III.
There are walks and promenades and mountain nooks in all directions from the town, but the afternoon grows misty and we do not explore them. The Gave running noisily on, hard by, has its stiller moments, up the valley, and the trout-fishing is reputed rather remarkable. In fact, one ardent angler who came here is said to have complained of two drawbacks: first, that the fish were so provokingly numerous as to ensure a nibble at every cast; and second, that they were so simple-minded and untactical that every nibble proved a take.
Besides affording these milder joys, Cauterets is a centre for larger excursions. There are three especially noted. The first and finest is the trip to the Lac de Gaube, a high mountain tarn at the very foot of the Vignemale. This we plan in prospect for to-morrow. It is four hours away by a bridle-path, passing on the way several much-admired mountain cataracts. The second excursion is by the foot-pass over a shoulder of the Viscos to Luz, a counterpart of the path over the Gourzy from Eaux Chaudes to Eaux Bonnes. As we purpose going to Luz by carriage, passing down to Pierrefitte and so up the other side of the V, we strike the Viscos from the list of necessaries. The third is the ascent of the Monné, the mountain overhanging Cauterets and 9000 feet above the sea; reported as long but not difficult and as giving a repaying view. But there is a mountain near Luz, the Bergonz, from which the view is held equally fine, and it is, we learn, simpler of ascent; there is even a bridle-path to the summit. Since we are to go to Luz, we decide for the Bergonz, and so cancel the Monné.
Cauterets might be likened to St. Moritz in the Engadine. It has no lakes so close at hand, but in its springs and baths, in its fashion and in its general location, a fair parallel is offered. Some of the important peaks of the range, Mont Perdu and the Vignemale, for example, are near us here though invisible from the town, as is the Bernina chain from St. Moritz. The Monné will stand for the Piz Languard. In hotels, Cauterets is hardly outgeneraled even by St. Moritz, though in expensiveness they will yield gracefully to the Engadine. The Hotel Continental, we find, has rather a pathetic story. It was built by a widow who had been left rich,—built only a few years ago, as a hobby, it would seem, and with little care for cost or judicious investment. It represented nearly three hundred thousand dollars, was extravagantly run, and lost money from the beginning. She also built a great café and music-hall across the street from the hotel, and the losses of the two together swelled in the end to an unbearable burden. Her fortune was sponged up, to the last franc; the property was bought in by a stock-company, and its unfortunate projector is now, we are told, in a charitable institution at Bordeaux. One hardly wonders at the result, in admiring the hotel. Its patronage may be large and rich, but no mere summer season,—at least without the English and Americans,—could recoup the interest on its costly outlay. The Gassion at Pau is profitable if at all because its yearly season is three times longer than this at Cauterets.
There is an evening conjuring performance at a café in the town, and some of us desert the ladies and enter its chaos of mirrors and tobacco smoke. The prestidigitator, a nervous, restive Frenchman with an astonishing rapidity of tongue, stands near the centre of the room and juggles and struggles with hats and rings and eggs and his own overmastering fluency. Now he will dart across the floor to borrow a listener's handkerchief; now he assaults our corner with the plea that we verify a card; later the hat is passed for the harvest. It is an interesting scene, European to the core; the men about the tables sip and smoke, intent on the performance or on their dominoes, grave and contemplative, finding uniformly in this contented café-life the needful finis of the day.