IX.
Pierrefitte ends the branch railway from Lourdes, as Laruns ended that from Pau. In fact, it is all strikingly like Laruns. A similarly uncompromising mountain, the Viscos, 7000 feet high, walls up the valley behind it, and here again the carriage-roads divide, one going up the gorge on the right to Cauterets, the other up that on the left to Luz and Gavarnie. The broad Argelès vale has been fittingly described as but the vestibule to the wild dwelling of the clouds, and Pierrefitte as the beginning-point for the narrow stair-flights which lead up to the interior.
As at Laruns, we are now to take the road to the right, at a later day returning to take the other. The Route Thermale goes on up the latter, passing through southeast to Luz, and then stretching eastward again to Barèges and over successive cols to Bigorre and Luchon. This we are progressively to follow in its entirety.
The train has come in, here at Pierrefitte, and the diligence for Cauterets is just leaving, attended by a wagonload of trunks. Horses and travelers refreshed, we soon move after it, and rising from the valley by half an hour's steep zigzags upward and forward, we pass the great yellow vehicle as it is entering the defile. Looking back, we have one brilliant view of the wide Eden of Argelès, and pass from light into twilight.
The road to Cauterets is a duplicate of that to Eaux Chaudes. Possibly the scenery is a trifle more impressive. We have the straight-cliffed gorge, with the torrent at its bottom and the road buttressed out or cut into the ledge; the turns in the ravine as we pull steadily higher, the bare slate and limestone precipices, the higher peaks. At times there is only width for the road and the torrent beneath, and the torrent seems uncomfortably crowded at that. The road does not allow itself to be crowded. It is hard and wide as always, and lavishly decorated with kilometre-stones. The stream is crossed, back and forth; the air has grown quickly cooler, and sunshades need no longer shut off the full view. "Upon nearing Cauterets, the carriage-way would seem as though it had grown phrensied from the mountainous opposition, for it curls and writhes and overcomes the difficulties only by the most desperate exertions; and at one spot, in its effort to compass a barrier of rock, it actually recoils within half-a-dozen yards of its former path." Throughout, however, the same easy, imperturbable gradient is preserved. The old road was greatly rougher and steeper; four horses and three pairs of oxen, it is said, were once required to drag up each carriage.
Finally the valley widens slightly, and rather suddenly opens out upon an incline. At its farther end is a white-crested mountain, and below nestles the mountain resort of Cauterets, six miles in from Pierrefitte.
It is seven o'clock, as our wheels strike the stones of the pavement. We drive into the main street, pass through a neat, irregular little plaza, and, some distance beyond, turn to the right from a larger square, toward the Hotel Continental. The town is waiting for the diligence, and shopkeepers are at their doors, guides and touters and loungers and visitors in the streets, all expectant for the daily gust of arrival. The lamps are just twinkling out, against the dusk, and the general impression,—often a long determinant of like or dislike,—is of an animated and welcoming scene. The hotel proves to be nearly on the scale of the Gassion, and other equally pretentious ones have been passed in approaching it. We drive under the high entrance-way and into its great court, with the flourishes dear to the drivers' hearts; and the long and varying tableau of the day's ride is over.