The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

The first question asked by an Englishman about to attempt fresh journeys will be what things he must take with him from England. My answer is. Two things only, his woollen clothing and a pannikin. With regard to this last, the best form is one which I myself get from the Army and Navy Stores, and which is of the following character. The handle is double-hinged, and curved, so that it fits to the outside curve of the pannikin. A spirit-lamp is sold which just fits into the interior, and with it, a curved metal receptacle for methylated spirit which also fits into the interior. The whole is bound together by a strap, passing through staples upon the sides, and through one upon the cover. The advantage of carrying this sort of pannikin lies entirely in its compactness. Weight counts. Every ounce counts when you are knocked out upon the third day; and the third day—the forty-eighth hour of losing your way and of missing human succour—may happen to you oftener than you think.

Weight counts even upon the first day, after the first few miles. Weight counts all the time. Now it so happens (why, I cannot tell) that when things are packed in a close compass they weary a man less than when they are loose and straggling, and there is the further recommendation that when they are closely packed, there is less chance of knocking them about and hurting them. So this is the kind of pannikin I recommend. Note, that the people who know most about these hills, the inhabitants of them, carry no provision for cooking. But there is a reason for this which does not apply to the traveller I have in view. The inhabitants of these valleys walk from a house to a house, with the chance of one night at most in the mountains; they carry with them, bread, cold meat and wine, and for the night they make a great fire for warmth but not for cooking. A person exploring at random, and liable to pass several nights in the open, must have the chance of getting a warm meal, and that opportunity will make all the difference if ever he finds himself, as he probably will very frequently, in a tight place. As to the woollen clothing, no one needs to hear the merit of that, and nowhere can it be got so good or so cheap as in England. Everything upon you should be of wool, except your boots. The differences of temperature are excessive, you are certain to be frequently wet, you will not have a change; good wool is, moreover, the substance that will wear least in the rough-and-tumble of your going.

In this connexion I must speak of socks. Those who know most about marching, wear none, and for marching along roads it is a sound rule (startling and unusual as that rule may sound) to have the skin of the human foot up against the animal skin of the boot, that boot being well soaked in oil and pliable. There is no form of foot covering within the boot that does not chafe and tear and therefore blister the skin, if one goes a long way at a time, and for many days of continual tramping on end. That is the general rule, and in the French service it is universally recognized in the infantry. Now, to the particular kind of going which these mountains involve that rule does not apply, because, as we will see in a moment, boots are not what one commonly wears. You must therefore take woollen socks—two pairs.

If woollen clothing and the pannikin I have described are to be purchased in England, where are you to get the rest of your kit, and of what kind will it be?

You must purchase it in any one of the towns of the foothills, and the nearer to the mountains you buy it, the better for you, since the further out you are upon the plains, the more they look upon you, with justice, as a fool who will buy bad or useless material at too dear a rate, and lose, waste, or destroy it in a very few days, a mere tourist to be fleeced. Buy at St. Jean Pied-de-Port, at Tardets (admirable town!), at Bédous, at Laruns (where the people are hard-hearted), at Argelès (where they are too used to tourists), or at Ax. Buy, if you can, in the fairs: to these the mountaineers come down to sell their wares and one can bargain, and as for bargaining, I will tell you the prices of things as I proceed. But of all things do not put off purchasing till you are deep in the range. Do not buy south of Ax, for instance, nor north of Jaca. The materials grow scanty and bad.

The things you will need are four: first you will need a gourd, next sandals, next a sack, and lastly a blanket.

As to the gourd. The gourd is the universal vessel used throughout these mountains, and its use extends from an indefinite distance upon the Spanish side (where it is universal) to the towns of the plains upon the French side: to Oloron that is, Mauléon, Foix, St. Girons, and the rest. It is a leather bottle of an oval shape, made in all sizes from a quart to a gallon, and this picture represents the structure. It is in three parts: the oval leather case (a), which is made of goat’s skin with the hair inside; the top (d), which is made of goat’s horn, with a mouth from an inch to half an inch across, and the nozzle (e), which screws on to this top and is pierced by a tiny hole (g), through which one drinks, also made of goat’s horn. There is a fourth part if you will, the little stopper (h), which screws on to the nozzle, and is made of the same material and tied by a string to the mouth of the gourd for fear of losing it. On the inner edge of the leather bottle are two leather loops through which to pass the string, by which the whole thing is carried over the shoulder.

Remember that the name for this invaluable instrument (one has a right to call it invaluable, for it saves the lives of men) is Gourde on the French side, and Bota upon the Spanish. This detail is not unimportant, for in many French villages they have never heard of a Bota, and certainly in no Spanish villages have they ever heard of a Gourde. It is in this convenience that one carries one’s supply of wine. The horn nozzle on top (g) screws off, the wine is poured into the mouth (d) through a funnel, until the gourd is completely full; one then screws the top (g) on again, and the little stopper (h) into that. When one wants the wine to pour into one’s mouth or into one’s mug, one screws off no more than the little stopper which protects the hole in the nozzle. If you can learn the proper way of drinking out of the small hole pierced in the horn-work, do so. It saves an infinity of delays, and it is the universal method of drinking throughout the Pyrenees. Here is one of those practical things in the trade which you can never get by book learning, and which one can only learn by doing them, nevertheless I will describe it.

Unscrew the little stopper (h) and let it hang by its string; take the double horn top piece (d and g) in the left hand, and grasp with your right the bottom of the leather bottle; tilt the whole up, squeeze slightly with your right hand, held high in the air, and let the thin straight stream of wine from the little hole (g) go straight into your open mouth; then (to paraphrase Talleyrand’s famous phrase to the Maker of Religions), “if you can possibly manage it,” let it go down without swallowing; if you swallow you are lost.