Every one knows how excellent for the table is the flesh of this beautiful bird: so much is it esteemed, that even at Bagnères, in the season of their greatest plenty, a pair will fetch a market price of from twelve to twenty sous.
Chapter Nineteen.
The Pyrenees.
Speaking geologically, the Pyrenees extend along the whole north of Spain, from the Mediterranean to the province of Galicia on the Atlantic; and in this sense the chain may be regarded as between six and seven hundred miles in length.
More properly, however, the term “Pyrenees” is limited to that portion of the range which lies directly between France and Spain; in other words, along the neck or isthmus of the Spanish peninsula. Thus limited, the range is less than half the above length, or about three hundred miles; while its average breadth is fifty.
Though less elevated than the Alps, the Pyrenees mountains are no molehills. Their highest peak, Maladetta, towers above 11,000 feet; and several others are of nearly equal height—while more than forty summits reach the elevation of 9,000!
The most elevated peaks are near the centre of the Pyrenees, the range gradually dipping downward as the extremities are approached. For this reason the most practicable passes are found near the eastern and western ends; though many also exist in the central part of the chain. In all, there are fifty passes or “ports,” as they are called, leading from the French to the Spanish side; but only five of these are practicable for wheeled vehicles; and a large number are only known (or at all events only travelled) by the smugglers—contrabandistas—a class of gentry who swarm on both sides of the Pyrenean frontier.
The superficial extent of these mountains is about 11,000 or 12,000 square miles. Part of this is French, and the remainder Spanish territory. As a general rule, the “divide,” or main axis of the ridge forms the boundary line; but in the eastern section, the French territory has been extended beyond the natural frontier.