and rough rules of thumb, the other is the more complicated process which
aims at a fairly high degree of accuracy. It is the first of these of
course which most people will want to know, and there are two simple
rules, one for heights and one for distances.
The rule for heights is, divide by 3, shift the decimal point one place
to the right, and you have the height in English feet, _within a certain
limit of error_, which I shall presently detail.
The rule of thumb as applied to measures of distance is to take the
number of kilometres (a kilometre is 1000 metres, and is, as one may
say, the French mile), divide by 8, and multiply by 5, and you have the
corresponding number of English miles _within a certain limit of error_,
which I shall describe presently.
For all ordinary purposes these two rules are sufficient, though in both
cases they somewhat exaggerate. They make a French distance measured in
English miles a little too far, and a French height, measured in English
feet, a trifle too high.
The exact constant of error is, in the case of the heights, 1.6 feet in
every 100. Thus if your rough calculation gave you a height of 10,160
feet, the exact height ought to be just 10,000; you see upon the map in
the blue figures referring to metres, “3048” (which happens by the way to
be within two steps of the height of the Bac Lactous). You divide by 3,
add a 0, and get 10,160, and you know by the constant of error that the
true height is just exactly 10,000 feet.
The knowledge of this constant gives us a rough-and-ready method of
getting a height within a very small degree of accuracy, and for any
purposes where such accuracy is required, I recommend it. It consists in
cutting off the last three figures, multiplying what is left by 4, and
then again by 4, and subtracting that from your first rough calculation.
It sounds complicated, but it does not take half a minute, and you will
be well within two feet of any height; for most heights you are likely to
calculate, you will be right within a few inches.
For instance, you see 2403, in blue figures upon the map dividing by 3
and shifting your decimal point, you at once get 8010; there is your
rough calculation, which you know to be a trifle in excess of the truth.
Cut off the last three figures and you have left 8, multiply 8 by 4, and
then again by 4, and you have 128 as the amount of your error. The peak
is by this calculation 7882 feet high, and rough as the rule is you are
within 20 inches of the truth: the exact height of such a peak in English
feet is 7883.7624....
However, if you want absolute accuracy, multiply the French measure by
3.2808992, and you will be sufficiently near the truth to save your soul.
As to distances, the exact proportion of error, when you turn miles into
kilometres by dividing by eight and multiplying by 5, is 2 inches or so
short of 50 feet too much in every mile; when, therefore, you are dealing
with a hundred miles, you are very nearly, but not quite a mile out in
this form of calculation. The error is, within a very small fraction, 1%.
If therefore you want an easy rule for turning your rough calculation
into an accurate one, you cut off the last two figures and subtract from
your total the figures thus left. For instance, 244 kilometres divided by
8 gives 30½, and that multiplied by 5 is 152.5; cut off the 52, leaving
“1” on the left, subtract that 1 (making 151.5), and you are within a few
yards of accuracy. As questions of distance count nothing in mountains
compared with questions of height, I will make no mention of decimals,
but proceed to a very different matter, which is the way of counting that
the _mountaineers_ have, and this you will do well to heed blindly.
When you are tired and distracted and wondering perhaps whether you can
push on, if you have the good luck to find a shepherd, he will tell you
your distance to such and such a place in _hours_. The Spanish, the
Gascon, the Béarnais, and the Catalan dialects all use the same words,
so far as sound goes, for this kind of measure, and the Basque will
never speak to you in Basque: it is part of the Basque tenacity never
to do this. So if you find yourself in any part of the high hills where
a man can talk to you of distances, you always hear the same sounds
“Dos Oras,” “Quart’ Ora,” “Mi’ Ora,” and the rest. This habit, as every
reader knows, is universal throughout the world wherever true peasants
exist; but in mountains, whether they be Welsh or African, it is not only
universal, but it withstands all the invasion of the modern world.
