THE PYRENEES--THEIR GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY
One of the great joys of the traveller is the placid contemplation of
his momentary environment. The visitor to Biarritz, Pau, Luchon, Foix or
Carcassonne has ever before his eyes the massive Pyrenean bulwark
between France and Spain; and the mere existence of this natural line of
defence accounts to no small extent for the conditions of life, the
style of building, and even the manners of the men who live within its
shadow.
The Pyrenees have ever formed an undisputed frontier boundary line,
though kingdoms and dukedoms, buried within its fastnesses or lying
snugly enfolded in its gentle valleys, have fluctuated and changed
owners so often that it is difficult for most people to define the
limits of French and Spanish Navarre or the country of the French and
Spanish Basques. It is still more difficult when it comes to locating
the little Pyrenean republic of Andorra, that tiniest of nations, a
little sister of San Marino and Monaco. Some day the histories of these
three miniature European "powers" (sic) should be made into a book. It
would be most interesting reading and a novelty.
Unlike the Alps, the Pyrenees lack a certain impressive grandeur, but
they are more varied in their outline, and form a continuous chain from
the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, while their gently sloping green
valleys smile more sweetly than anything of the kind in Switzerland or
Savoie.
They possess character, of a certain grim kind to be sure, particularly
in their higher passes, and a general air of sterility, which, however,
is less apparent as one descends to lower levels. The very name of
Pyrenees comes probably from the word _biren_, meaning "high pastures,"
so this refutes the belief that they are not abundantly endowed with
this form of nature's wealth.
From east to west the chain of the Pyrenees has a length of four hundred
and fifty kilometres, or, following the détours of the crests of the
Hispano-Français frontier, perhaps six hundred. Between Pau and Huesca
their width, counting from one lowland plain to another, is a trifle
over a hundred and twenty kilometres, the slope being the most rapid on
the northern, or French, side. The Pyrenees are less thickly wooded than
the Savoian Alps, and there is very much less perpetual snow and fewer
glaciers.
In reality they are broken into two distinct parts by the Val d'Aran,
forming the Pyrénées-Orientales and the Pyrénées-Occidentales. Of the
detached mountain masses, the chief is the Canigou, lying almost by the
Mediterranean shore, and a little northward of the main chain. Its
highest peak is the Puigmal (_puig_ or _puy_ being the Languedoçian word
for peak), rising to nearly three thousand metres.
For long the Canigou was supposed to be the loftiest peak of the
Pyrenees, but the Pic du Midi exceeds it by a hundred metres. However,
this well proportioned, isolated mass looks more pretentious than it
really is, standing, as it does, quite away from the main chain. From
its peak Marseilles can be seen--by a Marseillais, who will also fancy
that he can hear the turmoil of the Cannebière and detect the odour of
the saffron in his beloved _bouillabaise_. At any rate one can certainly
see as much of the earth's surface spread out before him here as from
any other spot of which he has recollection.
[Illustration: _The Peaks of the Pyrenees_]
The Pyrénées-Occidentales abound in more numerous and better defined
mountains than the more easterly portion. Here are the famous Monts
Maudits, with the Pic de Nethou, the highest of the Pyrenees (three
thousand four hundred and four metres), with a summit plateau or
belvedere perhaps twenty metres in length by five in width.
The Vignemal (three thousand two hundred and ninety-eight metres) is the
highest peak wholly on French soil and dominates the famous _col_, or
pass, known as the Brèche de Roland.
The Pic du Midi, back of Bigorre, is justly the best known of all the
crests of the Pyrenees. Its height is two thousand eight hundred and
seventy-seven metres, and it is worthy of a special study, and a book
all to itself. The observatory recently established here is one of the
_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of science. The astronomical, climatological and
geographical importance of this prominent peak was already marked out on
the maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and its glory has
been often sung in verse by Guillaume Saluste, Sire du Bartas,
gentilhomme Gascon; and by Bernard Palissy, better known as a potter
than as a poet.
[Illustration: _Brèche de Roland_]
Towards the Gulf of Gascony the Pyrenees send out their ramifications in
much gentler slopes than on the Mediterranean side. Forests and pastures
are more profuse and luxuriant, but the peaks are still of granite, as
they mostly are throughout the range. Grouped along the flanks of the
river Bidassoa this section of the chain is known to geographers as the
"Montagnes du pays Basque."
At the foot of these Basque Mountains passes the lowest level route
between France and Spain,--that followed by the railway and the "Route
Internationale, Paris-Madrid."
This easy and commodious passage of the Pyrenees has ever been the
theatre of the chief struggles between the peoples of the Spanish
peninsula and France. At Ronçevaux the rear-guard of the army of
Charlemagne--"his paladins and peers"--were destroyed in 778, and it was
here that the French and Spanish fought in 1794 and 1813.
