distance of seven miles from Pau, which they protect from the north winds. The view is indeed magnificent, very like that from the hill of Morlaàs (see Sec. 17), with the advantage of houses for shelter from rain or sun. You see half of the Pyrenees, from the Luchon peaks to La Rhune, on the Atlantic, in all fully 120 miles. Following the Bordeaux road (north of Pau) for four miles and a half, you find two roads branching off to the right, the first bleak and shadeless, the second lined with a double row of young oaks. It is this one which leads to Serres-Castets, of which the church and spire are well seen on the hill, with a mass of tall trees to the right. Three miles (from the Bordeaux road) take you to the village, where you will go to the church, and inquire for the Bellocq house, which stands to the east of it, with its grand grove of secular trees. The foliage is almost too thick, for it hides the Pyrenees as well as the sun, and you can only get just a glimpse of the Pic du Midi in a gap between the leaves. But on a tropical summer day, it is deliciously cool under those vaults of verdure and branches. There is a well in the garden almost a hundred feet in depth. There are also two inns in the village, where at least plates, forks, glasses, etc., are sure to be had.

You can drive to Serres-Castets, and thence, either on the top or at the foot of the hills (south-east) to Morlads. But they are 7 heavy miles. View superb all the way.

From Morlaàs to Pau it is 7 miles (see Sec. 17).

SECT. 16. OLORON, ST. CHRISTAU, AND LOUVIE.

It is, in all, 54 miles. You must therefore change horses at Louvie, and start early from Pau. Passing the bridge, you take the Eaux-Bonnes direction as far as Gan (5 miles). From Gan two roads branch off to the right, to Oloron. The first (by Lasseube) is a little shorter, but more hilly, and less

interesting than the other, by Belair. Take this one. After a long and gradual rise you reach Belair, on the top of a hill, the highest in the country (after the Pic de Rébénacq). It is 12 miles from Pau, and well known to pic-nicking people. There is a splendid view of the Pyrenees, about 100 yards from the inn, in a field south of the road leading to Rébénacq (3 miles). You can see almost to the Atlantic. Beyond Belair it is a long but pleasant descent of 8 miles to Oloron, between highly-cultivated hills, with the blue and densely-wooded Pyrenees to your left.

Oloron (20 miles from Pau) is a picturesque and fantastically built little town of 6,000 souls, a few miles north of the Pyrenees, and of the lovely Vallée d'Aspe, leading to Spain.

Hôtel Condesse, and several diligences daily to Pau.

It was formerly called Iluro, and stood on the Roman way leading to Saragossa. It is a rich, busy, little place, with linen and paper manufactures, cutleries, &c. The two mountain gaves of Aspe and of Ossau meet here, and form the Gave d'Oloron. Plundered and ruined by the Spaniards in 1694, Oloron lost half of its population, and of its trade with Aragon. It was for centuries a bishopric. Go and see the church of Ste. Croix.

There was a fearful plague in 1652, which lasted two months, and during which the Capuchin monks behaved heroically in nursing the sick. They were called pères exposés; four of them died; after the plague they were publicly congratulated by the authorities.

Oloron has beautiful walks, in full view of the Pyrenees, and venerable old ramparts. Due south of it, a carriage-road runs through the Vallée d'Aspe, nearly to the Spanish frontier, passing through the pretty village of Bédous (15 miles), and Urdos (25 miles), the last French village, with a wonderful fort. The scenery is exquisite, though without snowy peaks. But of the inns of the Vallée d'Aspe much cannot be said. A Protestant colony lives at Osse, near

Bédous.

South also of Oloron, but on the right bank of the torrent of Aspe, and distant 6 miles, stands the modest village of St. Christau, in its nest of verdure, at the foot of the Pyrenees. Carriage-road, and diligences daily. Hôtels du Grand Turc, du Grand Mogol, de la Poste. Climate very mild; mountains densely wooded; excursions on every side. The springs are cold, sulphurous, and saline, and belong to Count de Barraute. There is capital fishing and shooting. On the whole, it is very like Cambo, near Bayonne.

