Part 15
The map would look something like this, perhaps, giving one a perfectly accurate general impression of the whole country-side, but quite useless for the critical point C-D, the difficulties of which nothing but numerous contours and a very large scale can possibly explain. The traveller consults the map, he sees the mountain group whose summits are A, H, and K, with their heights marked, he sees the other mountain group culminating at B with its height also marked, he see the main valley V up the road of which he has proceeded with the town in which he stopped and the river which he has been following. He sees the pass clearly marked at C-D, leading over to the further valley Y with its town, river, and road—and the journey seems to present no difficulties. It is only when he gets actually shut up in the hills at the heads of the valleys that he may begin to doubt or to be misled. On his map he could never believe that the little torrent W going right round out of his direction could take him in, or that he would get into its valley.
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If you consider what he actually sees when he gets to the summit of the pass, you will appreciate yet more easily how his error will come about. He will see something like this, with an obvious way straight before him, and with nothing to tell him that he must go up a second col, two or three hundred feet above him to the right at D, if he is to get into the right valley.
It is in cases of this sort that Schrader’s map is so useful—so far as it goes; but it only covers the quite central part of the Pyrenees, and the contours are 100 metres apart.
The particular ways in which one may get into the wrong valley are innumerable, but these three types which I have given include all the most common of them; and, of the three, the last which I have described in such detail is at once the most perilous and the most common.
While I am upon this subject of getting into the wrong valley on the _downward_ side, I ought to mention the tricks which the map and one’s own judgment play upon one as one goes _upwards_.
Errors made as one follows the map _up a ravine_ are nearly always due to making a false estimate of distance. The path may be lost for a considerable stretch, and the contours may at first be puzzling, but if one will trust to one’s map and to one’s compass one will never go far wrong, unless one misjudges distance, and it is on this account that in the directions I give below for particular places, I mean distance with what care I can.
Thus you may miss the path which branches off from the main path from the valley of the Cinqueta to go eastward over the Col de Gistian; but if you have made an accurate estimate of distance, and trust to the measurements given, you cannot fail to identify the stream up which that crossing lies.
Nothing can replace judgment, but there is a rule of thumb which is workable enough, and that is, save under conditions of extreme fatigue, that your kilometre on a mule path hardly ever takes you less than twelve minutes or more than fifteen. I except steep climbing of course, but steep climbing only comes at the port itself, or in quite unmistakable ravines and gorges, where you will not lose your way. Where you lose your way is in the Jasse, or in the bifurcation of main valleys, and there, as you plod up your mule path, you will, as I say, never take less than ten minutes over your kilometre (which is a centimetre upon your map)—and you ought always to have a little measure with you—nor will you ever take much more than twelve, save when you are quite knocked out and unable to calculate distance at all.
These limits will seem narrow to those who have not experienced such paths. But they are wide enough. You must of course note the times during which you choose to stop, and it is also true that if you make quite short halts for a moment or two, of which you take no record, you will quite put out your calculation; but twelve minutes to the kilometre is 3 miles an hour, fifteen is 2½ miles an hour, and if a man gets over a level mule track in the early morning carrying weight a little faster than the first pace, or on a steep part at evening a little slower than the second, yet the occasions when this rule of thumb fails are rare.
When your watch tells you that by the distance measured you should be approaching a bifurcation, or any other doubtful place, halt and decide.
If you do miss your way going upwards, or do take the wrong valley, if, in a word, you are lost (as I was badly four years ago, so that I have the right to speak of it), the first thing to remember is that the path, if you will take it _downhill_, will lead you at last to men. The rule about following running water is all very well in many mountains of the ranges, but it won’t do in the Pyrenees, for the running water very often goes under sharp limestone cliffs, and if you don’t find your way round or over them, you may spend more hours than are safe in looking for a way out. They form a very complete prison door, indeed, do these gorges.
