THE EAUX CHAUDES.
* * * * On ev'ry nerve The deadly winter seizes, shuts up ev'ry sense, And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows a stiffen'd corse, Stretch'd out and bleaching in the northern blast.--Thomson.
Blood-horses do not suit precipices, I am very well aware of that; but the two beasts which they brought forth to carry us to the Eaux Chaudes, were so tremendously irregular in appearance, so like the mountains they were destined to climb, that when I got across the ridge of my unfortunate hack, I could have fancied myself astride upon the Pic du Midi. However, they did very well, much better in all probability than better beasts would have done, and thus they went away, jogging on, lashing themselves with their tails, and kicking most unmercifully to get rid of the flies, but always with a kind of solemn gravity, which showed them well accustomed to it all, and neither at all inclined to discompose themselves nor their riders. As we went on, returning on the path we had passed the day before, we saw all the world in the fields getting in the harvest, trotting up and down the mountains with their bare feet, and as gay as the larks that were singing over their heads. To bring home the hay, they gather it into large linen cloths, forming packages very like feather beds these they roll down the hills as far as they can. When they cannot do so, they carry them, as they carry everything all through the mountains, on their heads; and difficult as the man[oe]uvre may seem, we saw more than once a girl stoop down to drink at a well, satisfy her thirst, and rise again, without ever removing the immense load of hay she carried on her head.
We were soon again in the beautiful valley d'Ossau, passed through Laruns, and following the road which I have said we saw going towards Spain, we entered a deep ravine, or pass in the mountains, where five men might dispute the passage with a world. There is not more room than for three horses abreast; and the rocks around rise high, bare, and inaccessible. At the end of the pass, the river which we had lost appeared pouring out into a deep hollow covered with rocks, trees, and underwood, the ravine widened into a narrow valley, varying from two to six hundred yards wide, while stupendous mountains rose on every side and shut out the world. Here some pious soul has hollowed out a little chapel in the rock, where the traveller may turn in to pray; and there could scarcely be a spot more solemn. In these passes, too, the storms of the winter months are most tremendous, with hurricanes and whirlwinds of snow so dreadful, that it is a common saying, "Here let not the father expect his son, nor the son expect his father." I have been told that this proverb originated in the story of a youth who had gone to hunt the izzard in the valley of Héas, when one of these storms occurred. His father, alarmed for his safety, went out to seek him. The young man arrived with his game, but finding his father absent on his account, returned to look for and bring him back. It would appear that the son had found, his parent almost overpowered by the storm, and being strong and vigorous had taken him in his arms to carry him home, for they were afterwards found lying together buried in the snow.
After keeping for some way along the steep which overhangs the river to the right-hand, we crossed a little bridge called Le Pont Creusé, and passed under the rocks to the left. It now becomes a country of cataracts, for every quarter of a mile a stream comes bursting over the top of the mountains, and descends from fall to fall for six or eight hundred feet. A very picturesque figure presented itself in our way; it was that of a Spanish smuggler, with his large sombrero, netted hair, and loaded mule; and I could not help remarking in his countenance, a kind of wild independence which I had not seen amongst the French mountaineers. God knows how he came by it, whether from his race or his country, or the continual habit of encountering and conquering dangers and difficulties in his illicit traffic, but there was something fine and grand, though bad, in the expression, not only of his face but figure.
Soon after passing him we arrived at the Eaux Chaudes, which consists simply of two ranges of houses built between the river and the mountain. The style of the place is exactly like that of the Eaux Bonnes, but it possesses several different springs, although the general nature of the waters appeared to me much the same as those of the former fountains.
Near the Eaux Chaudes is a mountain, called La Montagne de la Grotte, from a famous cavern situated near its summit, whose extent cannot exactly be ascertained, on account of a stream which impedes the passage at about three hundred yards from the entrance.
At the village we made an agreement with a guide to conduct us to the grotto. He was a shrewd, intelligent fellow, and spoke tolerable French, a thing rather rare in that part of the country; but he had acquired also a very excellent notion of the method of cheating travellers, together with a true French estimation of English purses and gullibility. Let me here remark, that the inhabitants of the Pyrenees, as far as I have seen, have little of the simplicity of mountaineers. The season for drinking the mineral waters bringing a great influx of strangers to spots at other times almost deserted, has taught the people of the country to gain as much as they can, and make hay while the sun shines, by cheating all the travellers within their reach to the utmost, so that whoever is obliged to employ them had better make their bargain beforehand.
