summit a confused and gentle slope leading apparently to one obvious
valley on the far side like the obvious valley out of which one has just
ascended. It seems indifferent whether one should come down on to this
by M or by N, to the left or to the right, yet the two valley floors to
which each leads are quite separate and may lead one round to different
river basins. How deceptive such a place is, the rough sketch appended
may help the reader to grasp. It shows the kind of thing one sees from
the summit of such a pass and how indifferent the choice appears between
the ways by which one may descend.
[Illustration]
This type of confusion exists sometimes in a still more dangerous form,
as in the contour lines of sketch on next page.
[Illustration]
A man arrived at the port P climbing up from the valley Q, which is
deep and well defined, sees before him another valley R exactly in line
with the last, also deep and also well defined. On either side of him,
as he gets to the saddle, run high ridges perpendicular to the line of
the two valleys. It seems common sense to take the watershed as running
along these ridges and across the port, and if Q is the French valley,
R will be the Spanish one. As a matter of fact the watershed may not
run in this simple way at all, but (as indicated upon the sketch map)
take a sharp turn to the right. R may be a French valley after all, and
the proper way down into Spain may be over the gradual grassy slopes
indicated by the arrow line. A man standing just at the port, and having
a rocky ridge A and the rocky ridge B to his left and right, sees before
him the obvious trench of the valley R and takes for granted that it is
the Spanish valley, whereas his true way is across the vague grassy land
towards S, and the watershed which he thinks runs from B on to A really
turns round from B and runs on to the distant mountains before him.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
It must be remembered that on these summits all traces of a path as a
rule disappear. What is worse, indications of a path may begin on the
other side into the wrong valley and not into the right one.
A second type of this peril is that in which some feature upon the
ridge which looks quite unimportant upon the one side turns out to be
all-important upon the other. Thus a man coming from A in the map below,
where the valleys are hatched and the highest summits are black, would
have before him the plain ridge B-C. It is indifferent where he crosses
it from that side, but on the far side he finds a confusion of falling
valleys, and if he does not pick out the right one he may find himself
in a few hours shut in by high walls which constrain him to a journey he
never meant to make. He may have intended to follow valley (1), and so to
reach food and shelter, he may find himself in valley (2) caught for the
night far from men and with walls of 3000 feet between him and them.
[Illustration]
Sometimes this confusion takes the form of one’s being led on to an
obvious notch in the ridge before one: a notch lower than the general
line of the ridge which (one thinks) cannot but be the port. When one has
climbed to it, however, one finds that the valley one was seeking lies
far to the right or to the left of such a notch, and that the gap which
was so noticeable on the one side of the pass corresponded to nothing
useful upon the further side.
There is a good example of this under the peak called Negras where
an obvious notch which one thinks surely must be the way over to the
Gallego, leads to nothing more useful than an enclosed Tarn under the
precipices of the mountains.
A sketch of the aspect of this particular ridge will make the difficulty
plain.
[Illustration]
All the contours upon the Aragonese side invite one to the notch at N,
yet the true way lies over the ridge between A and B, and the nearer to
B the better is the descent upon the further side. Indeed at A it is
perilous, at B it is a very gradual descent of easy grass.
The third type of mountain structure which may lead one into the wrong
valley is what may be called “The Double Col.” It is damnably common and
a good example of it will be found in the track I describe later on in
this book when I speak of the short cut from the Ariège Valley into the
Roussillon.
The accompanying sketch will explain the character of this sort of
tangle, and it is most important that anyone unacquainted with these
mountains and wishing to learn them should seize it thoroughly, for it is
the worst of all the lures that get a man astray.
Observe carefully the numerous contours on the sketch map overleaf. They
are numerous because it is necessary to show the minute details of such
a case. I will suppose them to be about 50 feet apart. The traveller is
coming up the valley marked V, the floor of which is marked in black
upon the sketch, and the apex of which is, let us say, 6000 feet above
the sea; he climbs the last little slope of 250 feet and reaches the col
at C, which is 6250 feet above the sea. On this saddle he has upon either
side of him precipitous slopes, which lead up to two summits of mountains
upon the right and the left, the one towards A, the other towards B.
