The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

It must first be remarked that these maps are to be regarded as official and unofficial; the official ones should be divided into those proceeding from the French War Office and those proceeding from the French Home Office. The importance of this will appear in a moment.

Of the unofficial maps (which are very numerous) the most important by far is that published and printed by Schrader, and this is important only because it gives contours (at rather large intervals, it is true) on the Spanish side as well as upon the French.

The map can be ordered of Messrs. Sifton & Praed, The Map House, St. James’s Street, and costs (pre-war) twelve shillings for the six sheets. Its value consists in giving the traveller details of all the difficult central bit between Sallent and the Encantados. The French contours, as will immediately appear, are easily obtainable elsewhere; but to know the Spanish side, the difficulties of the way between Panticosa (for instance) and Bielsa, Schrader’s map is a great advantage; it is final on the heights, the steepness, and the changes in direction of the way.

The official maps consist first of the War Office maps, the scale of which is 1/80,000 and 1/320,000.

The first thing to appreciate with regard to the French maps, is that all of them, whether from the Home Office or from the War Office (and in a country such as France the work of these two departments is very different), are based upon the 1/80,000 survey. It was this survey, undertaken by the General Staff in the course of the nineteenth century, which formed the basis of every other map that Frenchmen use. Certain of its early details were slightly inaccurate, as the heights of the Pelvoux group in Savoy, which Mr. Whymper, when he climbed those mountains, corrected. It is, however, the best monument of cartography left by the nineteenth century. Nothing has since appeared to rival it in any country upon the same scale. We must except of course the highly detailed large-scale survey of special districts, which may happen to be, by a political accident, autonomous and wealthy. Belgium has a far better map, upon which indeed all modern work upon the Belgian battlefields is based. Switzerland also has a better map. But no such large area as that of the French Republic has upon so small a scale (much less than one inch to the mile), so complete a record of every track, wood, habitation, height, and watercourse.

The 1/320,000 is merely a reduction of this map; it is of service to people who motor or bicycle, to anyone who uses the high road, and who wishes to be able occasionally to wander into by-paths; but for little local details and difficulties it should not be consulted. It is useful advice to anyone who desires to know the Pyrenees that he should consult before leaving home a map of the whole range upon the 1/320,000 scale, but travel in the hills with the 1/80,000 scale.

The disadvantage, however, of the military map, accurate though it is, and full of detail though it is, lies in two points inseparable from the early conditions under which it was produced; the first of these is the use of one colour, that of printers’ ink, so that the line marking a stream, a wall, or a path are similar; the second derives from this, and is the confusion of so many small details, all in one colour and in black. There are no contour lines. The hatching, though bold, does not give exact heights, save where such heights are marked in figures, and what with the lines marking the paths in mountainous districts, the water-courses, the roads, the marks indicating the rocks, habitations, etc., the 1/80,000 map tends (though it still remains the best map for a very careful student, e.g., for a soldier on manœuvres) to be somewhat crowded and confused.

An appreciation of the demerits of these maps, and perhaps a certain rivalry between the two departments, led the French Home Office to undertake an Ordnance Map of its own. This map is in various scales, of which the sheets showing the Pyrenees—the only ones that concern us—are in 1/100,000 and 1/200,000. Let me explain the general qualities of both and the advantages and disadvantages attaching to either of these.

Both are in colours, giving water-courses and lakes in blue, woods in green, roads in red, etc., and that is an enormous and immediate simplification upon the old-fashioned black map.

Both are brought up to date with more care than the military map; both are less crowded with detail, and both indicate such civilian necessities as the telephone, telegraph, post-office, etc. On the other hand, neither contains hatching—the only true way of representing a country-side to the eye—and neither give that minute and exact multiplicity of markings which it is the boast of the military map to afford. The civil map is more practical, the military map more full of duty and more accurate.