Packe's excellent map of the Monts-Maudits. To ascend the Néthou by the usual, or northern route, you sleep under the rock of La Rencluse (6,834 feet), 6 hours from Luchon, and an hour below the foot of the glaciers. Horses reach La Rencluse, from which, the next morning, four hours (three on ice) will take you to the top. Huge crevasses on the glacier. Price, about 80 fr. per person, all included. The southern The return to Luchon route (Malibierne) takes three days. from the Port de Vénasque is generally effected by the Port de la Picade, about 40 minutes to the east of the former. Maladetta always in view. Delicate people, who can only spend a day at Luchon, may drive to the end of the Vallée du Lys (6 miles). See the Crabioules glaciers blazing above (10,560 feet), immense forests all the way to your left, and a paradise of wild flowers below.

Height of Luchon = 2,063 feet: 44 springs, sulphurous, saline, or ferruginous. In the bathing establishment, see M. Lézat's relief plan of this part of the Pyrenees (from 12 till 6 o'clock, 1 fr.). Botanist, M. Fourcade. Luchon to Toulouse takes six hours. It is hoped that in 1872 Luchon will be reached by rail.

Those who come to the Pyrenees with no object but to find Parisian pomps, frivolities, and eccentricities wherever they go, or only to marry their daughters, those who never cared for nature, and prefer a noisy multitude of dandies cracking three hundred whips in a given moment, to the silent solitudes of our beautiful mountains, will do well to see Luchon in midsummer. But all others will prefer it in May, before the snobs have come, or in autumn, when they are gone.

The beautiful and Alpine Lac d'Oo is 11 miles from Luchon; of which you drive 8 and ride 3. Immense cascade, and snowy peaks. Height, 5,000 feet. generally opens in the middle of May.

The inn

SECT. 27.

PAU TO FOIX AND THE ARIÈGE PYRENEES.

It cannot be too much deplored that the Eastern Pyrenees should be so little talked about and so neglected. They are very easy of access; they have peaks of 10,000 feet and more, the largest sheets of water in the whole chain, remarkably clear skies, and very cheap hotels, where the tumult of fashionable watering-places can be avoided. And yet they are unpopular, or rather quite unknown to the public in general.

At Foix, for instance, a neat little préfecture town, 12 hours from Pau by rail, there is a good hotel (Lacoste), and south of it a range of mountains containing some of the loftiest passages in the Pyrenees. Snow at least, if not real ice, is always seen on them; and behind them lies the famous little republic of Andorre, of which the microscopic capital can be reached in one day from Foix, by driving the first ten miles to the village of Tarascon, and walking the rest (11 to 12 hours).

The Flora of the Eastern Pyrenees is very rich, as botanists all know.

A very pleasant week might be spent at Ussat, a wellknown village with very good hotels, and saline waters (two hours by diligence from Foix). Fine mountain air, and remarkable grottos. In the one of Lombrive, which is nearly three miles long, Dr. Garrigou discovered heaps of human bones, mixed with those of bears, bisons, jackals, &c.

Ax-les-Bains, known to the Romans (Aqua), is another famous watering-place, 26 miles from Foix (five hours by diligence). It lies in the midst of a complicated system of mountains, some of which rise to almost 10,000 feet (Carlitte and Pedrous). It is 2,330 feet above the sea. There are

53 sulphurous and very hot springs, one being 172° Fahr. Hôtel Sicre.

Lake Lanoux, the largest sheet of water in the Pyrenees

(with Lake Gregonio on the Maladetta), is within 7 hours of Ax; you can drive one-third of the way; and it swarms with excellent trout. It is nearly 7,000 feet above the sea, and 2 miles long. Good cabane.

From Foix you can also with the greatest facility make the ascent of a mountain not remarkable for its height, but enjoying a reputation almost as great as the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, as its isolation gives it a view inferior in extent to none in the Pyrenees: I mean the Pic St. Barthélemy (or de Tabe), 7,707 feet. Driving from Foix 20 miles to Lassur, four hours' easy walking will take you to the top (north). You can distinctly see both the Pic du Midi de Bigorre and the Canigou, 110 miles apart.