Right in front of him opens another valley corresponding apparently to
the valley V from which he has come, and which we will call W. The floor
of this also is marked in black upon the sketch. It will be observed
from the contour lines that the descent on to W is easy, though the
walls bounding it on either side become increasingly precipitous as one
proceeds.
[Illustration]
Hidden from him by rising ground upon the right, as he stands at C, there
is yet another valley, the floor of which is also given in black. This
valley we will call Y, and it is this valley which leads the traveller
towards his object; valley W only gets him deeper into the wilderness.
Both valleys W and Y, are so precipitous that once engaged in either
of them one is caught and compelled to pursue them for many miles. It
is evident that on a very large scale map such as this, and with full
contour lines giving every few feet of height, the traveller would make
no error. Once at C he would go up to the right around the base of
mountain B, rising continually until, somewhat under 6500 feet, he came
to the second col, D, which would bring him down into valley Y.
But consider how this corner would look upon an ordinary small scale map!
The whole distance from the apex of valley V to the apex of valley Y is
not half a mile. It would occupy little more than a quarter of an inch
upon your French map. The general trend and nature of the valleys, which
the traveller shut in by high mountains cannot grasp, would seem obvious
upon such a map and he would take it for granted that he could make no
error and that the passage marked from V to Y would be perfectly plain
sailing. It would never occur to him that he could be trapped into the
little ravine W leading nowhere and in no way connected with his journey.
[Illustration]
The map would look something like this, perhaps, giving one a perfectly
accurate general impression of the whole country-side, but quite
useless for the critical point C-D, the difficulties of which nothing
but numerous contours and a very large scale can possibly explain. The
traveller consults the map, he sees the mountain group whose summits are
A, H, and K, with their heights marked, he sees the other mountain group
culminating at B with its height also marked, he see the main valley V up
the road of which he has proceeded with the town in which he stopped and
the river which he has been following. He sees the pass clearly marked
at C-D, leading over to the further valley Y with its town, river, and
road—and the journey seems to present no difficulties. It is only when
he gets actually shut up in the hills at the heads of the valleys that
he may begin to doubt or to be misled. On his map he could never believe
that the little torrent W going right round out of his direction could
take him in, or that he would get into its valley.
[Illustration]
If you consider what he actually sees when he gets to the summit of the
pass, you will appreciate yet more easily how his error will come about.
He will see something like this, with an obvious way straight before him,
and with nothing to tell him that he must go up a second col, two or
three hundred feet above him to the right at D, if he is to get into the
right valley.
It is in cases of this sort that Schrader’s map is so useful—so far as it
goes; but it only covers the quite central part of the Pyrenees, and the
contours are 100 metres apart.
The particular ways in which one may get into the wrong valley are
innumerable, but these three types which I have given include all the
most common of them; and, of the three, the last which I have described
in such detail is at once the most perilous and the most common.
While I am upon this subject of getting into the wrong valley on the
_downward_ side, I ought to mention the tricks which the map and one’s
own judgment play upon one as one goes _upwards_.
Errors made as one follows the map _up a ravine_ are nearly always due
to making a false estimate of distance. The path may be lost for a
considerable stretch, and the contours may at first be puzzling, but if
one will trust to one’s map and to one’s compass one will never go far
wrong, unless one misjudges distance, and it is on this account that in
the directions I give below for particular places, I mean distance with
what care I can.
Thus you may miss the path which branches off from the main path from the
valley of the Cinqueta to go eastward over the Col de Gistian; but if you
have made an accurate estimate of distance, and trust to the measurements
given, you cannot fail to identify the stream up which that crossing lies.
