1/100,000 map. It has the great advantage of contour lines, but the
scale is so small and the contours so pressed together, that, though it
is invaluable for giving a general and plastic impression of the chain
(to look down on a general map of the Pyrenees on this scale is like
looking down on a model of the French side of the range), it is of little
use for telling one, as a contour map should tell one, exactly how much
higher this spot is than that other spot. When you are climbing and you
wish to identify your position, you have usually to estimate comparative
heights on a delicate scale and at a short distance, for which the
1/200,000 map is of very little use to you.
One way of using the contours of the 1/200,000 which is laborious,
but not without value, is to trace the _deeper_ contour lines in some
particular district, which you are specially studying. These deeper
contour lines stand out much more clearly than the intermediate faint
ones, which, as I have said, are too numerous for a mountain district.
They can be followed clearly even in the dark shading of a steep ridge,
and are set every hundred metres apart. When such a tracing has been
made, neglecting the finer intermediate lines, you have a good working
relief plan of the mountain you propose to deal with.
Of all the area open to the climber and the man on foot in the Pyrenees,
that upon the Spanish side of the frontier is the larger and wilder,
and this for two reasons. First, because property and its attendant
limitations is more developed upon the northern slope, so that the vast
areas common to all, are, if anything, vaster upon the southern side,
and secondly, that the formation of the range between the ramparts above
the Ebro and the main chain, covers a larger space than that between the
main chain and the French plains. Yet, as I have just said, it is on the
Spanish side that proper maps are lacking, and one must do the best one
can to supplement them by the French extensions.
A common plan guides all the French maps in their delineation of
territory south of the frontier. Colours, contour lines, hatching, and
every detail are omitted. Heights are given in certain cases (but those
are rarer of course than on the French side). The names of towns and, in
some cases, their telegraphic and postal communications are marked, but
upon the whole the Spanish side upon the French maps has far less detail
than is accorded for the territory to which the maps directly relate.
However, let me explain the various advantages and disadvantages, for use
upon the Spanish side, of the four types of French maps I have mentioned.
The 1/320,000 of the Ministry of War may be neglected; whatever use it
has upon the French side, it is negligible upon the Spanish.
The 1/80,000 map of the Ministry of War marks the main water-courses upon
the Spanish side, the main peaks, and the main important ports and cols,
with their heights, but it does not afford any indication of the shape
of the country. It is a bare white space of paper with but few lines
traversing it, one or two names, and one or two numbers on each sheet.
On the whole it is better not to use the French military maps for the
Spanish side; here it is the maps of the Ministry of the Interior which
must chiefly be relied upon. Of these the 1/100,000 map is the best. It
is true that the colours, which are so valuable in the differentiation
of the French side, are absent upon the Spanish, save in the case of
water-courses, which are marked in blue upon either slope of the range.
There is no indication of woods upon the Spanish side, as there is upon
the French, and as this indication is useful for purposes of camping,
the loss of it on the south side is often felt. Moreover, the absence of
colour upon the Spanish side often makes one misinterpret the nature of
the mountains upon these maps, giving to the whole a bare look, since the
rocky and bare spaces on the French side are similarly left uncovered.
On the other hand, the 1/100,000 French map does afford upon the Spanish
side a very large number of detailed points of information. I will
enumerate them in their order.
1. The general shape of the country is indicated by shading, the light
being supposed to come (as is the case throughout this series of maps)
from the north-west.
2. Steep rocks and cliffs, the presence of which should always be
indicated to the traveller, are carefully marked upon either side of the
frontier.
3. Paths, the importance of which the reader will presently appreciate,
are clearly marked, with all details, as exactly as on the French side.
4. Every habitation is marked, and in the case of villages and towns, the
number of inhabitants, the postal and other facilities.
5. Most of the heights are marked, though not so many as on the northern
slope, but at any rate the height of every important port, col, and peak
appears. In general, it may be said that there is no map of the Pyrenees,
immediately to the south of the frontier, equivalent to those of the
districts which happen to fall within the French 1/100,000 survey.
