A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees

by Edwin Asa Dix

V.

Barèges is the most convenient point for the ascent of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. The baths lie almost at the foot of this mountain, and one can make the ascent in about four hours, and descending by another side rejoin the road to Bigorre at the village of Grip, beyond the col before us. We resign the ascent, of course, under stress of barometer; but this climb is assuredly one of the best worth making in the Pyrenees. The Pic is prominently seen from distant points everywhere through the region: it is visible from Pau, from the Maladetta, from the plain of Toulouse. Consequently these points must lie within its own ken. Its huge, shapely dome rises 9400 feet into the air, and standing as it does solitary and apart at the edge of the plain and not buried among rival summits, the view from the top has been solely criticised as too vast for detail and too high for exactness, and commands, it is said, a fifth of all France. The ascent is easy, there being little snow upon the path in the summer; there is a bridle-trail throughout, a small inn higher than half way, and an observatory now erected upon the summit.

We are only intellectually cognizant of this Pic du Midi, however, as we jog on up toward the pass; for the driving fog curtains all the peaks, at times lifting so far as to show the nearer slopes and perhaps the hills ahead, but for the most part enfolding even the road and ourselves in its maudlin affection. We pull steadily on through the morning, over a good road and up through a still dreary region of moist, sparse turf and shaly slopes of slate and rock and profitless débris. The occupants of the landau, as they look down toward us at times from the turn next above, wave dry and encouraging greetings, through the open windows; and we wave back damper but equally encouraging greetings in return, having found that good spirits had fallen to us with unexpected and gratifying ease.

Altogether it has not been in the least a long morning, when we finally reach the crest of the Col du Tourmalet, 7100 feet in elevation, from which begins the descent toward the Campan Valley and Bigorre. This col is not loved by mountaineers during the winter; it is exposed to the full sweep of storms, and is one of the wild passes on which, as the local saying goes, "when the hurricane reigns the son does not tarry for the father nor the father for the son." Before the Route Thermale pushed its way over, it was but a foot-pass, wearisomely traversed in saddle or litter by infrequent travelers or by invalids sentenced to Barèges.

Just at the summit of the col, for a supreme minute, the clouds part at the rear, right and left, and roll away beneath, and we catch for once the long stretch of the desolate Valley of Bastan, with the windings of the road reaching backward and downward along the hills. It is over while we look; the fog writhes and twists down and all is greyness again.

The carriages slip rapidly down the other side, with all brakes set and forty hairbreadth margins recorded for the outer wheels; and, an hour from the col, we are safely at the hamlet of Grip, where the horses and we are doomed to a two hours' halt and a lunch. The first inn, irrationally placed in a patch of field apart from the main road, does not look attractive from the distance, and we drive on to the second. This one, while carefully non-committal in appearance, is at least on close terms with the road, and as there is no third, we cheer us with reminders of Laruns and descend.

It is a creaky little inn, facing a wet, cobbly yard and having the air of being retiring in disposition and somewhat surprised at the advent of visitors. The landlady is away, it appears, and we are received by her spouse, a mild-mannered old man who is not used to being a host in himself but resignedly assumes the burden. The lunch is promised for the near future. The horses are led off, the carriages covered to remain in the road, and the driver and the jovial guide turn to and help with the fire and stabling arrangements in a way which shows that they are entirely at home in the locality.

We stand for a while on the decrepit, covered balcony overlooking the yard, exchanging humorous reminiscences of the ride, and idly commiserating the three fowls and a wet pig which appear below. We are absorbed too in a wooden-saboted farmhand of gigantic proportions who clicks across the cobbles at irregular intervals and exchanges repartee with a milk-maid in the doorway. He has a huge, knobby frame, bulging calves, a colored kerchief turbaning his head, a rough costume throughout, and a fascinating though belying air of desperate and unscrupulous villainy.

But the weather has still its tinge of rawness, and two or three of us go down stairs again and invade the den of the kitchen, where the fire is now under way and the inevitable omelet just in contemplation. The old man acts as extemporary cook. He finds a black and somewhat oily frying-pan, suspends it over the fire to heat, and throws in a handful of salt to draw out the grease. He now looks thoughtfully about for a rag to scour it withal; there is a rag of sooty environment and inferentially sooty antecedents hanging beside a box of charcoals next to the chimney-place; he horrifies some among us by promptly catching it up; gives the pan a vigorous rubbing-out with this carboniferous relic; and certain appetites for omelet fade swiftly away. Their losers speak for a substitution of coffee and bread and fresh milk in lieu of all remaining courses, and beat a hasty retreat from the scene.

The omelet duly appears upon the lunch-table presently set for us in the little room upstairs, and serves at least as a centre-piece, over which to tell the story of its birth; and the coffee, excellent bread, and a huge pitcher of new, creamy milk amply reconcile all abstainers, and fortify us in a feeling of good-tempered toleration even for Grip.