Part 2
As for the line by Lyons, it is a long way round and not to be taken unless you want to see anything on the way. On the other hand, it has the best service of fast trains. The best morning train is the 9 o’clock from P.L.M. station in Paris, which gets you to Avignon at 7.45 in the evening, and there you must sleep, going on next morning to Perpignan. You usually have to change at Tarascon. It is the better part of two days, for save in the case of one train, there is another change at Narbonne. There is no need to dwell on this line, as no one would take it for the Pyrenees unless they were visiting other places on the way, such as Nîmes or Narbonne. The cost also is about thirty per cent greater than by the more direct line.
(4) INNS
The little I have to say on the changes in the inns since the first edition of this book was published must be very tentative, as I have to depend upon reports of others, save for a certain amount of recent travel at the two ends of the range. Most of the old recommendations still stand. Gabas is what it always was, and the Golden Lion of Perpignan as admirable as it has been for these thirty years and more. The inn at Burguete and that of Val Carlos have been somewhat modernized since the new motor-bus service began, but they are still excellent. An inn I did not mention in the first edition on the Spanish side of the range, in Catalonia, is that of Ribas Prattes, standing over the torrent, and one where I, at least, have always been very comfortable. Since the opening of the new road and railway over the Sierra del Cadi it has become unfortunately rather famous, and it is not cheap; but the people treat you charmingly, and that is a great thing.
At Bourg Madame I have quite recently found myself very comfortable at Salvat. I am told that the principal inn at Andorra is rather more sophisticated since the motor road has been built to the town, but is still as good as it was in the old days. Of course the cooking and everything else is Catalan; and I am talking from hearsay, as I have not been to Andorra for many years.
As you stop at Bayonne on your way you will find good meals at the Grand Brasserie facing the end of the bridge, while the hotel for sleeping is the Capagorry; at least that is my favourite, though there is also the rather more expensive Grand Hotel.
Nearly all the places on which I have made inquiries seem to have maintained the old service intact. You still have the Mur in Jaca, and the more primitive but hospitable inn of Canfranc; and the little inn at Urdos, where I stopped some years ago, is passable enough, though I still recommend as a base the Hotel de la Poste lower down the valley at Bédous. By the way, if you do stop at Urdos, beware of the drinking water which for some reason is not very safe—or was not.
Before leaving these very brief notes I should like to emphasize again for travellers the change in prices. On the whole, they are lower, reckoning the real purchasing value of money, than they were in the old days.
Thus, the place I know best, and where I have stopped most often, is charging now as a regular _pension_ per day in francs including wine, and counting in francs, six times what it charged before the war. Now the nominal value of the franc in gold is only a fifth of what it was before the war, and the purchasing power of gold is very nearly half, so a multiple of six means that you are getting your board and lodging really cheaper than you did in 1913; but I know it is difficult to persuade people of this, just as it is difficult to persuade people in England that railway fares and postage at home are really less than they were before the war. At any rate, those who may have had experience of the Pyrenees before the war may roughly multiply by six for the present price, at least in modest places; and in some cases by less. Of course in the very large hotels in places like Bagnères you may be charged anything. But they are places which I never go to and on which I therefore can give no advice.
It remains, by the way, as true as ever that on the French side of the range you must always ask the price of your room before taking it, and on the Spanish side be quite clear as to whether the price quoted is for the room and all the day’s meals including wine (as is the national custom) or for only a part. On both sides of the frontier service is usually included in the bill nowadays at 10 per cent on the total, and it is foolish to pay anything more.
(5) MAPS
The war interfered with map-making in France so much that recovery is only beginning, and the revision of the main surveys is still in arrears. What I have said, however, in this book still stands for the most part.
I append a list of the maps recommended, with their prices, to be obtained from Messrs Sifton, Praed & Co., The Map House, 67, St. James’s Street, S.W. 1.
With regard to this list I would make the following comment:
(1) This is the standard French ordnance map, the one most necessary for the pedestrian, especially if he is dealing only with a limited area.
(2) This is the map for motoring and road work.
(3) This is the map for climbers, but unfortunately the first three sheets have been allowed to go out of print. I hear that there is some hope of a reprint being made, and on my next visit to the publishers I will urge them to advance it. The map was made years ago for Messrs. Barrere, and is very useful on account of its numerous contours.
(4) is to be reckoned with (3).
(5) This is the general map for a conspectus of the whole range.
(6) I have not seen this map, but it can be obtained from the firm mentioned above. It is I believe detailed and exceedingly useful, but as yet only applies to this small section of the mountain.
(7) The Michelin map is a motoring map, but contains a great deal of useful information, and is very accurate as to motoring roads.