What I would particularly impress upon anyone going into the Pyrenees
is this, that such a method of counting is exceedingly accurate, and is
moreover the only accurate method. Nothing is more fatal to a civilized
man of the plains than to take his little measuring stick and measure
upon the map by the scale the distance between two points, saying, “It
will take me so many hours.” There was a Basque at Ste. Engrace who very
well expressed to me the contempt which mountaineers have for that method
of the plains. A deputy of the French Parliament had stopped in his inn,
had thus measured the distance from the village to the pass, and would
not believe that it could take three hours. It always takes exactly three
hours. I have done it in four by careful dawdling, and the dawdling, when
I came to reckon it up, had taken exactly one hour out of the four. Now,
measured upon the map, that distance, as the crow flies, is precisely
three miles, but it takes three hours none the less. You will not do it
in less, and what is odder, you can hardly do it in more, for if you
deliberately go too slowly, you are done for in no time, and if you halt,
you will find that your halt fits in exactly to make the walking time
three hours. Similarly, over the Pourtalet, from the last Spanish hamlet
to the first French one, is six hours; part of the way you may choose
between a good road and a mule track, but whichever you choose it is six
hours; and there is nothing more astonishing in Pyrenean travel than
the accuracy of this rough method. As I said just now, you must heed it
blindly; it is by far your best guide.
The use of maps has one last thing to be said about it, which applies
particularly to the Schrader map and to the 1/100,000, and this is that
where you think you see a short cut, and the map gives you no track,
there the short cut is to be avoided. I say it applies particularly to
the Schrader and 1/100,000, because these two maps are so particular
in detail that you think their information must be enough without
the further aid of a path. Moreover, the path sometimes takes such
apparently needless turns that you are for escaping it by an easier cut.
You will never succeed. You may indeed succeed in a bit of exceptionally
hard climbing, you may not lose your life, but you will most certainly
wish that you had never attempted the unmarked crossing of the ridge you
have attacked. It is obvious that the exception to this doctrine would
be found in a piece of genuine experiment. If you say to yourself for
instance, “I can get over the shoulder of the Pic d’Anie into the valley
of the rivulet beyond, which has no name, but which runs into the Tarn
of Uterdineta,” you will probably do it, but it will not be a short cut
from the Val d’Aspe into the valley of Isaba, though it is the shortest
way. These temptations for cutting across the hills come very often in
one’s first experiments in the Pyrenees: they get less frequent as one
knows more of them. These mountains are full of vengeance, and hate to be
disturbed.
NOTE.—A convenient map for viewing the whole range is the 1/400,000
which is sold by Messrs. Sifton & Praed, mounted in two sheets,
and in a case. It is especially of use in showing a large belt
of the Spanish side. Motorists in particular should see it.
IV
THE ROAD SYSTEM OF THE PYRENEES
[Illustration]
There are two kinds of platforms for travel in the Pyrenees—mule tracks
and great, highly engineered, modern roads. No others exist. When,
therefore, one is describing travel in the Pyrenees, one must separately
describe the opportunities of wheeled travel open to all vehicles,
however elaborate, and of travel on foot or with a mule. As the last will
take up the greater part of my space, I will speak of wheeled travel
first.
To understand what are the opportunities of this, one may take as one’s
standard the roads which can be traversed by a motor car. Those passages
which a motor car cannot use cannot be used by a bicycle or a carriage,
for the roads of the Pyrenees are, as I have said, either very good broad
roads, well graded, and with a hard surface, or they do not exist; the
change is always abrupt throughout the chain from an excellent highway,
carefully engineered, to a mule track.
The scheme of Pyrenean roads, as it exists now, is, briefly, _first_: a
couple of great lateral roads on the French side, which may be called the
upper and the lower road; _next_, four roads traversing the chain (six if
you count the roads along the sea-coast at either end, which I omit—the
one goes by St. Jean de Luz, the other by the Pass of Lacleuse or La
Perthuis); _thirdly_, a series of roads, numerous on the French side,
rare on the Spanish, which penetrate the valleys but do not cross the
chain, and end at a greater or less distance from the watershed.
