Climbing steadily, one is soon high above the green valley, with its string of villages just passed through, and the views become increasingly mountainous and austere. Great serrated ridges form the horizon, and naked rocks show above the road on the left. The villages become more scattered, and soon after Almandoz there is a vast solitude of precipitous ascents covered with low beech-trees, until the bare crags and peaks, whitened here and there with patches of snow, stand out against the clear sky and the drifting clouds.
From this point to the head of the Col de Velate the surface of the road is loose, and in places furrowed with running water, and the gradients become very steep, with sharp curves which necessitate careful driving, but a 12 to 15
ONE OF THE GATES OF PAMPLONA, THE CAPITAL OF NAVARRE.
Wellington besieged the town in 1813, and took it alter a brief resistance. (Page 210.)
horse-power car of a recent type can make the ascent very easily.
The head of the pass (2,717 feet above the sea) is guarded by two soldiers, whose presence is sufficient to keep off brigands. A suspicion of adventure is given to the tour at this point in the visible evidence that, but for these two cloaked figures, bearing modern rifles, a group of reckless and fully armed banditti might appear at any corner of the road and reduce the harmless tourist to a penniless condition.
A picturesque diligence that travels by this road is drawn by three mules abreast, with another leading. Besides this one seldom meets anything but the local vehicles of the villages. There are opportunities of seeing a number of rare birds, if one is lucky, and has time to linger in the solitude of the pass.[G]
Masses of conglomerate rock are passed on beginning the descent, and the evening light falls on great slopes covered with beech. The road gradually improves as the descent towards the plain is made. More quaint villages are passed, dogs bark, and carts are met drawn by five or six mules in a long line.