last ascent, with the young Gaspard and a chasseur called' Salettes, I left a bottle at the top. The western route is through Eaux-Chaudes and the lake of Artouste, where you will sleep the first night. On the following day go up south to the Col d'Arrémoulit, where you enter Spain. From this col to the top steer east. Two hours from the col will place you on the summit. No eternal snows to pass on this side, but the rocks are frightful; the last arête is a precipice of aiguilles, not all very steady. You return on the same day to the lake of Artouste, and the third day to Pau.

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The eastern route is by Argelès (Sect. 11), then Arrens, then 4 hours more, up the vallée d'Azun (riding), to the cabanes of Labassa. Sleep there (6,000 feet). The next day climb south-west for an hour, and follow up the whole of the glacier to its source; it is two miles long crevasses. From the head of the glacier, an almost vertical couloir, up the eastern precipices of the Balaïtous, takes you in thirty minutes to the summit. Descend to Labassa to sleep, and on the third day return to Pau. The view is sublime, but dearly bought.*

SECT. 24. PIC DE GER (8,573 feet).

Very easy, and visible from Pau. You can ride to within 30 minutes of the top, both from Eaux-Bonnes and from Eaux-Chaudes, sleeping once at either, and returning to Pau next day. It is by its south-western side you reach the summit, and if on foot, your best and shortest way is up the wooded gorge which opens to the south-east of Eaux-Bonnes (Soude). You then climb up either the first gorge you find on your right (Balourd), or the second, at an hour and a half from Eaux-Bonnes. In either case you first cross a dense forest of firs, and then emerge upon an open country without a tree, almost a desert of limestone and dry turf, where all * For more details, see Ch. Packe's Guide-book.

you want is a compass, maps, and good lungs. Five short hours (in all) will place you on the top (Saxifraga Groënlandica, Draba pyrenaica, Ranunculus parnassifolius, says Jam). Ladies often make this ascent. The view is far finer than

that from the Pic du Midi de Pau.

SECT. 25. PIC DU MIDI DE BIGORRE (9,439 feet).

It is that lofty cone you see so well to the south-east of Pau, towering with so much majesty nearly 9,000 feet over the fertile plains of Nay and of the Gave.

It will take two long days from Pau, employed as follows::

Go by rail to Bagnères de Bigorre (50 miles), viâ Lourdes and Tarbes, where you breakfast at the railway station. Beyond Bagnères you can drive ten miles up the Campan valley to Gripp, and even three miles farther (on the Tourmalet and Barèges road), to the miserable hamlet of Tramesaïgues, from which you have to ride or to walk, turning to the right, up a dismal, treeless gorge; at the extremity of which the Pic itself suddenly makes its appearance in dreary majesty. Leaving the Pic on your right, two hours of monotonous but very easy ascent (from Tramesaïgues) will take you to the inn called Hôtellerie du Pic du Midi, one of the highest in Europe (7,709 feet). Here you must sleep. The peak stands to the north of the inn, 300 feet below which glimmers, when it is not frozen, the cold and motionless lake of Oncet.

The next morning, a steep but quite easy ascent of an hour places you on the summit of the peak, accessible even to horses. By leaving it towards ten o'clock, you can walk or ride down in two hours and a half to Barèges, and there get a carriage to drive you down to Lourdes (23 miles), where you can dine without haste, returning to Pau by the

evening train. (It is needless to add that this itinéraire can be reversed.)

The view from the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, especially on a clear morning or on a summer evening, is one that quite baffles description. Looking north, you have under your feet, some 9,000 feet below, about one-fifth of France; and to the south, 200 miles of mountains, some as white and frozen as the Alps, others hazy and blue, and all standing in a line from sea to sea. Except the mighty Posets (11,047 feet), nothing can be compared to this. In fact it would be. extremely difficult to name a single high peak between the Mediterranean and Atlantic, from which the solitary cone of the Pic du Midi is not distinctly seen.

N.B. It will save both trouble and expense to ride all the way from Bagnères.

Bagnères de Bigorre (50 miles from Pau by rail, but only 40 by the road) is a very fascinating and fashionable town of nearly 10,000 inhabitants, crowded with strangers in summer, and enlivened in winter by a numerous and gay colony of English. It is remarkably well placed with regard to excursions, having the Pyrenees on one side, and the richest and best irrigated plain in all France at its gates. Height above the sea 1,820 feet. Climate, bracing and exhilarating. Springs without number, saline and ferruginous, or both. It was called Vicus Aquensis by the Romans, who knew its waters well, and have left indisputable proofs of their passage-votive altars, inscriptions, medals, broken pillars, etc. There are also several Roman camps in the neighbourhood.