There is probably no carriage-road in the Pyrenees more beautiful in its way, and more varied, than the new one from St. Christau to Louvie (12 miles). Never straight nor horizontal, but with slopes so gentle that you can always trot, it winds round every spur of the Pyrenees, sometimes through miles of forests as dark and uninhabited as any in America; sometimes between cottages and rich undulating meadows of pure 'Irish' green. In one place you are hundreds of feet above the torrent, and you see plains to the north, looking like an Australian desert, with a few dark and dismal trees wildly scattered on its surface: in another place you sink so low that nothing is left but the sky overhead, and great impenetrable masses of jungle forests imprisoning you on every side. As you approach Louvie, however, the scenery changes, the country opens, grey limestone appears, and fields of Indian corn, and you seem to re-enter Europe, after two hours of wilderness and silence.

From Louvie to Pau 17 miles (see Sec. 7).

SECT 17. MORLAÀS.

A village of 1,700 inhabitants, 7 miles from Pau, in a north-easterly direction. Carriage-road.

Following the Rue Porte-Neuve and the Tarbes road for

2 miles, you turn to the left, and soon find yourself in a kind of desert, called Landes du Pont-Long, with nothing to redeem its ugliness but the superb view of the Pyrenees, where first-rate peaks, invisible from Pau, appear one by one, the foreground of hills sinking into an apparently level plain as you recede from them. In fact, as a general rule, the farther you go from the Pyrenees the grander they seem, owing to the system of hills which hide them when you are

near.

After five miles on a straight, level, monotonous and shadeless road, you come to a steep hill, after surmounting which, a short descent of less than a mile, without any view to speak of, takes you to Morlaàs. But as you turn round and look south from the top of the Morlaàs hill, you have before you a panorama of mountains of such splendour and extent that nothing in France, perhaps nothing in Europe, can equal it. From the Maladetta (11,168 feet) in the very centre of the chain, to the Biscayan hills and humble La Rhune on the ocean, it is one huge and uninterrupted wall of more or less snowy summits, well worthy and capable of effectually separating two great kingdoms. The two extreme points in view are fully 120 miles apart. Every hill between you and the Pyrenees sinking at this distance into insignificance, the eye meets nothing in the whole interval but an enormous plain, flat as the sea, and almost as monotonous. Anything more immense and more simple in its magnificent lines could scarcely be found, except in the stupendous chains and horizontal plains of India or Peru.

But the village of Morlaàs is poor and uninteresting indeed, although it is justly proud of its old basilica, founded in 1089. It is a mixture of Gothic and Romane archi

tecture.*

A famous fair is often held at Morlaàs, where young

See the description of it given by the eminent architect, M. Ch. Le Cœur, in the Syndicat's Pau Guide.

girls come and sell their hair.

There are a few tolerable inns, and the Pau sporting men constantly meet here. This now most humble village existed before Pau; it had a mint during five centuries, and none could now guess that it was once the capital, and residence of the Counts of Béarn.

The hill described above is a splendid place for picnics; at least, for those who love Nature, and look forward to something else in a pic-nic than mere eating, drinking, or -flirtation. There are plenty of trees and fields.

SECT. 18. ORTHEZ.

A name both familiar and dear to British ears and hearts, since 1814. It is 25 miles from Pau, on the Bayonne railway. One hour by train.

Orthez, with now 7,000 inhabitants, was once the capital of Béarn, and during the sixteenth century it was the heart of Protestantism in these countries. The old Calvinist university is now used for drying the famous and misnamed 'Bayonne' hams. Orthez was taken by the Catholics, then retaken by Montgomery, by whose orders several priests had to jump into the Gave from the old bridge of the Middle Ages, as steady still as centuries ago. It was in the castle (dismantled by Richelieu) that Gaston Phoebus murdered the Governor of Lourdes, and his own son; and that Blanche de Navarre was poisoned.

The battle of Orthez (27th of February, 1814) was fought on the hills north and north-west of the town, whence the view of the Pyrenees is admirable. There were, according to Napier, 80,000 men of all arms engaged, in about equal numbers (40,000) on each side. According to Thiers, the allied armies under Wellington (English, Spanish, and Portuguese) numbered 60,000. Wellington was wounded by a musket-ball above the thigh; the Duke of Richmond was