(8) The Taride is a much rougher map, with general indications; not so accurate as the Michelin, but useful for long tours.
With this said I append the list.
(1) 1/100,000 France, covering the Pyrenees in 27 sheets. Price 1_s._ per sheet unmounted; mounted on cloth to fold for the pocket, 2_s._ 6_d._ per sheet.
(2) 1/200,000 France. 7 sheets. Price, 2_s._ each unmounted; mounted on cloth to fold, 4_s._ 6_d._ each. Sheet 69 mounted on cloth to fold, 4_s._
(3) Schrader’s map of the Pyrenees Centrales par F. Schrader. Sheets 4, 5, 6 only available. The three northern sheets 1, 2, 3 are out of print.
(4) Schrader’s map “Massif de Gavarnie et du Mont Perdu,” Scale 1/2000. Paper, folded in cover. Price, 2_s._ 6_d._
(5) Touring Club de France. Scale 1/400,000. Two sheets cover the whole of the Pyrenees. Mounted on cloth to fold for the pocket, 5_s._ each.
(6) Mapa Militar de Espana. Sheet 86 and part of 62. Seo de Urgel. This is the only sheet published so far of the Pyrenees. Price, 2_s._ 6_d._ unmounted; mounted on cloth to fold, 4_s._ 6_d._
(7) Carte Routière Michelin. Scale 1/200,000. Two sheets cover the whole of the Pyrenees on the French side. Mounted to fold, 4_s._ each.
(8) Taride Road Maps. Scale 4 miles to 1 inch. Two sheets cover the whole of the Pyrenees. Paper, folded in cover, 2_s._ each. Mounted on cloth to fold, 5_s._ each.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE PYRENEES 1
II. THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE PYRENEES 36
III. MAPS 59
IV. THE ROAD SYSTEM OF THE PYRENEES 79
V. TRAVEL ON FOOT IN THE PYRENEES 106
VI. THE SEPARATE DISTRICTS OF THE PYRENEES 144
i. The Basque Valleys 145
ii. The Four Valleys (Béarn and Aragon) 155
iii. Sobrarbe 167
iv. The Tarbes Valleys and Luchon 179
v. Andorra and the Catalan Valleys 187
vi. Cerdagne 199
vii. The Tet and Ariège 204
viii. The Canigou 210
VII. INNS OF THE PYRENEES 217
VIII. THE APPROACHES TO THE PYRENEES 234
INDEX 239
LIST OF MAPS
FACING PAGE
GENERAL SKETCH MAP OF THE PYRENEES 1
THE BASQUE VALLEYS 154
THE FOUR VALLEYS 166
THE PASSAGE OVER THE COL DE LA CRUZ AND THE COL DE GISTAIN 174
THE SOBRARBE 178
THE TARBES VALLEYS AND LUCHON 186
THE CATALAN VALLEYS AND ANDORRA 198
THE CERDAGNE 202
THE ARIÈGE AND TET VALLEYS 208
THE CANIGOU 216
THE GATE OF THE ROUSSILLON _Frontispiece_
[Illustration: GENERAL SKETCH MAP OF THE PYRENEES]
THE PYRENEES
I
THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE PYRENEES
[Illustration]
To use for travel or for pleasure a great mountain system, the first thing necessary is to understand its structure and its plan; to this understanding must next be added an understanding of its appearance, climate, soil, and, as it were, habits, all of which lend it a character peculiar to itself.
These two approaches to the comprehension of a mountain system may be called the approaches to its physical nature; and when one has the elements of that nature clearly seized, one is the better able to comprehend the human incidents attached to it.
From an appreciation of this physical basis one must next proceed to a general view of the history of the district—if it has a history—and of the modern political character resulting from it. At the root of this will be found the original groups or communities which have remained unchanged in Western Europe throughout all recorded time. These groups are sometimes distinguishable by language, more often by character. Changes of philosophy profoundly affect them; changes of economic circumstance, though affecting them far less, do something to render the problem of their continuity complex: but upon an acquaintance with the living men concerned, it is always possible to distinguish where the boundaries of a country-side are set; and the permanence of such limits in European life is the chief lesson a deep knowledge of any district conveys.
The recorded history of the inhabitants lends to these hills their only full meaning for the human being that visits them to-day; nor does anyone know, nor half know, any country-side of Europe unless he possesses not only its physical appearance and its present habitation, but the elements of its past.
These things established, one can turn to the details of travel and explain the communications, the difficulties, and the opportunities attaching to various lines of travel. In the case of a mountain range, the greater part of this last will, of course, for modern Englishmen, consist in some account of wilder travel upon foot, and the sense of exploration and of discovery which the district affords.