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But besides its thermal springs, Bagnères probably possesses more water in every shape than any town in France; the Adour washes its walls, and everywhere fountains and gay rivulets are seen and heard. Montaigne, Madame de Maintenon, the Empress Eugénie, have loved this favoured spot, and it was in the Elisée-Cottin, a secluded and most poetical glen two miles from Bagnères, that Madame Cottin

wrote, under the shadow of the Pyrenees, her immortal little book, Elizabeth, ou l'Exilé en Sibérie.

The immense establishment for working marbles, the marbrerie Géruzet, is one of the greatest curiosities of Bagnères. Its casino is very brilliant in summer. Hôtels de Paris, de Londres, de France, etc. There is an English church, and a well-known English physician, Dr. Bagnell, spends the summer at Bagnères, after the Pau season is over.

A most useful society, called Société Ramond,* and comprising every learned man connected in any way with the Pyrenees, together with all the explorers of that mountainchain, tourists or savants, was founded at Bagnères some years ago, and publishes a quarterly Bulletin.

Those who only have an hour to spare ought to visit the Promenade de Salut.

The Lac Bleu (6,424 feet) is four hours from Bagnères, on horseback; but you can drive the first twelve miles, up the charming valley of Lesponne.

From Bagnères de Bigorre to Bagnères de Luchon it is 44 miles, by the mountain road, over the two cols of Aspin and of Peyresourde. It is by far the grandest drive in the Pyrenees, as from the col d'Aspin you see the largest glacier fields in the whole range. It is better to take four horses; and by letting them rest at Arreau (23 miles; Hôtel d'Angleterre), you can easily reach Luchon in ten or eleven hours. Price, 80 francs (less in spring).

From Bagnères de Bigorre to Barèges it is 25 miles, over the wild Tourmalet pass (7,000 feet), one of the highest (for carriages) in Europe.

Tarbes (13 miles from Bagnères, 30 minutes by rail) stands on the magnificent plain of that name. Its botanical gardens are famous. Fine cathedral. Hôtel du Commerce. It is 37 miles from Pau by rail. Government studs. In the panorama of mountains, the dreaded Balaïtous is conspicuous. In the 13 miles between Tarbes and Bagnères, the railway rises 800 feet.

* Ramond was the Saussure of the Pyrenees,

SECT. 26. PAU TO LUCHON.

It will be seen, by the preceding chapter, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to reach Luchon in one day from Pau by Bagnères de Bigorre. But it is quite easy to do so by taking the Toulouse railway as far as Montréjeau (a little more than four hours), and then driving up to Luchon from Montréjeau (24 miles). A diligence runs all the year. It thus takes eight hours in all from Pau, and only seven to return. Calèches from Montréjeau to Luchon, 30 fr. (much less in spring). Bagnères de Luchon is, beyond any doubt, the Pyrenæan locality which most reminds one of Switzerland, by the splendour and comfort of its hotels (des Bains, d'Angleterre, du Parc, Bonnemaison, &c.), and by the height and geographical importance of its mountains, which carry the largest glacierfields in the Pyrenees. It is true that no eternal snow can be seen from Luchon; but behind the wall of peaks which encompasses it, sheltering it from every wind, there are legions of snowy summits, with frozen lakes which the sun has never fallen upon, and glacier systems where you can at any season travel 8 or 9 miles without ever leaving the ice. From the lofty regions of lake Caillaouas (wsw. of Luchon, 9 hours on horseback), you can, by steering first south-east, then east, at an average height of 9,000 feet, follow an uninterrupted. chain of ice-fields, and believe yourself on the Glacier des Bossons or on the Mer de Glace. The Maladetta glaciers, though not so large, form a line of about 7 miles.

The far-famed Port de Vénasque (7,930 feet) is the hollowest part of the wide gap, looking like a V, nearly south of Luchon. You can ride all the way in summer, but never before June. It is 6 miles, by carriage-road, to the Hospice, then 2 hours up to the Port, riding or walking. There is an inn on the Spanish (south) side of the Port, in full view of the glorious Maladetta, the highest summit of which is the Nethou (11,168 feet), bearing a few degrees east of south. See Ch.