A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees

by Edwin Asa Dix

Or night-dews on still waters between walls

Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass."

"One of the most impressive features of the scene on the ridge of Vénasque on this memorable morning," so relates one E.S., a traveler of sixty years ago, "was the peculiar, solemn noise emitted from the mountain. The only sound which broke upon our silence while we stood before it without exchanging a word, was an uninterrupted, melancholy mourning, a sort of Æolian, aerial tone, attributable to no visible or ostensible cause.[^[28]] The tradition of the Egyptian statue responding to the first rays of the morning sun came forcibly to my recollection. In her voice, this queen of the Pyrenees 'Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,' and superstition if not philosophy might have persuaded some that this sudden glare of brightness and warmth, glistening with increasing intenseness on every ridge and eastern surface, might call forth some corresponding vibrations, and therefore that the plaintive tones we heard were in fact a sort of sympathetic music,—the Maladetta's morning hymn."

Far to the west, over other ranges, the guide points out the glaciers of Mont Perdu and the Vignemale. We are looking off also from this point upon the beginnings of Aragon and of Catalonia; there is nothing smiling about Spain as seen from the Entécade; sterile hills solely heap themselves to the horizon.

We linger on the small knoll, a few feet only in width, which caps the mountain beneath us. Clouds scud over the summits and pass on, and turn by turn we have seen the full view. Finally they come streaming in more resolutely, and eventually defeat the breeze; then we turn downward at last, at a brisk pace, race down the slopes and re-enter France; and warily recrossing the long pasture of the corniculates, hasten on until the hospice appears in sight once more below.

It is far past mid-day now, and we are more than ready for suggestions of alimentation. There is a sheltered table with benches just out of doors before the hospice, and here we seat ourselves, flanked by with two massive dogs, and soon are discussing a nondescript repast which is too late for lunch and too early for dinner but which is remarkably appetizing in either view. An hour later, we are again in Luchon, greeted by the deferential head-waiter of the Richelieu, whose starchy bosom expands with hourly welcome for each who comes or who returns.

VIII.

There are divers other trips near Luchon which should be taken by the time-wealthy. It is a centre of more excursions than any of the other resorts; to count those which are très recommandées alone needs all the fingers. There is the much praised drive into the Vallée du Lys, with its white cascades, its "Gulf of Hell," its fine view of the ice-wastes of the Crabioules. There is the ascent to Superbagnères, an easy monticule overshading Luchon, whose view is ranked with that from the Bergonz. There is the day's ride through the Valley of Aran, which opened out below us from the Entécade,—a truly Spanish valley, though in France; its natives, its customs, its inns, all Hispanian, and unwontedly unconventional. There is the ride and climb to the Lac d'Oo, a mate of the trip from Cauterets to the Lac de Gaube. And for a longer jaunt, one can remount to the Port de Vénasque and pierce down upon the Spanish side to the village of Vénasque itself, returning next day by another port and the Frozen Lakes. Or this trip can be prolonged by making the tour of the Maladetta, passing on from Vénasque entirely around that mountain system and returning within the week by still another route to Luchon. The views on this last tour are described as remarkable, though it is a trip seldom made; the accommodation is doubtless uncomforting, but the tour, in outline at least, strongly resembles the tour of Mont Blanc, which ranks with the finest excursions in the Alps.

In short, there is a bewilderment of alternatives, each of the first rank in interest and heavily endorsed. Luchon is as easily the belle of the spas in location as in beauty; and one might strongly suspect that the charms of its climbs cure quite as many ills as its springs. Good as the waters may be, one does not become well by drinking merely, and sitting in wait for health; it needs precisely the invigoration of these tempting outings to quicken languid pulses and inspire sluggish systems.

Even in winter, many of these Pyrenees mountain-trips are entirely practicable. The Cirque of Gavarnie is reputed a double marvel under a winter robe, when its cascades are stiffened into ice and the eye is lost in the sweep of the snow-fields. Cauterets is hospitable throughout the winter, and so are both of the Eaux. Even the Vignemale has been ascended of a February, and the more ordinary excursions can be undertaken in all seasons. One cannot help thinking that the invalid of Pau's winter colony could better tell over the benefits of this Pyrenees climate if he would but test it,—if he would seek its pure, sharp, aromatic stimulus in in-roads upon the mountains themselves, in place of his mild promenadings along the Terrace in view of them with a heavy fur coat on his back and another on his tongue.