The Pont d’Espagne, that can be reached by a carriage, and the Lac de Gaube, are points omitted by no excursionist who visits Cauterets. The former is a stone bridge thrown over the river formed by the junction of the Gave de Mascadou and that which issues from the Lac de Gaube. Higher up the first of these is a picturesque wooden bridge thrown across the torrent.
The path to the Lac de Gaube leaves the road just before reaching the Pont d’Espagne. The lake is a lovely mountain tarn two miles and a half in circumference. The sides are steep, in places clothed with dark masses of pines; and in the background rises the Vignemale, 10,820 feet, with its crevassed glacier, that feeds the lake by a cascade.
By the water is a white marble monument to the memory of a Mr. Pattison and his wife, who were drowned here whilst on their wedding trip, within a month of their marriage, on 20 September, 1832. Mrs. Ellis thus describes the accident. Her husband was acquainted with the relatives of both:—
“It is said to have been a bright and beautiful morning when the English bride and bridegroom went out upon this lake, in the fisherman’s rudely-constructed boat, the very same that we saw lying by the shore, than which a more unsafe or unmanageable vessel could scarcely be imagined. Little seems to be known of the awful event which followed, except what those who stood on the shore relate, that when the boat was about the middle of the lake, the figure of the man was seen stooping overboard—that the female, alarmed for his safety, rushed to the same side—and thus, the vessel being overbalanced, both were plunged into a watery grave. The bodies were both found, though one not till a month after. They were conveyed to England, and buried at Witham, in Essex.”
The recklessness of the villagers in times past had threatened Cauterets with destruction. The forests had been cut down, and free course given to the avalanches to fall into the valley and cover all with stones and mud. If something had not been effected to bridle the torrent above La Raillère, the springs there would have been overwhelmed with rubble, and the thermal establishment utterly wrecked. The ravine down which the avalanches fall is that of Péquère, and it was not snow and small stuff only that was brought down, but huge masses of rock.
Great pains have been taken, by means of replanting the slopes and the erection of barriers, to protect the baths, and these efforts have been happily crowned with success. Since 1897 another avalanche path has been taken in hand, that of the Lizey, which menaced the road to Pierrefite, and had in fact cut all communication during three weeks in 1895.
Even the esplanade of Cauterets was threatened. The winter of 1903–4 tried the place severely; in the month of January the masses of fallen snow reached the town itself. In spite of themselves the inhabitants of the basin have had to yield to the resolution of the Board of Forestry and allow extensive replantation.
The journey up the ravine to Luz by electric tram presents a succession of beautiful peeps of the bottle-green river thundering through the gorge, breaking into masses of foam at every leap; waterfalls descend the mountain sides right and left—everywhere is rich and luxuriant vegetation.
The gorge opens to reveal the green meadows of Viscos, then contracts again, once more to expand into the basin of Luz. High aloft on a terrace stand the villages of Vizos and Esquièze, with their church spires. In the background is seen a superb circle of snow-clad mountains, those of the ridge of the Mont Perdu, nearer the Soum Blanc on one side and the Pic Long on the other.