Such are the lines to be followed in this book, and, first, I will begin by laying down the plan and contours of the Pyrenees.
* * * * *
The first impression reached by modern and educated men when they consider a mountain system is one over-simple. This over-simplicity is the necessary result of our present forms of elementary education, and has been well put by some financial vulgarian or other (with the intention of praise) when he called it “Thinking in Maps,” or, “Thinking Imperially”; for the maps in a man’s head when he first approaches a new range are the maps of the schoolroom.
Thus one sees the Sierra Nevada in California as one line, the Cascade Range as another parallel to it. The Alps and the Himalayas alike arrange themselves into simple curves, arcs of a circle with a great river for the cord. The Atlas is a straight line cutting off the northern projection of Africa, the Apennines are a straight line running down the centre of Italy. Such are the first geographic elements present in the mind.
The next impression, however, the impression gathered in actual travel, or in a detailed study, is one of mere confusion, a confusion the more hopeless on account of the false simplicity of the original premise. Deductions from that premise are perpetually at variance with the observed facts of travel or of study, the exceptions become so numerous as to swamp the rule, and an original misconception upon the main character of the chain prevents a new and more accurate synthesis of its general aspect. Thus, the conception of the Cascade Range upon the Pacific Coast of the United States as parallel and separate from the Sierras, confuses one’s view of all the district round Shasta, and of all the watersheds south of the Mohave where the two systems merge; or again, one who has only thought of the Alps as a mere arc of a circle misconceives, and is bewildered by the nature, the appearance, and the whole history of the great re-entrant angles of the Val d’Aosta with its Gallic influences; the anomaly of the Adige Valley will not permit him to explain its political fortunes, and the outlying arms which have preserved the independence of Swiss institutions upon the southern slope will not fall into his view of the mountains.
This confusion, I say, is not due so much to the multitude of detail as to the permanent effect of an original strong and over-simple conception remaining in the mind as it continues to accumulate increasing but sporadic knowledge of a particular district; and it is a confusion in which those who have formed such an erroneous conception commonly remain.
In order to avoid such confusion and to allow one’s increasing knowledge a frame wherein to fit, it is essential to grasp in one scheme the few elementary lines which underlie a mountain system, and such a scheme will be a trifle more complex than the too simple scheme usually presented, but once one has it one can appreciate the place of every irregularity in the structure of the whole chain of hills.
In the case of the Pyrenees the common error of too great simplicity may be easily stated. These mountains are regarded as a wall separating France from Spain, and running direct from sea to sea. Such an aspect of the range will more and more confuse the traveller and reader the more he studies the actual shape of the valleys. Another picture should occupy the mind, and it will presently be seen that with this picture permanently fixed as a framework for the whole system, an increased knowledge of its details does but expand the sense of unity originally conveyed. The Pyrenees must not be regarded as a sharp heaped ridge forming a single watershed between the plains of Gaul and those of Northern Spain, and running east and west from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. They form a system, the watershed of which does not exactly stretch from one sea to the other. The axis of it does not consist of one line; the general direction is not due east. The axis of the Pyrenean chain is built up of two main lines, of approximately equal length: the one running south of east from a point at some distance from the Atlantic, the other north of west from a point right on the shores of the Mediterranean. These two lines do not meet. They miss by over eight miles, and the gap between them is joined by a low saddle.
[Illustration: PLAN A.]
The first of these lines starts from a point (Mount Urtioga) 25 miles south of the corner made by the Bay of Biscay at Irun, and some 15 miles west of its meridian; it runs about 9° 15′ south of east to the peak called Sabouredo, the last of the Maladetta group, the direct distance from which to Mount Urtioga is precisely 200 kilometres, or 124 miles. The second runs from Cape Cerberus on the Mediterranean to a peak called the Pic-de-l’homme, which stands a trifle over 12 kilometres, or 7¾ miles, north of the Sabouredo; its direction is 9° 25′ north of west, and the total length of this second line is just over 190 kilometres, or 117 miles.
[Illustration: PLAN B.]
The simplest scheme, then, in which we can regard the Pyrenees, is as a system of not quite parallel lines of equal length, running one towards the other, but missing by not quite 8 miles; the gap or “fault” joined by a zigzag saddle on the watershed. The westernmost of these lines splits into several branches before it reaches the Atlantic, so that the true western end of the chain lies well to the south and east of that ocean (at Mount Urtioga); the other starts from, and forms a projection in, the Mediterranean. The full distance as the crow flies from Mount Urtioga to Cape Cerberus upon the Mediterranean is 390 kilometres, that is 241 miles. And there is but 10 kilometres, or 6½ miles, difference in length between the two halves of the chain.