This leads me to the principal drawback connected with the use of the
French 1/100,000 map upon the Spanish side, which is, that it only
includes such Spanish territory as accidentally happens to fall within
each square blocked out in the French survey.
The English reader is acquainted, it may be presumed, with the one-inch
Ordnance Map, and he will have remarked, how, if it so happens that a
little corner of land escapes the regular series of rectangles into which
the one-inch Ordnance Map is divided, that little corner of land will
have a map all to itself, though the greater part of the rectangular
space so marked may be taken up by the sea. In the same way any little
bit of French territory which projects beyond the scheme of rectangles
into which the whole survey is divided, has, added to it, an outer part
completing the map and extending into Spain; where (as for instance
on the sheet called “Gavarnie”) the little piece of French territory
so projecting is small in comparison with the whole rectangle, a
considerable piece of Spanish territory will be included; but where (as
for instance on the sheet called “Bayonne”) the frontier very nearly
corresponds with the survey, very little of the Spanish side will be
included.
From this it is easy to perceive that the maximum amount of Spanish
territory in any one map must be inferior either in width or in length
to the full dimensions of each sheet, and that the total distance into
Spain, which any one sheet can mark, south of the frontier, is less than
the width of any one sheet. Now each sheet of the French 1/100,000 map
includes 15 minutes of a degree from north to south, that is, about 17
miles. One may say, therefore, that the amount of Spanish territory shown
to the south of the frontier in this excellent survey is always less than
one full day’s journey. In many parts it narrows to far less than this.
There are not a few parts of the range where even for those who make but
short excursions on to the Spanish side, this drawback is of considerable
effect. For instance, in the easy and pleasant excursion which takes one
from Andorra to Urgel, the 1/100,000 map cuts one short at 42° 30′ below
Andorra, and 42° 15′ beyond the main road to Urgel, and no small part of
the road lies south or west of this limitation.
The 1/200,000 map somewhat makes up for the deficiency of the 1/100,000
map, but not in a complete manner. The frontier sections of this survey
(five in number) show Spanish territory to the extent of some 30 miles in
the Basque country, they give but a tiny corner of the extreme east of
the territory of Aragon, they give over 30 miles for the greater part of
the north of that province, but in Catalonia the belt is restricted to
far less. Moreover, the Spanish details afforded are much slighter than
in the 1/100,000. There is no indication of the relief of the country,
no shading, only the principal water-courses and the principal highways
and mule roads are marked. But it is here that the 1/200,000 is useful,
if one has the intention of walking for some days upon the Spanish side.
Thus the direction from Castellbo in Catalonia to Esterri can be roughly
drawn upon the 1/200,000 and will not be discovered so clearly in any
other survey.
It now remains to sum up the respective advantages of these four maps for
the general purposes of travel, and to give a few comments upon the uses
of each.
The 1/320,000 military map will not be of great use to the traveller.
It can only show him the main roads if he is motoring or cycling, and
present him with a general view of the country for which the clearer
1/200,000 map will serve his purpose better.
The 1/80,000 military map is the best for minute details, and if a man
desires to ramble off and explore some special districts of this great
range, it is the 1/80,000 map which will be of most use to him, though
its value will be supplemented and greatly extended by using it in
conjunction with the colour 1/100,000 map of the Ministry of the Interior
or Home Office.
This last, as the reader will have seen, is the staple map, upon which
every form of travel depends. If no other be purchased, this at least is
always indispensable.
It is well here to summarize briefly certain points in the reading of
this map, which do not immediately appear on one’s first acquaintance
with it.