The path, I say, if you follow it downhill, will save you, but if, when you find you are in the wrong valley, you attempt to recover your track by going up the lateral ridge, you always run a grave risk. It is by experiments of that sort that men die from exhaustion. It is true that one is not usually tempted to this extra effort. It is much easier to go on the way one is going, and to follow the path down, though one knows it is a wrong one, but there are occasions, especially late in the day, when one has _all but_ conquered the main crest of the range, after perhaps one failure, and when one knows that one is lost, when the idea of one vigorous effort to get over while it is yet daylight is tempting. It is a fatal temptation.
When you have made up your mind that you are lost, or even when the map has told you so, pay no attention to anything else about you or within you, such as the guess that such-and-such a rock in front of one may hide such-and-such a village, or the hope that your strength will hold out for 12 or 15 hours without food, but at once behave like a person in grave danger, that is, calculate your chances of retreat, and think of that only, for I repeat, it is more easy to die from exhaustion than in any other way in these hills, and nearly all the people that perish in mountains perish from that cause.
When you have made up your mind that it is your business to find men again, and that you do not know how far men may be, first note your bread and wine and the rest, if any provision is left; next determine to reserve it until nightfall: eat it then, do not blunder on through the darkness (it is astonishing what very little distance one makes after sunset, and every half-hour of twilight makes it more difficult to camp)—sleep, and take the first half of the next day without food; you are reserving your very last rations until the noon of that day. For one can do a considerable distance without food if the effort is made in the early morning.
Never bathe under such conditions of fatigue, and towards the end, when you are exhausted, drink as sparingly as possible.
It is perhaps useless to give any hints about what a man should do when he is lost, because men get lost in mountains by hoping against hope and pushing on when common sense tells them to return. But I write down these hints for what they are worth. After my first bad lesson in the matter, I found them fairly useful. Remember, by the way, if you are lost and if there is no path apparent, that a cabane even in ruins somewhere in the landscape means a track visible or invisible, and that any rude crossing of the stream with stepping-stones or a log means the same thing. But you must not imagine that the presence or traces of animals will prove a guide, for even mules wander wild for miles on these mountains in places where a man can only go with difficulty and along random tracks leading nowhere.
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VI
THE SEPARATE DISTRICTS OF THE PYRENEES
For the purposes of travel upon foot, the range of the Pyrenees falls into certain divisions, which are not very clearly marked, but which arrange themselves in a rough manner under the experience of travel. As I come to deal with each of these, it will be seen that there is not one which does not overlap its neighbour, and it will be impossible to describe any mountain district without admitting this overlapping to some extent, because any valley connected by certain local ties with the valleys to the east and west is also, as a rule, connected with the valleys to the north or south of it. Still, the districts I speak of are fairly distinct, and consist in (1) the Basque valleys, (2) the Vals d’Aspe and d’Ossau, with the valleys of the Aragon and Gallego to their south, which I will call “the Four Valleys,” (3) the Sobrarbe, (4) the three valleys attaching to Tarbes, to which I also attach the Luchon valley, (5) the Catalan valleys and Andorra—in which I include the Val d’Aran, (6) the Cerdagne (omitting the Tet and Ariège valleys), (7) the Ariège and Tet valleys, (8) the Canigou.
These I will take in their order, and I will begin with—
I. THE BASQUE VALLEYS
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The valleys immediately adjoining the point which we have taken for the western end of the chain, that is, the knot of hills just to the west of Roncesvalles, which have for their pivot Mount Urtioga, form one country-side and should be considered together.
They are the Baztan to the west, the first of the many valleys into which the main range splits up like a fan as it approaches the Atlantic; the valley of Baigorry, parallel to it and immediately to the east; the valley called that of the St. Jean in its lower French part, and that of Val Carlos in its upper Spanish one; this valley stands eastward of Baigorry, and unites with it before leaving the hills to join the valley of the Nive. The two together, and the lower valley of the Nive, are called by the common name of “The Labourd”; on the south of the range comes the valley of the Arga and the plain south of Roncesvalles: these make one division of the Basque district. The same dialect of Basque is spoken throughout the Labourd (there are variations upon the Spanish side), the same type of house and of food and of hill is everywhere around. The other division of the Basque valleys is the French district of the _Soule_, just to the east with its corresponding valleys south of the frontier.