Nothing can replace judgment, but there is a rule of thumb which is
workable enough, and that is, save under conditions of extreme fatigue,
that your kilometre on a mule path hardly ever takes you less than twelve
minutes or more than fifteen. I except steep climbing of course, but
steep climbing only comes at the port itself, or in quite unmistakable
ravines and gorges, where you will not lose your way. Where you lose your
way is in the Jasse, or in the bifurcation of main valleys, and there,
as you plod up your mule path, you will, as I say, never take less than
ten minutes over your kilometre (which is a centimetre upon your map)—and
you ought always to have a little measure with you—nor will you ever take
much more than twelve, save when you are quite knocked out and unable to
calculate distance at all.
These limits will seem narrow to those who have not experienced such
paths. But they are wide enough. You must of course note the times during
which you choose to stop, and it is also true that if you make quite
short halts for a moment or two, of which you take no record, you will
quite put out your calculation; but twelve minutes to the kilometre is
3 miles an hour, fifteen is 2½ miles an hour, and if a man gets over a
level mule track in the early morning carrying weight a little faster
than the first pace, or on a steep part at evening a little slower than
the second, yet the occasions when this rule of thumb fails are rare.
When your watch tells you that by the distance measured you should be
approaching a bifurcation, or any other doubtful place, halt and decide.
If you do miss your way going upwards, or do take the wrong valley, if,
in a word, you are lost (as I was badly four years ago, so that I have
the right to speak of it), the first thing to remember is that the path,
if you will take it _downhill_, will lead you at last to men. The rule
about following running water is all very well in many mountains of the
ranges, but it won’t do in the Pyrenees, for the running water very often
goes under sharp limestone cliffs, and if you don’t find your way round
or over them, you may spend more hours than are safe in looking for a way
out. They form a very complete prison door, indeed, do these gorges.
The path, I say, if you follow it downhill, will save you, but if, when
you find you are in the wrong valley, you attempt to recover your track
by going up the lateral ridge, you always run a grave risk. It is by
experiments of that sort that men die from exhaustion. It is true that
one is not usually tempted to this extra effort. It is much easier to go
on the way one is going, and to follow the path down, though one knows it
is a wrong one, but there are occasions, especially late in the day, when
one has _all but_ conquered the main crest of the range, after perhaps
one failure, and when one knows that one is lost, when the idea of one
vigorous effort to get over while it is yet daylight is tempting. It is a
fatal temptation.
When you have made up your mind that you are lost, or even when the map
has told you so, pay no attention to anything else about you or within
you, such as the guess that such-and-such a rock in front of one may hide
such-and-such a village, or the hope that your strength will hold out
for 12 or 15 hours without food, but at once behave like a person in
grave danger, that is, calculate your chances of retreat, and think of
that only, for I repeat, it is more easy to die from exhaustion than in
any other way in these hills, and nearly all the people that perish in
mountains perish from that cause.
When you have made up your mind that it is your business to find men
again, and that you do not know how far men may be, first note your
bread and wine and the rest, if any provision is left; next determine
to reserve it until nightfall: eat it then, do not blunder on through
the darkness (it is astonishing what very little distance one makes
after sunset, and every half-hour of twilight makes it more difficult to
camp)—sleep, and take the first half of the next day without food; you
are reserving your very last rations until the noon of that day. For one
can do a considerable distance without food if the effort is made in the
early morning.
Never bathe under such conditions of fatigue, and towards the end, when
you are exhausted, drink as sparingly as possible.
It is perhaps useless to give any hints about what a man should do when
he is lost, because men get lost in mountains by hoping against hope and
pushing on when common sense tells them to return. But I write down these
hints for what they are worth. After my first bad lesson in the matter,
I found them fairly useful. Remember, by the way, if you are lost and if
there is no path apparent, that a cabane even in ruins somewhere in the
landscape means a track visible or invisible, and that any rude crossing
of the stream with stepping-stones or a log means the same thing. But
you must not imagine that the presence or traces of animals will prove a
guide, for even mules wander wild for miles on these mountains in places
where a man can only go with difficulty and along random tracks leading
nowhere.