First, the map is on too small a scale to show a certain number of
features, which, though unimportant in the general landscape, are
essential to the traveller on foot. This is true of rocks, for instance;
open rock, extending over a considerable surface, will always be marked,
but hidden ledges, especially small ones, are more often not marked,
and this may lead to disaster if one trusts the map too exactly. For
instance, in the sheet numbered xi. 37, a range will be seen rising to
the left of the main road, which bisects the map from north to south: I
mean the range running from the Spanish frontier to the Pic-du-Ger. This
ridge is intersected by two profound valleys, and the whole of it is a
mass of greater or smaller limestone ledges, more or less masked in the
density of the forests. Yet it is impossible to indicate these on such a
scale, save here and there by sharp hatching. These limestone ledges are
in this particular case such, that unless one knows the paths extremely
well, it is impossible to cross the ridge at all, but one would have no
idea of that from merely consulting the map. On the other hand, every
rivulet, however small, is distinctly marked, and that is something of a
guide when one has tried to ascertain one’s position in a valley. This
map has a further advantage of marking in the clearest way the paths by
which the various ports are approached, and after a considerable use
of it in many places, I can say that when you have lost the path, the
indication afforded you by the 1/100,000 map is invariably right—upon the
French side. However unreasonably the line seems to acting upon the map,
if it lies to the left of a stream, or beneath a particularly clearly
marked rock, then it is to the left of that stream, or beneath that rock
that you must cast about if you want to find it, and if you find another
path in another direction, you may be certain it is but a random track,
which will mislead you, however clearly it may appear for the moment.
When, in first using these maps, my companions and I neglected such
information, it invariably led to trouble. For instance, in the lower
crossings of the Sousquéou, the map gives the path everywhere on the
north, or right bank of the stream. There is a spot just before the first
rocky “gate” of this ravine where all indication of further travel upon
the right bank disappears, and on the contrary a fine-made path crosses
over by a strong bridge to the further or left bank. We thought the map
must be in error, and crossed by the bridge, with the result that we
spent a whole day cut off by a bad spate from the further side, and were
for some hours in peril; for the bridge once crossed, this false path
disappeared within half a mile. If we had pinned ourselves to the map,
kept to the north bank, and cast about in circles, we should have found
the path again but a hundred yards or so further on, running precisely as
it was indicated on the survey. The importance of the 1/100,000 map in
thus giving all tracks accurately will hardly appear to the reader unused
to the Pyrenees, but it will be seen clearly enough when we come later to
speak of travel upon foot in the mountains.
It is a defect of the 1/100,000 map that heights, though accurately
marked, cannot always be as accurately referred to the exact spots
standing near the figures. This is because the heights are marked in
pale blue ink, and the ambiguity is accentuated by that absence of
contour lines which is the chief fault of the series. The method of
marking is to point a small blue point close to the figures, and this
dot marks the exact spot to which the figures refer. Where the figures
are printed in a white space, and where there are no other features to
interfere with them, this small blue spot is plain enough, but where
they come upon woodland or steep shading, or other print, it is almost
impossible to discover the dot. Thus, for instance, in the xi. 37 sheet
to which allusion has just been made, a little lake will be found right
upon latitude 42° 50′, just before its intersection with longitude 2°
40′. The height of this lake is given as 2170 metres, and the small blue
point to which that altitude exactly refers is unmistakably marked at the
southern extremity of the lake; but immediately to the right of those
very figures, one of the highest peaks of the Pyrenees, the Bat Lactouse,
marked 3146 metres, presents no point of which one can be certain. The
frontier happens to cross this peak, and the little blue spot has got
lost in the chain of black dots marking the frontier and in the print of
the name of the mountain.
As a general rule, however, if you are in doubt as to what a figure may
refer to, you are pretty safe in referring it to a peak, rather than to
a pass or a group of houses in the neighbourhood. I have said that the
accuracy of the map is undoubted for the French side; it is less certain
upon the Spanish, where indeed its accuracy is not guaranteed. It is the
best map to use upon the Spanish side (save for that restricted district
over which Schrader’s contour map applies), but do not, upon the Spanish
side, take the map against the evidence of your senses, as you will be
wise always to do upon the French side. The map is notably wrong upon the
Spanish side where unfinished works are concerned; it is not revised with
the same frequency and care as upon the French side; for instance, the
big new road from Sallent up to the French frontier goes in long winding
zigzags, which make the total distance between eight and nine miles. The
1/100,000 map marks it in dots as though it were not finished, makes it
far straighter than it is, and thus reduces the distance by nearly half.