As to the Labourd and its accompanying Spanish valleys, the space open for camping or wandering in this corner of the chain is less than in the higher central part. The low round hills are often cultivated to their summits, the valleys are always well populated, roads and villages are many, and though there are one or two fine stretches of forest in which a man can spend as many days as he chooses (notably the forest of Hayra, which lies up southward at the far end of the Baigorry), they are not to be compared in extent or in wildness with the forests further east. The whole width of the Hayra, counting both the French and the Spanish slopes, is, at its greatest extent, not more than three miles. Its length is not six. The small lakes also that are characteristic of the Pyrenees throughout their length, are lacking here, and the prosperity and industry of the Basques press upon the traveller wherever he goes.
If one would stay some three or four days in this district, it is a good plan to leave the train at St. Etienne, just at the beginning of the Baigorry valley. St. Etienne is the terminus of the branch line which strikes off a few miles down the river from the line connecting St. Jean Pied-de-Port with Bayonne, and one gets to St. Etienne by the morning train from Bayonne about mid-day.
Immediately to the west of St. Etienne, connecting it with the Baztan, lies the pass of Ispeguy. It is of course very low, as are all these hills; it is little more than 1000 feet above St. Etienne, or perhaps 1500, but from the summit there is a fine view of the higher distant Pyrenees to the east. The frontier runs here north and south, passes through the summit of the col, down the further side of which an easy valley road leads down on to the main highway of the Baztan.
This highway is the modern representative of the track which for many centuries connected Bayonne with Pamplona. It was, until recent times, a mountain way; the main Roman road went through Roncesvalles. It is now, as was seen when we spoke of roads for driving and motoring, the best approach from the French Atlantic coast into Navarre. From the point where you strike this high road, where the valley debouches upon it, and where the lateral stream you have been following falls into the river Baztan, there is a walk down to the left, or southward, of some 4 miles, into the town of Elizondo, which means in Basque “The Church in the Valley.” For the Basques, like the Welsh, have the terms of their religion mainly in the form of borrowed words, and the Greek Ecclesia, which is “Egglws” in the Welsh mountains, has nearly the same sound here, 800 miles to the south, and with all those days of sea between. Christendom is one country.
There is no easy journey from Elizondo down to the south of the hills and back east again into the French valleys, unless you go on to Pamplona, although of course there is nothing high or steep to stop you, if you have plenty of provisions, except the absence of maps (which do not exist for this district upon any useful scale to my knowledge). If you want to make a mountain journey of it without touching the town of Pamplona, go down a mile or two from Elizondo to Iruita, where the main road branches into two; thence going south and a little east up the stream which comes down from the frontier summits, you may go over a col between that valley and the valley of the Esteribar, where the Arga rises. You will find yourself at the first little Basque village, that of Eugui, by evening; the total distance from Elizondo to Eugui, if you go the shortest way, is only 20 miles. But, I repeat, it is a difficult job. Maps are lacking, the valleys have many ramifications, and the first part of your journey is all uphill for half the day. If the weather is cloudy it is more than possible that you will get into the wrong valley, and find at last, when you have got over your col, and are following the running water on the further side, that that running water is not the Arga at all, but one of the streams that lead you back again into the Baigorry. However, if you make Eugui in the Estribar, the rest is simple: there are villages all round, connected by paths, and not more than a mile or two from one another, and you may go through Linzoian to Espimal and so to Burguete, where you get the main road over Roncesvalles, without fear of losing your way; for there are people everywhere.
It is best, however, when you have slept in Elizondo, which is a very pleasant little town, to take the motor-bus and get on to Pamplona; for the Basques, who detest as much as the Scotch to be behind the world, have a motor-bus along this mountain road. From Pamplona next day you can go by the new road to Burguete, passing through Larrasoaña and Erro. It is a long journey of nearly 30 miles; it can be broken, if you choose, at Erro, but the sleeping accommodation there is nothing very grand. If you push on beyond Burguete, over Roncesvalles, you can, in something under 40 miles, get to Val Carlos, the last town in Spain, and for those who can walk 40 miles this is the best thing to do. If not, break the journey in two at Erro, desolate as the little place is.
