IN PIOUS MEMORY OF PAMPLONA, ELIZONDO, THE CANON WHO SHOT QUAILS WITH A WALKING-STICK, THE IGNORANT HIERARCH, THE CHOCOLATE OF THE AGED WOMAN, THE ONE-EYED HORSE OF THE PEÑA BLANCA, THE MIRACULOUS BRIDGE, AND THE UNHOLY VISION OF ST. GIRONS.
PREFACE
The only object of this book is to provide, for those who desire to do as I have done in the Pyrenees, a general knowledge of the mountains in which they propose to travel.
I have paid particular attention to make clear those things which I myself only learned slowly during several journeys and after much reading, and which I would like to have been told before I first set out. I could not pretend within the limits of this book, or with such an object in view, to write anything in the nature of a Guide, and indeed there are plenty of books of that sort from which one can learn most that is necessary to ordinary travel upon the frontier of France and Spain; but I proposed when I began these few pages to set down what a man might not find in such books: as—what he should expect in certain inns, by what track he might best see certain districts, what difficulties he was to expect upon the crest of the mountains, how long a time crossings apparently short might take him, what the least kit was which he could carry into the hills, how he had best camp and find his way and the rest, what maps were at his disposal, the advantages of each map, its defects, and so forth. The little of general matter which I have admitted into my pages—a dissertation upon the physical nature of the chain, and a shorter division upon its political character—I have strictly limited to what I thought necessary to that general understanding of a mountain without which travel upon it would be a poor pleasure indeed.
If I have admitted such petty details as the times of trains, and the cost of a journey from London, it is because I have found those petty details to be of the first importance to myself, as indeed they must be to all those who have but little leisure. I have in everything attempted to set down only that which would be really useful to a man on foot or driving in that country, and only that which he could not easily obtain in other books. Thus I have carefully set down directions as minute as possible for finding particular crossings and camping grounds, for the finding of which the ordinary Guide Book is of no service. My chief regret is that the book will necessarily be too bulky to carry in the pocket; for it is meant to be not so much a lively as an accurate companion to the general exploration of those high hills which have given me so much delight.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
This third edition of my book on the Pyrenees necessarily suffers somewhat from the fact that it is published after the interval of the Great War.