We put up at the hotel of old Madame Lapierre, who is an original in her way. Some fifty years ago (I suppose) she kept a little auberge at Cauterets, when Cauterets was scarcely heard of. She has grown, into opulence as it has grown in fame and size, and now is one of the richest persons of the place. But still little Madame Lapierre retains all her old habits: six days of the week, trots about the kitchen in her original dirt, peeps into the saucepans, counts the onions, and scolds the servants, and the seventh puts on a clean muslin cap, and brings in one of the dishes herself, to show how fine she is. Withal she really is a very good old soul, civil, kind, and obliging; the only thing is, that there is no understanding a word that she says, for speaking patois sixty or seventy years has broken all the teeth out of her head, and spoilt her articulation.
Cauterets was as full as it could be. The violent hot weather had driven all the world out of large towns, and health, pleasure, curiosity, and fashion brought them all to the Pyrenees. Truly, truly, they could not have chosen a sweeter spot; grandeur and beauty become so familiar to the eye, that all the rest of the world does indeed look "stale, flat, and unprofitable." Besides, there are a thousand little lovely nooks unhackneyed by itineraries, which one is constantly finding out for one's self. I hate itineraries, they are a sort of Newgate Calendar, a record of all the common tours which have been executed for the last century. The Pyrenees have been but little tourified, or if they have I knew nothing about it, which came to the same thing.
There is a great difference between the Alps and the Pyrenees; the Alps are a country of mountains, the Pyrenees a chain. In Switzerland one is obliged to go to seek mountains: in the Pyrenees they start forward upon one; all that is beautiful and sublime is near at hand, and nature seems fond of changing from one form of grandeur to another.
Cauterets is surrounded on every side by majestic hills, and the walk to each of the sulphureous springs, of which there are several, displays new beauties at every step. That called La Raillère is the most frequented, and beyond it is a rich woody scene, dim and still, with the river divided into three or four streams, breaking over a high crag, and then foaming on under a small bridge of planks, which leads across from one rock to another. To the left lies a beautiful valley, to which we made an excursion with all the gay folks of the place. The ladies were carried in machines called chaises à porteurs, consisting simply of chairs fixed on poles and covered in with oil-cloth on all sides but one; these are carried between two men, whose dexterity is wonderful, bearing their burden up steep rocks, and over broken crags which seem quite impassable. Altogether they are not ugly in a landscape, and as we pedestrians stood upon the top of the hill and watched two-and-twenty of them following more slowly up the winding ascent, it had a very curious and pleasing effect. The pleasure of our party, however, was soon spoiled by a heavy rain, which came on and drove us back towards the town. Unfortunately, this is too frequent an occurrence in mountainous countries, and though the Pyrenees are less subject to it than many other places, they still are by no means exempt.
Though, in all probability, the good effect produced by visiting these waters, is more to be attributed to, the exercise, fine air, and beautiful scenery, than the benign influence of the nymph, yet I have seen two or three glasses from the well of La Raillère act in an extraordinary manner upon one of my friends, enabling him to walk for many miles without fatigue, which his health would not have permitted without some strong stimulus. However, the effects generally attributed to these fountains of the Pyrenees are rather amusing. The accounts published of them begin like the puff of a French charlatan, who states, that though some men make extravagant pretensions for their nostrum, that is not his case, there are only one or two diseases which his remedy is adapted to cure; and then he goes on to recite all the maladies incident to human nature.
The waters of Cauterets are thus stated to be specific in wounds, rheumatisms, affections of the liver, and the spleen, intermittent fevers, consumption, disease of the skin, and paralyses; and "etc." is put at the end to gratify the imagination of the reader, in case he should have any nondescript complaint which has not been enumerated.
THE LAC DE GAUB.
Care selve beate
E voi solinghi e taciturni orrori
Di riposi e di pace alberghi veri
O quanto volentieri
A rivedervi io torno.--Guarini.
It often happens in the Pyrenees, that the place one goes to see is less worth seeing than the road which leads to it. We set out early in the morning for the Lac de Gaub, and passing the principal fountain of Cauterets, turned to the right where the path wound in amidst enormous rocks and forests of sapins, with not a vestige left of the civilized world,--all wild, and rough, and desolate, with the high peaks of the mountains almost shutting out the rays of the sun. The road, if it can be called a road, appears almost impracticable even on foot, but our guides told us, that the Spanish mules are frequently driven along it, and I have more than once since seen the Spaniards pass it on horseback.
The river, during its course through this valley, forms four principal cascades. The first, called "De Cirizet," is very beautiful, falling headlong down through a deep cleft in the rock, which is entirely covered with dark woods. The second, called "Le Pas de l'Ours," is connected with the other by the very tragical history of a poor bear. Be it known, then, that at the first waterfall, grew in days of yore a wild cherry tree, from which, by corruption, it acquired the name of Cirizet. It was first of all "La Cascade du Cerisier," the cataract of the cherry-tree, and from its root etymologists will have no difficulty in deriving "La Cascade Cerizet." A poor bear, who, like Parnell's hermit, far in a wild remote from public view, had grown from youth to age in harmless simplicity was wont every day to descend from his mountain hermitage and make a frugal meal upon the cherries that grew beside the fall.