Finally, the 1/200,000 map gives the best bird’s-eye view of the whole
district, and is the only one showing contours, and penetrating further
upon the Spanish side than any other. It will be my advice to those who
desire to take a walking tour of some length in various parts of the
range, to equip themselves with the whole set of the 1/200,000 maps (5
sheets), with the whole of the 1/100,000 map, but only with such of the
1/800,000 (the uncoloured map of the Ministry of War) as cover small
districts of the nature of which one is in doubt. Those, on the other
hand, who purpose spending their time in one or two valleys only, should,
without fail, purchase the sheets of the 1/100,000 survey covering that
district, and would do very well to add to these all the corresponding
sheets of the 1/80,000 survey.
With these remarks, most that can be usefully told to my readers with
regard to the maps of the Pyrenees has been told them, but perhaps a few
final notes will not be without their use, thus: The English traveller
must always remember that none of these maps comes up to the English
one-inch Ordnance for accuracy and detail—the scale forbids this. Next,
let him remember that the dates of revision of each map will differ,
as do the dates of revision of ordnance maps in every country. For
instance, I have before me, as I write, the 1/200,000 of Luz, purchased
in this year (1908); no date of revision is attached to it, but the
new road (which is at present an excellent carriage road, one of the
best in Europe, up the Gallego to the French frontier) is marked, at
first as a lane, afterwards as a mule track. On the 1/100,000 (Laruns
sheet), purchasable this year, the new road is marked as existing for
traffic, but not fully completed beyond a point about three miles from
the frontier, and its true form is not given but merely indicated. It is
evident that these sheets were revised at different times (the Laruns
sheet bears a date six years old), and that we must always take the later
of any two impressions, if we can obtain it. The highways of the Pyrenees
upon the French side especially, both by road and by rail, are being
extended with such rapidity that every year makes a difference to the
accuracy of the information conveyed.
It remains to enumerate with their titles the maps covering the district:
in England they may be most easily obtained from Messrs. Sifton & Praed,
The Map House, St. James’s Street. This firm provides the 1/200,000 for
the whole chain of the Pyrenees range mounted on canvas, the most useful
map perhaps for motoring and cycling. Any sheet of the 1/100,000 can
also be obtained from them, as all are kept in stock, but by far the
most convenient form in which to carry them is to have them folded in
the stiff cover issued by the French Government: to get them in this
form, a few days’ notice in London will be needed. From the same firm
the military maps can be procured in a similar manner, but I do not know
whether all are kept in stock as a regular thing.
In ordering the sheets of the 1/200,000 (if one does not purchase them as
a whole), reference is made not to numbers, but to names. There are five
sheets, “Bayonne,” “Tarbes,” “Luz,” “Foix,” and “Perpignan,” the price of
which in England is 10_s._; the whole series can also be purchased mounted.
The sheets of the 1/100,000 map may be referred to either by the names of
their central towns, or by the index number of the series in which they
are printed. It is difficult to say what numbers of these maps exactly
cover the range, unless one knows how far from the watershed towards
the plain the traveller intends to go. The smallest number sufficient
to cover the actual watershed and the highest peaks is 16, or, for the
whole frontier, 17. These sheets are by name (going from the Atlantic
to the Mediterranean, from west to east), St. Jean-de-Luz, Bayonne,
St. Jean Pied-de-Port, Mauléon, Ste. Engrace, Laruns, Luz, Gavarnie,
Bagnères-de-Luchon, Val-d’Arouge, St. Girons, Mont Rouch, Perles,
Ax-les-Thermes, Saillagouse, Ceret, and Banyuls. Referring to their
numbers in the series upon the index map, they are respectively viii. 35,
ix. 35, ix. 36, x. 36, x. 37, xi. 37, xii. 37, xii. 38, xiii. 37, xiii.
38, xiv. 37, xiv. 38, xv. 38, xvi. 38, xvi. 39, xvii. 39, and xviii. 39.
