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PART II.

EXCURSIONS REQUIRING TWO OR MORE DAYS.

SECT 21. PIC D'ANIE (8,216 feet).

It is a noble and easy peak, the last you see from Pau on the right (ssw.), and only 55 miles from the ocean, as the crow flies. It can be seen on a clear day.

Drive to Oloron (20 miles; Sect. 16), and then up the Valley d'Aspe, 15 miles more, to Bédous, where you can sleep (Hôtel de la Poste). Recollections or traces of Cæsar, Louis XI., the Moors, the Normans and Vandals, are found in the Valley d'Aspe.

On the second day you drive five miles up the valley beyond Bédous, until you reach the bridge of Lescun, a little village not yet seen, but perched high up in the gorge which opens to your right. From here you must ride or walk. An hour's steep climbing will take you to Lescun (3,000 feet). Fine waterfall. Inn, Cazou. Steering west, you soon come in sight of the white, dry, izard-haunted summit of the Anie, above the green pastures, flowers, torrent, and pines of the Cirque de Lescun. Following up the torrent, you gradually turn round the eastern and northern slopes of the mountain, until you reach (two hours from Lescun) the cabanes of Azun (6,000 feet), where you must leave your horses and walk on. Vegetation ceases, and even water disappears, the last specimen of it being the wretched pool called Lac d'Anie.

After a long and fatiguing climb on weather-beaten and

absolutely barren slopes of limestone, with large excrescences like waves, and holes between, you attack the peak by its western, and finally by its south-western side, reaching the top in four hours from Lescun. The view is extremely fine, as the Pic d'Anie is well seen, not only from the sea, but from almost every summit in the Central and even Eastern Pyrenees, from 100 miles at least. Still it is an unpopular mountain, scarcely ever climbed.

In returning, you can save an hour by descending ESE. in the stony ravine of Anaye, on the left side of which you will not be long in finding a good and easy track. Once at Lescun, 40 minutes' walking will take you down to the Valleé d'Aspe, at a distance of 40 miles from Pau, which you can reach the same evening, after dining at Oloron (Hôtel Condesse).

N.B. The Valley d'Aspe, which is indeed worth a visit, quite apart from its peaks, was once a republic, possessing various privileges, of which Louis XIII. did not deprive it when Béarn was united to France.

The Aspois, like the Ossalois, were a proud, quarrelsome race, and rather unpleasant neighbours. At Sarrance (30 miles from Pau) are still seen, under a mass of ivy and moss, the ruins of a convent rendered famous by a pilgrimage of Louis XI. For the exploration of the valley, Bédous is by far the best and prettiest place to sleep in (35 miles from Pau). But provisions are scarce,

SECT. 22. PIC DU MIDI DE PAU (9,793 feet).

Although its bold pyramidal lines give this peak a rather terrible aspect, it is an exceedingly easy one, and it is hard for us, in these days of fearless mountaineering, not to smile at the terrors and descriptions of those who first reached its summit. On three of its sides it is a sheer precipice of

about 3,000 feet; but on its eastern declivities the slopes are only steep, requiring a little agility, and nothing more. The end is quite easy; and it is all granite-a rock as firm as iron. There is a wide and grassy col to the east of this great fork, the Col de Suzou or de Pombie. Horses can go up there in 4 hours from Eaux-Chaudes, passing by the Plateau de Bious-Artigues (see Sect. 10), then east through the pine-forest of Magnabatch, then south up a grassy plateau with excellent springs. From the Col de Suzou (8,000 feet), where you leave your horses, it is a good hour to the top, passing at first through three very steep, but quite safe couloirs, where iron rods have lately been driven into the rock. These couloirs, however, can be avoided by climbing a little more to the right; it is easier so. A short arête, running north and south, forms the summit, from which the view is not very remarkable. The sea might be seen on a very clear day (70 miles). But the most conspicuous object is the snowy Balaïtous to the east (10,318 feet), the most precipitous mountain in the Pyrenees. Pau also is quite visible, even to the naked eye. The peaks and plains of Aragon are bare and boundless as the Sahara.

The most convenient way of climbing the Pic du Midi from Pau is by sleeping at Eaux-Chaudes (Sec. 10), driving early the next morning to Gabas (5 miles), where you can get horses and a very good guide (Camy), and returning to Pau the same evening, after dining at the Eaux-Chaudes.

SECT. 23. BALAÏTOUS (10,318 feet).

A very hard peak, accessible by both west and east, the latter a little easier. In all, it takes 3 days from Pau. I believe only three guides in the Pyrenees have ever climbed it-Orteig (of the Eaux-Bonnes), and the two Gaspards from Arrens, a village 8 miles south-west of Argelès. In my