cafes when the carriages reach Ste. Marie; we
respond with the notes of _America_, as we drive out from the village,
and catch an answering cheer in return. Everyone is determinedly happy,
but happy or not, they have always a good word for our country. Other
songs and scenes are caught as we whirl on over the valley-road and
through the settlements; peasants peer at us from the wayside or from
the occasional chalets near by, with pleasant salute and good wishes. At
last, and with real regret, we have reached our destination; Bagneres de
Bigorre is before us, and we are speeding into its streets.

[Illustration]

It is here that we find the climax of the fete. The entire Promenade des
Coustous is a blaze of light. Arches have been erected, rows of tiny
glass lamps swing across from the trees, flags and bunting stream out
over the music-stand and the hotels and shops on each side. The place is
a mass of people; the bordering cafes are thronged; the band is playing
clearly above the hum and buzz, and as we enter the street it happens to
be just striking the signal for the _Marseillaise_. In an instant, the
thousands of throats join in the sound; the roll of song deepens to a
diapason; the solemn, forceful march of the melody is irresistible; all
France seems to be joining with prayer and power in her loved anthem.

Quickly we have greeted our welcoming hostess once more, congratulated
the drivers for their good day's work, and hurried out to the
Coustous,--there to sit and sip ices and steep in the exhilaration of
the festival until far into the night.

* * * * *

And so ends our mountain faring; and when, the next day, we turn to the
morning train for Toulouse and the open plain, it is with anticipation
still, yet with an unrepressed sigh at leaving these mountains and
laughing valleys of the Pyrenees, of whose charms we had once so
inadequately known.

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