Indeed, the soft slopes covered with meadows and fields, handsome modern houses and pleasure-grounds, and streams that flowed gently on with scarcely more force than sufficient to turn a mill, took from us all remembrance that we were within a few miles of some of the highest mountains in Europe.
As we proceeded, however, the scene gradually began to change; the houses were less frequent, and seemed to gather themselves into villages, the rivers became more rapid, and the country, though highly cultivated, assumed the appearance of a fine park; large clumps of oak and fir, lying scattered in every direction, and the tops of the hills hiding themselves in deep plantations. Still we saw nothing of the Pyrenees, and even the people seemed to differ in nothing from the common Bearnois of Pau, except, indeed, that the women had discarded their shoes as well as stockings, or rather carried them in their hands instead of on their feet.
We stopped at last to change horses at Savignac. A gentle slope leads from the village through some thick trees into the valley; and dashing down with all the éclat of fresh horses and postilion we found ourselves, in a moment, in a scene that leaves description, and almost imagination, behind.
The valley winding up to the Peak, again lay before us; but we were now amongst the mountains indeed, and on either side, at the distance of less than half a mile, rose crags, and precipices, and hills covered with pine, towering to the very sky, and forming, as it were the impassable walls of the garden into which we were entering;--for it was a garden. Up to the very foot of the rocks, and climbing up the hills, wherever a spot of vegetable mould was to be found, the highest cultivation was extended, and the most extraordinary verdure. The hay and the corn harvest were both in progress at the same time and the new-mown fields appeared as if covered with rich green velvet, on which the large trees and rocks threw a beautiful transparent shadow. There were a thousand little objects of interest that filled up every spot the eye could rest upon, and satisfied it altogether. The valley all along was spotted with small villages, which seemed to creep for shelter close to the foot of the mountains. Not far on, stood a high rocky mound covered with the ruin of some feudal castle, and below lay a hamlet with its little church and the path winding up to it. Multitudes of small mountain-bridges crossed the river all the way up its course, as it came dashing and foaming over a bed of rocks. The crags, on either side, were broken and interspersed with rich hanging wood, and kept narrowing in the distance, till they seemed to meet, precipice over precipice, with the high conical Pic du Midi, rising purple above them all; and at the same time the warm sunshine, pouring over the hills, gave to all the further parts of the valley a kind of luminous indistinctness. I cannot describe it! It was a congregation of the grandest and the most minute, the most opposite and the most harmonious beauties, that nature can produce!
After having staid some time to admire, we passed on over a light, elegant little bridge, and followed an excellent read towards the Eaux Bonnes. In a valley which turns away to the left, lay the little town of Alurdi, scattered amongst some lesser hills. Part of it has been twice destroyed by avalanches, but the people still continue to build up the houses exactly on the same spot.
However grand the hills may appear, the eye, unaccustomed to such vast objects, does not judge rightly of their height till it compares them to something with which it is familiar. The steeple of Alurdi served us as a guide to estimate the objects around, and the effect was so extraordinary, that we both laughed on measuring it against the mountain behind. I am sure I know not why I laughed, for there is nothing in the littleness of man's works to make him merry; but so it was, and we went on.
Approaching Laruns, the valley appears terminated by high crags, and we could just distinguish the road to Spain, leading into a deep ravine, which seems scarcely more than a crevice in the rock. But here, turning off to the left, we passed through the town of Laruns itself, which is as odd a building as ever I beheld. Perhaps some people might find a great deal of amusement in searching into the history of the place, for both the materials and structure appear of an antique date. The lower story of the houses are only inhabited by the cows; pigs, and horses; and the number of pretty faces which the sound of a carriage called stare at the travellers, seemed as if they were looking out of the drawing-room windows. The streets are so narrow, that it is scarcely possible to pass; neither did I see a shop of any kind in the place. Over many of the doors we remarked the form of a serpent interlaced with two bars of iron, and the windows, which were without glass, consisted only of a kind of gothic frame of black marble, giving an extraordinary church-like appearance to the houses.
After passing through Laruns, as we entered another long valley to the left, we turned to take one more look at that which we were quitting. It was quite fairy land, a perfect scene of enchantment. The valley, full of villages, hamlets, and cultivation, undulating in a thousand slopes, and broken by woods and rivers, was all lighted up by the clear rays of the declining sun; while the wild heavy rocks and mountains to the west, rose in deep masses against the sky, no longer separated into detached portions, but all confounded in profound shadow, and airy, uncertain obscurity.
Language is all emptiness, and fails before any thing great or strong. Reader, I must take you to the valley d'Ossau, and set you where I stood, and win the sun to shine upon it as then he shone, before I can make you comprehend its loveliness.
We soon lost sight of it. After going on for a short time amongst some English-looking hedge-lanes, we again came out upon the edge of the hill; the road passing along the brink of a steep descent, at the bottom of which ran the river, roaring amongst the rocks. At one part, we found the people engaged in banking up the road, which was not upon the surest foundation possible, and which, having apparently a strong dislike to an elevated situation, was rather inclined to slip down into a more humble station in the valley below. The way taken, or rather the method in which they were proceeding to prop up the road, was somewhat curious. About twenty men and women were employed, some in digging earth for the embankment, others in carrying it to the spot. The machinery of a wheelbarrow never seemed to have entered their imagination, but as soon as a shovel full of earth was dug out, the women took it on their heads, in a small wooden trough, not at all unlike a butcher's tray, only not so large, and thus carried it at a slow pace to its destination, talking all the way; so that, upon a fair calculation, each woman could fill up about a cubic yard per diem.