[Illustration]
VI
THE SEPARATE DISTRICTS OF THE PYRENEES
For the purposes of travel upon foot, the range of the Pyrenees falls
into certain divisions, which are not very clearly marked, but which
arrange themselves in a rough manner under the experience of travel. As
I come to deal with each of these, it will be seen that there is not
one which does not overlap its neighbour, and it will be impossible to
describe any mountain district without admitting this overlapping to
some extent, because any valley connected by certain local ties with
the valleys to the east and west is also, as a rule, connected with the
valleys to the north or south of it. Still, the districts I speak of are
fairly distinct, and consist in (1) the Basque valleys, (2) the Vals
d’Aspe and d’Ossau, with the valleys of the Aragon and Gallego to their
south, which I will call “the Four Valleys,” (3) the Sobrarbe, (4) the
three valleys attaching to Tarbes, to which I also attach the Luchon
valley, (5) the Catalan valleys and Andorra—in which I include the Val
d’Aran, (6) the Cerdagne (omitting the Tet and Ariège valleys), (7) the
Ariège and Tet valleys, (8) the Canigou.
These I will take in their order, and I will begin with—
I. THE BASQUE VALLEYS
[Illustration]
The valleys immediately adjoining the point which we have taken for the
western end of the chain, that is, the knot of hills just to the west
of Roncesvalles, which have for their pivot Mount Urtioga, form one
country-side and should be considered together.
They are the Baztan to the west, the first of the many valleys into
which the main range splits up like a fan as it approaches the Atlantic;
the valley of Baigorry, parallel to it and immediately to the east; the
valley called that of the St. Jean in its lower French part, and that
of Val Carlos in its upper Spanish one; this valley stands eastward of
Baigorry, and unites with it before leaving the hills to join the valley
of the Nive. The two together, and the lower valley of the Nive, are
called by the common name of “The Labourd”; on the south of the range
comes the valley of the Arga and the plain south of Roncesvalles: these
make one division of the Basque district. The same dialect of Basque is
spoken throughout the Labourd (there are variations upon the Spanish
side), the same type of house and of food and of hill is everywhere
around. The other division of the Basque valleys is the French district
of the _Soule_, just to the east with its corresponding valleys south of
the frontier.
As to the Labourd and its accompanying Spanish valleys, the space open
for camping or wandering in this corner of the chain is less than in the
higher central part. The low round hills are often cultivated to their
summits, the valleys are always well populated, roads and villages are
many, and though there are one or two fine stretches of forest in which
a man can spend as many days as he chooses (notably the forest of Hayra,
which lies up southward at the far end of the Baigorry), they are not
to be compared in extent or in wildness with the forests further east.
The whole width of the Hayra, counting both the French and the Spanish
slopes, is, at its greatest extent, not more than three miles. Its length
is not six. The small lakes also that are characteristic of the Pyrenees
throughout their length, are lacking here, and the prosperity and
industry of the Basques press upon the traveller wherever he goes.
If one would stay some three or four days in this district, it is a good
plan to leave the train at St. Etienne, just at the beginning of the
Baigorry valley. St. Etienne is the terminus of the branch line which
strikes off a few miles down the river from the line connecting St. Jean
Pied-de-Port with Bayonne, and one gets to St. Etienne by the morning
train from Bayonne about mid-day.
Immediately to the west of St. Etienne, connecting it with the Baztan,
lies the pass of Ispeguy. It is of course very low, as are all these
hills; it is little more than 1000 feet above St. Etienne, or perhaps
1500, but from the summit there is a fine view of the higher distant
Pyrenees to the east. The frontier runs here north and south, passes
through the summit of the col, down the further side of which an easy
valley road leads down on to the main highway of the Baztan.