If U be the point called Mount Urtioga, S the Sabouredo, L the Pic-de-l’homme, and C Cape Cerberus, these two lines and the gap between them will lie precisely as in this plan.
With this main guide by which to judge the structure of the chain, all details will be found to fit in, and the two first variations which we must superimpose upon so general a view, are to be found in the “step” or “corner” formed by the watershed round the Pic d’Anie. The southward turn of the range is here not gradual but sharp, and the Somport, the pass at the head of the Val d’Aspe, lies almost a day’s going below the Port St. Engrace, which is the Pass near the Pic d’Anie. Next, one should note the two re-entrant angles, one to the north of the chain, one to the south, which distinguish the Spanish valley of the Gallego and the French valley of the Gave de Pau respectively. These features modify the simplicity of the first or western branch of the chain; one exceptional feature only modifies the second or Eastern branch, and this is the deep re-entrant wedge of the Ariège valley upon the French side. We may therefore regard the elements of the watershed somewhat according to the sketch plan B on the preceding page.
[Illustration: PLAN C.]
The details of the watershed when they are given in full are of course indefinitely more numerous and complicated, and it may be of advantage for those who would understand the structure of the Pyrenees to glance also at the plan opposite where the dotted line represents the exact trace of the watershed, the dark lines the simple structure described above.
[Illustration: PLAN D.]
The watershed then should be regarded as the chief feature in the range, and as the backbone of the whole system. Geologically, it is not the foundation of the range. Geologically, the range was piled up by the junction of a number of short separate ranges, each of which ran with a sharper south-eastern dip (about 30°) than does the present long line of saddles which has joined them and forms the existing watershed, and probably the process of the formation of the Pyrenees was upon the model sketched in the following diagram.
But for the purpose of understanding the Pyrenees as they now are, it is the existing watershed which we must consider, and that runs as I have said.
Next, the rule should be laid down that the Pyrenees must be separately considered on their northern and upon their southern slopes. It will be seen later that the physical and historical contrast between the two sides of the mountains is sometimes acute and sometimes slight, but the contrast between the general contour upon either side is such as to make it impossible to unite both in one similar system.
The Northern slope of the Pyrenees is narrow and precipitous. The plains are for the greater part of its length clearly separated from the mountains; the easy country in some places (at St. Girons, for instance, and in the Flats between Lourdes and Tarbes) is not 20 miles as the crow flies from the highest peaks.
On the Spanish side, on the contrary, the mountainous district will run from two to three times that distance. Its extreme width between the open country at the foot of the Sierra Monsech and the Salau Pass is over 60 miles, and it is nowhere less than two days’ good journey on foot from the summits to the plains.
This differentiation between the northern and the southern slopes is not merely one of width, it is due to profound differences in the contours which make the Spanish side of the system a different type of mountain group from the French. For, on the French side the Pyrenees consist in a series of great ribs or buttresses running up from the plains perpendicularly to the main heights of the range, and it is between these ribs or buttresses that the separate and highly distinct valleys which are the characteristic habitations of the French Basques and Béarnais lie. On the Spanish side the main structure is in folds _parallel_ to the watershed; the lateral valleys descending from the watershed run southward for but a very short distance, they come, within a few miles, upon high east-and-west ridges which sometimes rival the main range itself in height and which succeed each other like waves down to the plains of the Ebro. The contrast in structure north and south of the watershed may be expressed in the formula of this plan. A man looking at the Pyrenees from the French towns at their base sees in one complete view a belt of steep rising slopes, and a long fairly even line of summits against the sky. A man looking at the range from the Spanish plains can only in a few rare places so much as catch sight of the main range. In far the greater number of such views he will have before him a high ridge which masques the country beyond. If, then, the reader or the traveller regards the French slope as being essentially a series of profound valleys parallel to each other and running north and south, he will have grasped the main aspect of this side of the range. If he will regard the Spanish slope as a series of parallel outliers which begin quite close to the watershed, and which, though falling at last into the plains of the Ebro, are, even the most southern of them, of considerable height, he will have grasped the structure of the Pyrenees upon the side which looks towards the sun.
[Illustration: PLAN E.]
To these two main aspects the reader must again admit considerable modifications, the first of which concerns the French side.
[Illustration: PLAN F.]
This Northern slope and its valleys, of which the sketch map over page indicates the general arrangement, may be divided into two sections: the first a western section, the second an eastern one, and these two are separated at A-B by a division roughly corresponding to the “fault” between the two axes, which, as we have seen, determine the lie of the range.