The main lateral road from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, along the
base of the Pyrenees, links up all the towns upon the plains; it joins
Bayonne to Pau, Pau to Tarbes, Tarbes to St. Gaudens, and so on through
St. Girons, Foix, and Quillan to Perpignan: this may be called _the
Lower Road_. The upper road has been but recently completed. It is made
up of sections, some of which are old highways, some links quite newly
built, and the characteristic of the whole is that it skirts as nearly
as possible the crest of the main chain, crossing at some places very
high passes over the lateral ridges, and everywhere keeping right up
against the high summits of the range. The whole line runs from Perpignan
over the Col de la Perche up the Val Carol and over the Puymorens to
Ax, Tarascon, and St. Girons. At St. Girons, it is compelled by the
conformation of the country to touch the lower road, but it leaves it at
once to pass from Fronsac to Luchon; thence through Arreau, Luz, Argelès,
Laruns, Oloron, and Mauléon—all the high mountain towns—to St. Jean
Pied-de-Port, and thence back again to Bayonne.
The four roads over the ridge into Spain lie all of them on the western
side of the hills. They are, first, the road through the Baztan valley,
which connects Bayonne with Pamplona; secondly, the Roman road over
Roncesvalles, 12 or 15 miles to the east of this, which used to be the
high road between Bayonne and Pamplona before the Baztan road was built,
and which was during all history the westernmost road of invasion and
communication between Gaul and Spain; thirdly, the road which goes over
the Somport, which was also a Roman road and the chief one, uniting
Saragossa with the French plains; fourthly, a road parallel to this and
not 10 miles east of it, running over the Pourtalet Pass and joining the
Saragossa road lower down. No other roads cross the range from France
into Spain until one reaches the Mediterranean, and all these four lie
within the first westernmost third of the Pyrenees.
It would be quite easy to open other roads which should unite the last of
the Spanish highways with the first of the French, notably over the easy
pass of Bonaigo, where 20 miles of work would be enough, and through the
Cerdagne, where there are no engineering difficulties. One such road is
now in process of completion between Esterri and St. Girons over the pass
of Salau. Another, which was begun from the valley of the Ariège into
Andorra, was abruptly stopped, and it will probably never be completed.
There are some half-dozen other places, where a road could cross and
where the French are building their side of it: but the Spaniards are
reluctant to meet them.
Of the roads of the third kind, roads running up the valleys but not
attempting to cross the mountains, one may say that on the French side
every valley has one or more good roads, the one drawback to the use of
which in a motor is that you are compelled, unless you can take a cross
road from one high valley to another high valley, to go back by the way
you came into the plain.
Not only has every valley its highway leading to the very foot of the
main range, but often the bifurcations of the valley will have roads
as well. Thus along the valley of the Nive you can go in a motor not
only to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, but also right up the eastern valley to
a country-side called the “Baigorry” as far as Urepel; along the next
Basque valley to the east, you can go from Mauléon in the plains right
up into the hills as far as Larrau, but you cannot go to Ste. Engrace,
where the valley splits, because the track thither, though a good one,
will not take wheels. You can go up the branch valley from Oloron as high
as Aritte, and the main road up the Val d’Aspe (which is that leading
to Jaca by the old Roman way), has lateral branches, one taking you to
Lourdios, the other across the foot hills to Arudy and the Val d’Ossau.
The valley of Lourdes has a road which, with the exception of the roads
over the passes, goes nearest to the main watershed. I mean the road to
Gavarnie; and the Val d’Aure, which comes next to the westward, has a
road going as far as Aragnonette, almost as close to the last cliffs as
Gavarnie is; and there is an embranchment to the east which takes one to
the very foot at the Hôpital of Rivanagon in one of the loneliest parts
of the hills. The road to Bagnères de Luchon is carried some miles beyond
that town, as far as the Hospitalet, which stands at the foot of the pass
into Spain. The road to Viella in the Val d’Oran goes on up to within
a mile or two of the pass of Bonaigo. A road from St. Girons takes one
up the valley of the Lez as far as Sentein, which, like Gavarnie, lies
right under the main chain, while the road from the same town up the
main valley of the Sallent goes up to the watershed itself, and is being
constructed to cross it, and to afford (over the pass of Salau) one more
badly needed passage into Spain. The valley of the Ariège has a road all
along it, almost to the sources of that river. It is continued through
the Cerdagne and down the valley of the Tet into the Roussillon.