Our guide having furnished himself with the necessary candles, etc., we proceeded along the valley, and crossed a bridge called Le Pont d'Enfer. I know not why, but in all mountainous countries they seem fond of attributing some of their bridges to the devil. In Wales, in the Alps, in the Pyrenees, one-half of them derive their name from that black personage, who, I should suppose, had something more serious to think about than building bridges. That which we now passed over had nothing very diabolical in its construction, and having again crossed the stream, our guide pointed out to us the grotto with a stream pouring down from it into the valley. It seemed a kind of garret-window in the mountain, which itself was little less perpendicular than the side of a house. We were told, however, that we might ascend on horseback, and on putting it to the proof, found that which had appeared impracticable, not only possible but easy, rendered so by means of a zig-zag path, which conducted by easy stages to the very mouth of the grotto. Arrived there, we were obliged to stop to cool ourselves, for the air of the interior was actually freezing.
I have always been disappointed in grottos and caverns; and this, like all the rest which I have seen, gratified me but little. It was a vast hole in the mountain, filled with large petrefactions in a great variety of forms; one of which, descending from above in the shape an elephant's trunk, kept pouring forth a heavy shower of water, forming pools, that emptied themselves into the river in the centre. It was altogether far more curious than beautiful; and whether it was that my mind was not in train to enjoy, or what, I know not, but I found little to interest and less to admire.
However, after having dined at the Eaux Chaudes, on passing through the deep ravine by which we had come, we had again new subject for pleasure in the view down the lovely valley d'Ossau. We returned to it with that feeling which man experiences on coming back to something loved, and we naturally called it our valley.
It was on the hills near the Eaux Bonnes that I first met with that luxuriance of flowers for which the Pyrenees are famous. The morning before our departure, I took a walk over the mountains to a cascade higher up in the valley than that which we had formerly seen, and in the course of an hour gathered more than forty different species of flowers, a great many of which I had rarely seen before. The butterflies were nearly as numerous, and as brilliant in colour, and I was almost tempted to catch some of them; but as I had no means of preserving them, to have done so would have been but useless cruelty.
We lingered for several days at the Eaux Bonnes, enjoying ourselves much; for it was one of those spots in which we can well live, "the world forgetting." Every morning offered some new expedition through beautiful scenery; and in wandering amongst the rocks and woods, by the side of the bright streams, and over the blue tops of those ancient mountains, a calm and placid thoughtfulness fell upon me, different in every respect both from the fits of dark gloom which had been so frequently my companions, and from the wild and reckless spirit of excitement, by conjuring up which, I strove at other times to gain assistance, to wage my constant warfare against Memory.
How long I might have remained there I do not know, had I not been driven thence by a return of my mental malady, which, though the fits were less frequent, more easily banished, and less painful in their effects, had never left me entirely. At Bordeaux I had suffered once or twice from the same delusion; and I only seemed to escape by constant occupation of mind and body.
In the present instance, I had roamed out early one morning, and had climbed one of the highest mountains during the continuance of a fog which I knew to be the forerunner of a bright summer's day. I was alone; but I ascended the mountainside so far, as to have all the vapours below me, and to get the blue sky around me. The whole world below was covered with the fog, which lay condensed and even, like a calm wide ocean, while round about on every side, from the surface of the mist, rose innumerable the granite peaks of the mountains, offering the same aspect which doubtless they had done when they looked down long centuries before upon the universal deluge. It was an extraordinary scene, and I paused to gaze upon it long; but as the sun advanced, he dispelled the mists, and descending by the valley of the cascade, I stopped by the side of the falling water. After gazing upon it for a moment, I raised my eyes, when suddenly, through the spray of the fall and amongst the bushes on the other side, I saw again that fearful countenance. Covering my eyes with my hand, to shut it out, I hurried back to the inn, and told my friend B---- what had occurred.
"Let us return to Pau," was his only reply, and we accordingly set out at once. My command over my mind, however, was now greater than it formerly had been; and ere we reached that place I had regained my calmness, and was prepared to act my allotted part with the rest.