It will be observed that in the index map of the 1/100,000 series, the
divisions running from north to south are marked in Roman numerals, those
from east to west in Arabic numerals, and that the gradual increase in
Arabic numerals from 35 to 39, corresponds to the gradual trend southward
of the Pyrenean chain from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
Very few of my readers will be concerned with the main crest of the range
alone; it will therefore be necessary to add to that list northward of
the frontier (the lower Arabic numerals) the further sheet according to
the district each may have chosen to travel in. A certain number of extra
sheets are necessary to those who travel in the main chain only, for
instance, “Perles” (xv. 38) includes within the limits of its sheet the
frontier upon either side, but this frontier so nearly approaches the
northern limits in one spot, that it will be quite impossible to travel
in this part until we also add the sheet “Foix” (xv. 37), to the north
of it. Even the little lake of Garbet, which is not three miles from the
crest of the range, is half out of the map and half in.
Those who desire a complete collection of all the sheets of the 1/100,000
survey, extending from the furthest mountain over the Spanish side up on
the foothills into the French plain, may remark the following lists: in
series viii. 35; in series ix. 35 and 36; in series x. 35, 36, and 37; in
series xi. 35, 36, and 37; in series xii. 36, 37, and 38; in series xiii.
36, 37, and 38; in series xiv. 37 and 38; in series xv. 37 and 38; in
series xvi. 37, 38, and 39; in series xvii. 38 and 39; in series xviii.
39; in all twenty-five sheets will cover the mountainous region in this
survey, and anyone who desires a complete map of the French Pyrenees,
with as much of the Spanish side as the survey includes, should possess
them all.
Schrader’s map is in six sheets upon the scale of 1/100,000 and with
contours. It is essentially a climber’s map. Detailed maps of special
districts of course exist in many shapes, but they must be sought for in
the periodical reviews, and in monographs in which they have appeared.
Finally, it may interest the reader to know that in the Casino of
Bagnères-de-Luchon he may inspect a fully detailed relief map of the
whole range on a scale somewhat larger than one inch to a mile, though
the inspection of it rather satisfies curiosity than affords any guide to
travel.
Schrader’s map is of the greatest value for one particular piece of
touring, which I shall describe later in these pages. Meanwhile it may be
as well to add a further note upon it here. It is by far the best, so far
as it goes, of all the Pyrenean maps; it is due to private enterprise,
and if the whole range had been done in the same way there would be no
need to discuss any other type, it would amply suffice for all purposes.
Unfortunately, whereas the range, within the limits laid down in this
book, stretches in length from a degree east of Paris to nearly four
degrees west of that meridian, covering, that is, four or five degrees
of longitude, and stretches in latitude from 43° 25′ to at least 42°,
Schrader’s survey covers only 1½° in longitude (namely, from 1° 10′ west
of Paris to 2° 40′), and in latitude extends over no more than half a
degree, namely, from 42° 20′ to 42° 50′.
As the reader may see by comparing these bearings with a general map,
Schrader’s map is intended to include no more than the very high Pyrenean
peaks: it is the result of many years of careful individual survey, begun
before the war of 1870 and carried on to quite the last few years.
Like the French Home Office map, it is in the scale of 1/100,000, and,
like it, it is printed in colours, but unlike the Home Office map, it
shows the invaluable feature _of contours_. You have an exact plan of
the country before you, and in clear weather, with the aid of this map,
you can fall into no error in connexion with the relief of the land.
The contours are at some distance, at 100 metres or 328 feet apart, but
this in such country is an advantage; indeed, the cramping of the closer
contours on the official 1/200,000 map, greatly detracts from their
usefulness. Not only are contours marked, but all rocky places are given
with the greatest care, and the impression of relief is helped by shading
as well as contour lines. The only drawback of the map, apart from its
restricted area, lies in the absence of any indication of woods. As to
the steepness, to which woods are often a guide, his contours amply make
up for the deficiency, but for camping it affords you no indication. On
the other hand, all cabanes and all paths are very clearly marked.
All heights and distances with which you will have to do in these hills
upon either side are marked in metres, save in the popular talk, which
measures distances by the time taken to traverse them. With this I shall
deal in a moment. Let me first deal with what is a constant source of
trouble to Englishmen on the Continent, the turning of the metrical
system of measure into its English equivalent.