II.

Beyond Pau stretches a smiling country, golden with harvests, amongst which the Gave winds its blue folds between white and pebbly beaches. On the right, far away in a veil of luminous mist, the Pyrenees lift their jagged tops, and the naked points of their black rocks. Their flanks, furrowed by the torrents of winter, are deeply scored and, as it were, turned up with an iron rake.

[Illustration: 251]

The picturesque country and the great mountains are seen to disclose themselves; the fences of the fields are of small rounded stones, in whose fissures abound waving grasses, pretty heaths, tufts of yellow sedum, and {227}above all tiny pink geraniums, that shine in the sun like clusters of rubies. You are quite ready to seek for nymphs; we come across six in an orchard, not actually dancing, but dirty. They are eating bread and cheese, squatted on their heels, and stare at us with half-open mouth.