S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould - A Book of the Pyrenees

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Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/bookofpyrenees00bariuoft

Transcribers Note:
Text on cover added by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.

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A BOOK OF
THE PYRENEES

---

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
THE TRAGEDY OF THE CSARS
STRANGE SURVIVALS
SONGS OF THE WEST
A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG
OLD COUNTRY LIFE
YORKSHIRE ODDITIES
OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES
A BOOK OF GHOSTS
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND RHYMES
A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES

AND
(Uniform with this Volume)

A BOOK OF BRITTANY
A BOOK OF CORNWALL
A BOOK OF DEVON
A BOOK OF NORTH WALES
A BOOK OF SOUTH WALES
A BOOK OF THE RHINE
A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA

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LA VALLE DU LYS

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A BOOK OF
THE PYRENEES

BY
S. BARING-GOULD
AUTHOR OF A BOOK OF BRITTANY, A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA, ETC.

IT IS THE SOUL THAT SEES; THE OUTWARD EYES
PRESENT THE OBJECT, BUT THE MIND DESCRIES.

LONGFELLOW

WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

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First Published in 1907

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER	PAGE
I.	The Pyrenean Chain
II.	Gascony
III.	Bayonne
IV.	S. Jean-Pied-de-Port
V.	Orthez
VI.	Pau
VII.	Oloron
VIII.	The Val dOssau
IX.	Lourdes
X.	The Lavedan
XI.	Luz and Cauterets
XII.	Tarbes
XIII.	Bagnres
XIV.	The Val dAure
XV.	Luchon
XVI.	Couserans
XVII.	Foix
XVIII.	La Cerdagne
XIX.	The Canigou
XX.	Perpignan
Index

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

La Valle du Lys

PAGE

Map of the Pyrenees

Natives of Roussillon

The Cascade, Gavarnie From a photograph by Messrs. Levy and Sons, Paris

The Cathedral, Bayonne

The Coast, Biarritz

San Sebastian

Pas de Roland

The Bridge, Orthez

Pau

The Castle, Pau

Room of Jeanne dAlbret, Castle of Pau

Betharam

The Basilica, Lourdes

The Templar Church, Luz From a photograph by Messrs. Levy and Sons, Paris

La Brche de Roland From a photograph by Messrs. Levy and Sons, Paris

Choir of S. Bertrand de Cominges

Cloisters, S. Bertrand de Cominges

La Cascade dEnfer, Luchon

Le Lac dOo

Vernet les Bains

Chteau de Roussillon

Gateway of the Citadel, Perpignan

Cathedral Interior, Perpignan

The Cloisters of Elne

Note. The illustrations are from photographs by Messrs. Neurdein frres, of Paris, except where other acknowledgment is made.

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PREFACE

This Book of the Pyrenees follows the same lines as my Book of the Rhine and Book of the Riviera. It is not a guide, but an introduction to the chain, giving to the reader a sketch of the History of the Country he visits.

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PYRENEES

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THE PYRENEES

CHAPTER I
THE PYRENEAN CHAIN

The wall of divisionA triple chainContrastsDeforestingThe Catalan of RoussillonThe Basque of NavarreRoman roadsThe three portsCentral ridgeTrough to the northWatershedGlacial morainesLakesCirquesAbrupt termination of the lower valleysCave dwellersDolmensThat of BuzyLandes of PontacqThe Iberian stockDevelopment of languageAuxiliary verbsThe Basque villages and people.

The Pyrenees stand up as a natural wall of demarcation between two nations, the French and the Spaniards, just as the mountains of Dauphin sever the French from the Italians. It has been remarked that these natural barriers are thrown up to part Romance-speaking peoples, whereas the mountain ranges sink to comparative insignificance between the French and the Germans. Over the Jura the French tongue has flowed up the Rhone to Sierre, above the Lake of Geneva, so the Spanish or Catalan has overleaped the Pyrenees in Roussillon, and the Basque tongue has those who speak it in both cis-Pyrenean and trans-Pyrenean Navarre. The Pyrenees are the upcurled lips of the huge limestone sea-bed, that at some vastly remote period was snapped from east to west, and through the fissure thus formed the granite was thrust, lifting along with it the sedimentary rocks.

Consequently the Pyrenees consist of from two to three parallel chains. The central and loftiest is that of granite, but where loftiest is hidden on the north side by the upturned reef of limestone. On the south the calcareous bed is lifted in great slabs, but split, and does not form so ragged and so lofty a range.

The Pyrenees start steeply out of the Mediterranean, which at a distance of five-and-twenty miles from Cape Creuse, has a depth of over 500 fathoms, and there the limestone flares white and bald in the line of the Albres. But to the west the chain does not drop abruptly into the Atlantic, but trails away for 300 miles, forming the Asturian mountains, and then, curving south, serves to part Galicia from Leon. The range of the Pyrenees dividing France from Spain is 350 miles in length.

The chain to the west wears a different aspect from that in the east. The Basque mountains are clothed with trees, pines and birch, walnut and chestnut, and above them are turf and heather. But the eastern extremity is white and barren. This is due to the fact that the Western Pyrenees catch and condense the vapours from the Atlantic, whereas the Oriental Pyrenees do not draw to them heavy and continuous rains. The boundary between the regions and climates is Mont Carlitte. In the Western Pyrenees the snow line lies far lower than in the east. On the former of these glaciers hang in wreaths, whereas there are none in the east.

The contrast between the northern and southern slopes is even more marked than that between the extremities of the chain. On the French side are snow, ice, running streams, fertile vales, luxuriant meadows and forests, and valleys and hillsides that sparkle with villages smiling in prosperity. But on the southern slope the eye ranges over barren rocks, sun-baked, scanty pastures, and here and there at long intervals occur squalid clusters of stone hovels, scarce fit to shelter goats, yet serving as human habitations.

To the mountaineers the French side is bach, that in shadow; the Spanish is soulane, the sunny. At one time this latter slope was not as arid and desert as at present, but the thriftlessness of man has shorn down the forests and the teeth of the goats have nipped off or barked every seedling or sapling thrown up by nature to cover its nakedness and redress the evil. Thereby the rainfall has been diminished, and the soil is exposed to be carried away into the plain by every storm that breaks over the heights. Trees are the patient workers that reconstitute the flesh over the bones of the mountains. They derive their elements from the air and the rock, and they perform transformations far more wonderful than those attributed to the philosophers stone. As Victor Hugo sang:

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