Finally Aulus, a charming and retired little spot, not unlike Luz, is within very easy reach of Pau. But for that you must not go to Foix; you stop on the Toulouse railway line at the station of Boussens (6 hours from Pau), and then take the branch line leading in a little more than an hour to St. Girons, whence to Aulus it is 21 miles by diligence, through the verdant valley of the Salat and the Garbet torrents, with snowy peaks beyond. The whole journey from Pau takes 10 hours. (Saline and ferruginous springs.) Hôtel Souquet. Height=2,500 feet. All the high country beyond is full of lakes, and the Cascade d'Arse, which I consider the finest in the Pyrenees, is but an hour's walk from Aulus. The total fall is 600 feet, and in the middle it widens into a cataract.

Vicdessos (19 miles from Foix; diligences) owes a certain celebrity to the rich iron mines of Rancié, worked for the last six centuries. They are 2,000 feet in vertical height. Any good climber can walk in six hours from Vicdessos to the summit of the Estats (10,306 feet), the highest peak east of the Maladetta, and down again on the same day, whatever may be said to the contrary, as I did it myself in 1864. Hôtel de la Renaissance, at Vicdessos; much kindness; few resources.

SECT. 28. PAU TO PERPIGNAN AND EASTERN

PYRENEES.

Even the town of Perpignan, at the Mediterranean end of the Pyrenees, can be reached in one day (fourteen hours) from Pau, by leaving at five o'clock in the morning. Rail all the way.

Perpignan itself is a rather uninteresting town of 26,000 inhabitants, with tortuous and narrow streets, much dust, and second-rate hotels (de l'Europe, du Nord, &c.). Large and rich cathedral. University. Museum of art and different collections (American butterflies). Strong citadel.

What most strikes a stranger at Perpignan is the fertility of the well-irrigated plain and of the beautiful gardens which surround it, but, above all, the clear though distant view of the Eastern Pyrenees, where the famous Canigou (9,144 feet) thrones like a monarch, under its crown of snow. The town is but 8 miles from the sea, and only 70 feet above it.

A railway line goes to Prades (26 miles) to westward, whence it is only 8 miles (by diligence) to Vernet, a lovely spot sheltered from every noise and wind, at the foot of the Canigou, of which the rocky summit is just seen to the southeast, quite close. Height of Vernet 1,960 feet. Fine old church and tower in ruins. Winter exceedingly mild. Excellent hotels (des Commandants, Mercader, &c.). Sulphurous springs.

The ascent of the Canigou, which is remarkably easy, takes between five and six hours, and by Cadi, horses can go to within half an hour of the summit, where there is a little cabane, large enough, however, for two persons to sleep in. View wonderful. You see at least 140 miles of sea-coast, and, in the west, half of the Pyrenees. The whole mountain is covered with flowers, especially rhododendrons, in June. Olive and orange trees adorn its base, whilst, according to Ch. Martins, plants of Montblanc and Spitzbergen grow on the top.

Ten miles east of the Canigou, in the Tech valley, lies Amélie-les-Bains, 24 miles from Perpignan (diligences). Its waters (sulphurous) and climate are excellent in cases of consumption, and it is much resorted to in winter. Traces of the Romans.

Montlouis, the highest town in France, and perhaps in Europe (5,250 feet), is 49 miles to the wsw. of Perpignan (rail to Prades, then diligences), and only 16 miles from the Spanish frontier. Citadel and garrison. In the village of La Cabanasse, close by, there is a very comfortable little hotel (Vaillant), where a pleasant summer or spring might be spent botanising, as the flora of this part of the Pyrenees is wonderfully rich (Vallée d'Fyne). The climate is superb in that season, but quite Russian in the winter. The high road leading up to Montlouis is a marvel of engineering.

From Perpignan to Barcelona it is 115 miles, 50 by diligence to Gerona (passing by Figueras), and the rest by rail. And from Barcelona you can return to Pau all the way by rail, through Saragossa, Pampeluna, and Bayonne, thus going all round the chain of the Pyrenees in three or four days.