This highway is the modern representative of the track which for many
centuries connected Bayonne with Pamplona. It was, until recent times,
a mountain way; the main Roman road went through Roncesvalles. It is
now, as was seen when we spoke of roads for driving and motoring, the
best approach from the French Atlantic coast into Navarre. From the
point where you strike this high road, where the valley debouches upon
it, and where the lateral stream you have been following falls into the
river Baztan, there is a walk down to the left, or southward, of some 4
miles, into the town of Elizondo, which means in Basque “The Church in
the Valley.” For the Basques, like the Welsh, have the terms of their
religion mainly in the form of borrowed words, and the Greek Ecclesia,
which is “Egglws” in the Welsh mountains, has nearly the same sound
here, 800 miles to the south, and with all those days of sea between.
Christendom is one country.
There is no easy journey from Elizondo down to the south of the hills and
back east again into the French valleys, unless you go on to Pamplona,
although of course there is nothing high or steep to stop you, if you
have plenty of provisions, except the absence of maps (which do not exist
for this district upon any useful scale to my knowledge). If you want to
make a mountain journey of it without touching the town of Pamplona, go
down a mile or two from Elizondo to Iruita, where the main road branches
into two; thence going south and a little east up the stream which comes
down from the frontier summits, you may go over a col between that valley
and the valley of the Esteribar, where the Arga rises. You will find
yourself at the first little Basque village, that of Eugui, by evening;
the total distance from Elizondo to Eugui, if you go the shortest way, is
only 20 miles. But, I repeat, it is a difficult job. Maps are lacking,
the valleys have many ramifications, and the first part of your journey
is all uphill for half the day. If the weather is cloudy it is more than
possible that you will get into the wrong valley, and find at last, when
you have got over your col, and are following the running water on the
further side, that that running water is not the Arga at all, but one
of the streams that lead you back again into the Baigorry. However, if
you make Eugui in the Estribar, the rest is simple: there are villages
all round, connected by paths, and not more than a mile or two from one
another, and you may go through Linzoian to Espimal and so to Burguete,
where you get the main road over Roncesvalles, without fear of losing
your way; for there are people everywhere.
It is best, however, when you have slept in Elizondo, which is a very
pleasant little town, to take the motor-bus and get on to Pamplona; for
the Basques, who detest as much as the Scotch to be behind the world,
have a motor-bus along this mountain road. From Pamplona next day you can
go by the new road to Burguete, passing through Larrasoaña and Erro. It
is a long journey of nearly 30 miles; it can be broken, if you choose, at
Erro, but the sleeping accommodation there is nothing very grand. If you
push on beyond Burguete, over Roncesvalles, you can, in something under
40 miles, get to Val Carlos, the last town in Spain, and for those who
can walk 40 miles this is the best thing to do. If not, break the journey
in two at Erro, desolate as the little place is.
The object of course of this walk is the Pass of Roncesvalles, and the
vast contrast between the slightly sloping Spanish plain of Burguete,
running up to the summit of the Pyrenees, and the great chasm which opens
beneath your feet when you have reached that summit, and which forms the
entry into France.
You will not easily make a camp in any part of this round, and it is well
to remember here, where first mention is made of crossing the Spanish
frontier, that the Spaniards will not let a man leave their country
unless he has due permission upon a paper form. Why this should be so
I do not know, and I have very often gone in and out of Spain without
telling the authorities, as I have for that matter gone in and out of
Germany on foot, though the German officials are more stupid than the
Spaniards, and therefore attach much more importance to such things.
Still, it is safer to ask for your permit, and it will be given you by
a functionary called a “Corregidor,” at Val Carlos. A few miles beyond,
eight to be exact, you are in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, which is the head of
the railway to-day, and which has been for nearly 1000 years the depot
town at the foot of the pass for armies and for travellers. On this same
flat where it stands, was the Roman fort and depot, but not quite on the
same place; it stood on the spot now called St. Jean le Vieux, 2½ miles
up the lateral valley. This last was the halting place of Charlemagne in
the famous story, and St. Jean, as we see it, is a town not of the Dark
but of the Middle Ages.