III.
There is no mistaking the character of the next day. It is "settled fair." Probably Nature feels that she carried affairs a trifle too far yesterday. Everything is radiant, this morning; the leaves on the trees glow and are tremulous in this warm southern air. Eaux Bonnes appears to better advantage than at our rainy arrival. I cross the street to the diminutive park, which is triangular, its apex northward. It has paths and seats and leafy Gothic arches, fountains and a music kiosque; while in and about are promenaders, nurses and children, guides and idlers, already out of doors for sunbaths or business. The town mainly centres about this triangle, the houses facing it from across the streets in a similar triangle proportionately larger. The buildings are tall and uniformly handsome; other hotels resembling the Princes line the western side and the base, and opposite are diversified shops and pensions and still more hotels. Livery-stables are omnipresent, the sign, "chevaux et voitures à louer," greeting one at every turn. Along the sides of the streets flow lively rivulets of water, led in from the mountain slopes and fresh and clear from their clean, rocky ways. The spring-house and Casino, a decorated structure, built against the mountain, stands on a low eminence west of the head of the park, and from this to our hotel extends a broad foot-way, lined with stalls and booths, "where bright-colored Spanish wools, trinkets and toys are sold, where bagatelle and tir au pistolet, roundabouts and peepshows,—all the 'fun of the fair,' in fact,—is set out for the amusement of idle Eaux Bonnes." These are sure indications of fashionable prosperity. Wherever these evanescent summer stalls appear, at Saratoga or St. Moritz or Eaux Bonnes, they tell of patronage to call them into being,—an idle, prosperous patronage that spends for gimcracks what the native would economize from necessaries.
Behind all, walling the square closely in on almost every side, are the cliffs; at the east is a lower curtain of rock shutting off the outer valley; and on the south, almost overhanging us, shoots up the Pic de Ger. The view of its rocky escarpments and silver peak may fairly be called stupendous, it is so sharply at variance with the smooth carpetings of the lower mountains about it.
I pass down through the park. At its base is a congress of single-seated donkey-carriages like those at Biarritz. They are officered by importunate though good-natured boys and women, but I persevere in unruffled declinations. The street slants up a short hill here and comes out upon another open place much smaller than the park and likewise bordered with stores and pensions.
This is Eaux Bonnes, as it is, as it was, as it will be. The place cannot grow, except into the air. Its area is little over half an acre. It stands wedged into the Gourzy, on a species of platform in a huge niche in the mountain, partitioned off from the main valley by the low ridge of rock behind the houses on the farther side of the park. Save this attractive little grove in its centre, every inch of ground is utilized. The torrent, tearing past along the lower bottom of the main ravine without, has cut away the level on that side; beyond it, the mountains rise sheerly upward again. And the Gourzy, as just said, hems us in on the sides remaining. From the rear windows of the Hotel des Princes you can put out your hand and touch the naked rock. A few additional houses are perched here and there on convenient projections or lodged in narrow crannies against the hill; and blasting and cutting have created space where it was not before; but the limit seems reached, and what is must be Eaux Bonnes cannot afford to increase in popularity. Popularity has seriously incommoded her already. Like a full-bodied but tight-bodiced dowager, she devoutly hopes she will not have to grow any fatter.
As I saunter back through the park, I meet a striking individual. It is one of the local guides arrayed in full regimentals. His startling colors are designed to attract the wary but inquisitive tourist,—much as the waving of the hunter's colored scarf is said to attract the wary but inquisitive gnu. Still it is the true Ossalois dress, and as such claims inspection. I open a conversation, and find the man to be one of the four Eaux Bonnes guides having the honor of mention in Murray; Caillou Martin is his name. A broad, good-humored face, swarthy and strong, with the eyes dark and small and far apart, and shaded by the inevitable berret. Caillou's is scarlet, and so is his jacket, thrown open in flapping lappels and showing a white flannel waistcoat beneath. He wears knee-breeches of brown corduroy, and thick creamy-white leggings, coarsely knit and climbing up over ankle and calf nearly to the knee. He has hemp sandals, and around the waist circles a scarlet sash, equally inevitable with the berret.
Caillou grins as I tell him of Murray's encomiums, and wants us to go up the Pic de Ger. The day is "magnifique", the ascent "très facile" the view "ravissante." And each adjective is set off with a rattling fusillade of crackings from his great whip. This weapon is a specialty of all Pyrenean guides and drivers. The handle, short and stout, is of wood, with a red plush tuft around the centre, and the lash is made of braided leather thongs, four or five feet in length, finishing in a long whipcord and a vicious little knot. This instrument will make a crack like a pistol shot, and under artistic manipulation will signal as far as Roland could wind his famous horn. It is worn slung over the shoulder and under the opposite arm, the handle in front linking by a loop with the lash; and it fitly completes a highly picturesque costume. We bargain for the whip on the spot, a five-franc piece changes hands, and Caillou Martin graciously writes his honored autograph on the handle.