There is not a main valley on the French side of the Pyrenees which has
not its great carriage road, and most of the lateral valleys have now the
same kind of communications. The journey up them is nearly always of the
same kind, save the few which are prolonged to carry over the watershed
into Spain. There is the succession of two or three enclosed plains or
jasses after one has left the plains, the sharp pitch up to one flat,
and then another, through short but steep rocky gorges, till we reach
the little terminal mountain village, sometimes not more than a group of
three or four buildings, lying under the last escarpment, and in sight
of the frontier ridge above it. Of this terminal sort was Urdos until
Napoleon III pushed the road out beyond it into Spain; Gabas, until the
Republic did the same with the road there; and of this sort still an old
Hospitalet, Sentein in the Val d’Aure, and though it is in a state of
transition, for the road is now being pushed beyond it, of this sort is
Gavarnie. Little places almost as old as our race, with no history and no
national memories, but with immemorial traditions, rooted as deep as the
mountains, were brought into the life of our time by that new activity
of the French, which is to many foreigners so hateful, to many others so
marvellous.
[Illustration: PLAN L.]
On the Spanish side there are no roads of this kind penetrating the
valleys except the incomplete road to Isaba from Pamplona by way of the
Val d’Anso, and the short stretch from Sandinies to Panticosa.
A road is being made up the Val d’Anéu, but it is not yet finished, and a
road goes just so far up the broad Segre valley as Seu d’Urgel.
All the other valleys have mule tracks alone.
The general scheme of existing roads in the Pyrenees is roughly as upon
the map on previous page, where it will be seen that much the greater
length of the chain is impassable to a wheeled vehicle.
Motoring sets a standard for every other form of wheeled traffic, I will
therefore first speak of this kind of travel. The best road to take with
a motor, if one wishes to obtain a general idea of the Pyrenees, is the
Lower Road (by Tarbes and Foix) from Bayonne to Perpignan; one may then
come back again from Perpignan to Bayonne by the upper road, many parts
of which are of very recent construction and which goes right through
the highest part of the chain across the main lateral valleys of the
Pyrenees. Such a round—about 500 miles altogether—gives one from far and
from near the whole of the French Pyrenees: from the first one sees the
chain as a whole before one: by the second one mixes with its deepest
valleys.
The first day’s run from Bayonne had best end at Tarbes; it is a town
central with regard to the chain, and it is also a very pleasant place
to stop at under any conditions; not cosmopolitan like Pau, and not in a
hole and corner like Foix.
The lower road from Bayonne to Tarbes runs through Orthez, Puyoo, and
Pau, and if one starts early, Pau is a good halting-place for the middle
of the day. This part of the road is, during the whole of its length or
nearly the whole of it, a rolling road of the plains with no striking
points of view save in where it tops a slight rise. It first follows but
runs above and north of the valley of the Adour below it, next descends
after the first 20 miles or so to cross the Adour, and so comes to
Peyrehorade, the first town (and railway station) upon its course. During
all this first part of the run one has sight after sight of the range
which stretches out eastward before one to the south rising higher as it
goes; and one sees at first before one upon the horizon, later abreast of
one and due south, the pyramid of the Pic d’Anie, which is the first of
the high peaks.
From Peyrehorade to Pau, between 40 and 50 miles, the road goes through
Orthez along the valley of the Gave de Pau, for the most part following
the river bank and allowing but few sights of the range; but at Pau
itself it rises on to the high plateau of the town whence the most famous
general view of the Pyrenees is spread before one.
From Pau there are two roads to Tarbes; for curiosity and for general
travel it is the road round by Lourdes which is generally taken, and that
is during the whole of its length a lowland road though it runs among the
foot hills; but the better road on such a drive as I am describing is the
direct northern road, which, after it has climbed on to the plateau of
Vignan, goes up and down steep small ravines until it comes down again
upon the main valley of the Adour and the plain of Tarbes.
There are on this road two points, one just after one leaves the railway
line, not quite half-way to Tarbes on the climb up to Vignan, the other
just before the loop and descent above Ibos, which afford fine views of
the range to the south, and one begins to gather one’s general impression
of these mountains, which, more than any other range, present an
appearance of simplicity and the united effect of a barrier. Tarbes, less
than 30 miles from Pau, may seem a short run for one day from Bayonne,
but it breaks the journey exactly and conveniently.