The object of course of this walk is the Pass of Roncesvalles, and the vast contrast between the slightly sloping Spanish plain of Burguete, running up to the summit of the Pyrenees, and the great chasm which opens beneath your feet when you have reached that summit, and which forms the entry into France.
You will not easily make a camp in any part of this round, and it is well to remember here, where first mention is made of crossing the Spanish frontier, that the Spaniards will not let a man leave their country unless he has due permission upon a paper form. Why this should be so I do not know, and I have very often gone in and out of Spain without telling the authorities, as I have for that matter gone in and out of Germany on foot, though the German officials are more stupid than the Spaniards, and therefore attach much more importance to such things. Still, it is safer to ask for your permit, and it will be given you by a functionary called a “Corregidor,” at Val Carlos. A few miles beyond, eight to be exact, you are in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, which is the head of the railway to-day, and which has been for nearly 1000 years the depot town at the foot of the pass for armies and for travellers. On this same flat where it stands, was the Roman fort and depot, but not quite on the same place; it stood on the spot now called St. Jean le Vieux, 2½ miles up the lateral valley. This last was the halting place of Charlemagne in the famous story, and St. Jean, as we see it, is a town not of the Dark but of the Middle Ages.
The next district to this of the Labourd, lying immediately to the east of it, we have seen to be called the Soule. It is also Basque, though it is Basque spoken with a different accent, and with certain verbal differences as well. The way from one to the other lies through wilder and more likely land for camping than is to be found in Baztan, Baigorry, or Roncesvalles. It is a good plan, if one has the leisure, to approach the Soule on foot by way of St. Jean, though the more ordinary way is to go round through the plains by train to Mauléon (which is the capital of the Soule).
If one goes on foot directly across from the Labourd into the Soule, he strikes that valley in its higher reaches, and well above Mauléon.
The shortest line, if one does not mind sleeping in a mountain village, is to take the high road from St. Jean Pied-de-Port to Lecumberry, and to follow that way up the valley of the Laurhibar until the high road comes to an end. It did so abruptly two miles or so beyond Laurhibar, some years ago, but as it is being continued, one may follow it every year further up the dale. The high road ends (or ended) about 10 miles from St. Jean; and Lecumberry is the last _village_ still, however far the road may have progressed up the valley. When the road ceases one must continue up the valley by a path on the left bank of the stream. One soon finds on this left bank a series of precipitous cliffs; one must there cross over to the path upon the right bank. It is also possible to keep to the right bank all the way—there is a track on either side—but I speak of the usual way. Henceforward the path remains quite clear and runs close alongside the stream, with steep cliffs upon the further shore, until, in the last mile or two, before the head of the valley, one enters a wood, and it is here that, if you are not very careful, you will lose your way. The contours are complicated, the valleys numerous, and the alternation of wood and open land most confusing. But if you will go _due east_ by your compass from the point where you entered the wood (abandoning the path where it crosses the stream and goes over to the south), and if you will remember always to turn any precipice or ledge of rock by descending to the _left_ of it, and always to _descend_ after you have made the first high open space, you will come upon a clear track not quite three miles from the point where the path enters the wood.
It sounds but a vague indication, but it is a sufficient one, because bad precipices prevent you from going too much to the right, and the natural tendency of man to go downhill when he can will prevent you from going up on to the ledge upon your left. You will find yourself shepherded—if you always go as due east as is possible, and always turn a ledge of rock to the _left_—into a track which runs all along the high lands above the slopes that dominate the Brook Aphours; a little way down, that track falls into a high road, and a few miles further the road reaches Tardets, the central town in the valley of the Soule, half-way between Mauléon and the highest summits. The whole journey from St. Jean thus described is a big distance, nearer 40 miles than 30, with windings all the way, and you must be prepared if you become fatigued or have bad luck with your weather, either to camp out in the woods at the summit of the pass, or to sleep in the first hamlet upon the eastern side.