The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

Beyond the valley of the Tet and eastward of the Canigou runs the little fag end of the range, which falls into the sea at Cape Cerberus, and is called the “Alberes.” Here there is but little distinction between the northern and the southern side, the general shape of a sharp ridge is maintained throughout, but the height lowers more and more as the sea is approached. These hills are everywhere passable; the ancient road into Spain which crosses them, should count, geographically and historically, rather as a road crossing round the Pyrenees at their sea end, than as a road crossing the chain.

A Pyrenean valley upon the French side always presents the same main characteristic, and this is true not only of the main valleys, but of the innumerable lateral valleys which ramify from the main valleys in all directions.

The characteristic of these French Pyrenean valleys is that they are sharply divided by very narrow gorges into two or more level basins. These level basins in the smaller valleys and on the high levels where there is pasturage and no habitation are called “Jasses”; the large and low ones are called “Plains” or “Plans”; but they are the same in their essential feature, which is a level floor more or less wide, bounded by the steep hills upon either side, and ending and beginning with a rocky gate through which the valley stream cascades. The whole formation suggests the former existence of great and small lakes, which burst their way through the gorges at some remote time (as in plan I below).

Plan I.

These gorges are very rarely of any length, a point in which the Pyrenees differ from the Alps. Here and there, especially in the limestone formations, you do get long and difficult passages. One, the Cacouette in the Western Pyrenees, in the upper waters of the Gave-de-Mauléon, is not only very profound but absolutely impassable, like the Black Cañon of Colorado, but it does not lead from one part of a valley to another. It occupies the whole of the upper valley; and in general, you will not find a Pyrenean stream running, as do the Alpine streams, for some miles between precipices.

Each main valley has a clearly marked mouth where it debouches upon the plain; by this I do not mean that perfectly flat land comes up to and meets the hills in every case; on the contrary, at the mouth of most of these valleys are moraines left by old glaciers, but I mean that the character and aspect of the hills visibly and immediately changes, and that each of the valleys has a distinct final “gate” where it meets the lowlands, just as a river will meet the sea at a definite mouth. Now each of these openings has its characteristic town. Mauléon, for instance, is at the mouth of the last Basque valley, Oloron at the mouth of the Val d’Aspe, Lourdes at the mouth of the valley of Argelès, etc.

Further, these towns at the mouths of the valleys have invariably chosen for their site, whether they be prehistoric or mediæval, some rock on which to build a citadel; and in every case a castle is still to be found holding that rock. Lourdes, Foix, Mauléon are excellent examples of this.

Higher up the valley, the first plain above the mouth will, as a rule, contain the first mountain town. Thus Argelès lies above Lourdes, Bédous and Accous above Oloron, Laruns in the first flat of the Val d’Ossau, etc.

According to the length of the valley and the number and size of the Jasses, there may be one or more such towns enclosed by the mountain sides; thus in the valley of Lourdes we have Argelès, and above it Luz; in the valley of Soule we have Tardets above Mauléon, and higher still we have Licq. But all the valleys, whether they contain one or more of these upland towns, have, just under the last watershed, a hamlet or village usually giving its name to the Port or Col—that is the Pass into Spain—above it, and the reason of this is evident enough; habitations were necessary as a place of departure and arrival for the crossing of the mountains. Of such are Gavarnie, Urdos, Morens, and the rest. These high villages have least history, least wealth, and until recently had the worst communications. For much the greater part of the year they are lost in snow, and there was an interval between the making of the great roads and the beginning of modern tourist travel when they were in peril of destruction. The new great roads drew away wealth and visitors from all but a very few, and but for the beginning of modern mountaineering they had hopelessly decayed. Even so famous a place as Gavarnie, the best known of all the valley heads, was dying in the middle of the century. There are days now when it is at the other extreme: fine days in August when, for the crowd of rich people, you might be at Tring or at some reception of the late Whittaker Wright’s. Even to-day, one or two of them, however clean or kindly, are odd in the way of poverty. I have known one where they had no butter and never had had any butter, and another where I was charged 8d. instead of 5d. for a bed because it was the season.