After Tarbes (where the hotel for you is the Hotel Des Ambassadeurs) the
road goes through much broken country, passing by Tournay up on the high
plateau of Lannemezan to Montréjeau. It is a road full of short hills,
but it is necessary to take this section in order to go eastward from
Montréjeau and to proceed through St. Gaudens, taking an elbow by St.
Martary and so down to St. Girons.
After St. Girons one follows the new and excellent road which runs along
the valley side by side with the new railway to Foix. From Foix to
Nalzen your way is to go along the main road from Foix up the Ariège
Valley for some 4 miles and then turn to the left, leaving the railway
and making due east. From Nalzen continue to Lavenalet; there take the
right-hand road to Belesta and Belcaire; thence, when you have crossed
the plateau, a very winding road takes you down hundreds of feet, on
to Quillan. After Quillan you have a few miles through the very little
known and wonderful gorges of Pierre Lys to St. Martin, through which
gorges the railway accompanies you. Do not follow it round by Axat, but
cut across by the road which goes eastward to La Pradelle. This road
takes you across a low pass to the watershed of the Mediterranean. From
La Pradelle to Perpignan the road is a perfectly clear one through St.
Paul and Estagel. It is a straight, good road, following the valley all
the way, save the last stretch, which runs across the plains between the
river Agly and the Tet.
This second day will of course be far longer than the first; it is nearer
200 miles than 120. If you would break it, however, break it rather after
the short run to St. Girons, than at Foix, for though Foix be nearly the
half-way house, yet the accommodation is better at St. Girons, and so is
the cooking.
A two days’ run of this kind from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean,
following such a route, gives you the whole distant range in one general
appearance, and gives it you better than you will have along any other
line with which I am acquainted.
The way back by the upper road from east to west through the Pyrenees
is a piece of travel quite peculiar to these mountains; nowhere else
in Europe is there a lateral road driven right across the buttresses
or supports of a main range. The Pyrenees possess such a road in their
highest part. What the French have done here is as though the Italians
had driven a road from the sources of the Dora Baltea right under Mont
Rosa, and the Matterhorn to Lake Maggiore, or as though the Swiss had
driven one from Faido and Fusia right over into the valley of Domo
d’Ossola. From Tarascon in the valley of the Ariège to Laruns in the
Val d’Ossau—that is, over all the central part of the chain and for
just over half its length—a mountain road goes right up against the main
heights (only once coming near the lowlands at St. Girons), crossing the
high, perilous passes which lie between the upper valleys. By taking
advantage of this new piece of engineering you can return from Perpignan
to Bayonne through the midst of those hills which the road just described
from Bayonne to Perpignan showed you in a distant general view: when you
have so returned you will have seen the heart, the French Pyrenees.
I will now describe such a return journey by the upper road. From
Perpignan you will do well to run the first day to Ax. The road is the
great road from the Roussillon into France. You go up the valley of the
Tet (which is the main river of the Roussillon) through Prades with the
Canigou first right in front of you, and at last rising steeply to your
left. You continue through Prades up the gorges and tortuous zigzags of
the Upper River until you come to the head of the pass at Mont Louis:
there the broad and easy valley of the Cerdagne opens to the south,
sloping gently before you. The road runs down, almost as in a plain, to
Bourg Madame, where you must turn to the right up the Val Carol to Porté.
The pass above Porté (called the “Puymorens”) though long, is of an easy
gradient, and once over it you run down all the 18 miles to Ax, following
the valley of the Ariège.
Ax is, of course, an early stopping-place. The whole distance from
Perpignan is under 140 miles, but Ax is so much more comfortable than
Tarascon that it is better to make one’s halt there.
Next day go down the valley as far as Tarascon and there take the
mountain road off to the left; it is not a national[1] road but it has a
perfectly good surface in spite of a considerable climb. One little col
comes almost immediately at Bedeillac, after that you climb steadily up
the valley to the Col-du-Port (which is about 4000 feet high) then down
the mountain side to Massat, which lies on the western side of the pass
and about 2000 feet below it. Thence it is an ordinary valley road until
you come to St. Girons again.
[1] The French metalled roads are of three main kinds, supported
by the State, the County and the Parish respectively. Of these
the first and most important are called “National Road.”