The French slopes of the Pyrenees belong almost wholly to the basin or
watershed of the Garonne, one of the four great waterways of France, the
other three being the Loire, the Seine and the Rhône. In the upper
valley of the Garonne is the Plateau de Lannemazan. It lies in reality
between the Garonne and the Adour. The Adour on the west and the Tech on
the east, with their tributaries, play an important part in draining off
the waters from the mountain sources, but they are entirely overshadowed
by the Garonne, which, rising in Spain, in the Val d'Aran, flows six
hundred and five kilometres before reaching salt water below Bordeaux,
through its estuary the Gironde. Nearly five hundred kilometres of this
length are navigable, and the economic value of this river to Agen,
Montauban and Toulouse is very great.
Between the Adour and the Gironde lies that weird morass-like region of
the Landes, once peopled only by sheep-herders on stilts and by
charcoal-burners, but now producing a quantity of resin and pine which
is making the whole region prosperous and content.
The source of the Garonne is at an altitude of nearly two thousand
metres, and is virtually a cascade. Another tiny source, known as the
Garonne-Oriental, swells the flood of the parent stream by flowing into
it just below St. Gaudens, the nearest "big town" of France to the
Spanish frontier.
The Ariège is the only really important tributary entering the Garonne
from the region of the Pyrenees. Its length is a hundred and fifty-seven
kilometres, and its source is on the Pic Nègre, at an altitude of two
thousand metres, three kilometres from the frontier, but on French soil.
It waters two important cities of the Comté de Foix, the capital Foix
and Pamiers.
On the west, the chain of the Pyrenees slopes gently down to the great
bight, known so sadly to travellers by sea as the Bay of Biscay. From
the mouth of the Gironde southward it is further designated as the Golfe
de Gascogne. There is no perceptible indentation of the coast line to
indicate this, but its waters bathe the sand dunes of the Landes, the
Basque coasts, and the extreme northeastern boundary of Spain.
The shore-line is straight, uniformly monotonous and inhospitable, the
great waves which roll in from the Atlantic beating up a soapy surf and
long dikes of sand in weird, unlovely contours. For two hundred and
forty kilometres, all along the shore-line of the Gironde and the
Landes, this is applicable, the only relief being the basin of Archachon
(Bordeaux' own special watering-place), the port of Bayonne,--at the
mouth of the Adour,--the delightful rocky picturesqueness immediately
around Biarritz, and Saint-Jean-de-Luz and its harbour, and the estuary
of the Bidassoa, that epoch-making river which, with the crest of the
Pyrenees, marks the Franco-Espagnol frontier.
The French coast line at the easterly termination of the Pyrenees
possesses an entirely different aspect from that of the west.
Practically there is no tide in the Mediterranean, and the gateway
between France and Spain through the eastern Pyrenees is less gracious
than that on the west. The Pyrénées-Orientales come plump down to the
blue waters of the great inland sea just north of Cap Créus with little
or no intimation of a slope.
The frontier commences at Cap Cerbère, and at Port Vendres (the
Portus-Veneris of the ancients) one finds one of the principal
Mediterranean sea ports of France, and the nearest to the great French
possessions in Africa.
On Cap Créus in Spain, and on Cap Bear in France, at an elevation of
something over two hundred metres, are two remarkable lighthouses whose
rays carry a distance of over forty kilometres seaward.
The _étangs_, Saint Nazaire and Leucate, cut the coast line here, and
three tiny rivers, whose sources are high up in the mountain valleys of
the Tech, the Tet and the Aglay, flow into the sea before Cap Leucate,
the boundary between old Languedoc and the Comté de Roussillon.
Off-shore is the tempestuous Golfe des Lions, where the lion banners of
the Arlesien ships floated in days gone by. The Aude, the Orb and the
Hérault mingle their waters with the Mediterranean here, and on the
Montagne d'Agde rises another of those remarkable French lighthouses,
this one throwing its light a matter of forty-five kilometres seawards.
With Perpignan, Narbonne, Béziers and Agde behind, one draws slowly out
from under the shadow of the Pyrenees until the soil flattens out into a
powdery, dusty plain, with here and there a pond, or great bay, of soft,
brackish water, whose principal value lies in its fecundity at producing
mosquitoes.
Aigues-Mortes cradles itself on the shores of one of these great inlets
of the Mediterranean, and Saintes Maries on another. Little gulfs,
canals, dwarf seaside pines, cypresses, olive trees and vineyards are
the chief characteristics of the landscape, while inland the surface of
the soil rolls away in gentle billows towards Nîmes, Montpellier and
St. Giles, with the flat plain of the Camargue lying between.
Since the Christian era began, it is assumed that this coast line
between the Pyrenees and the Rhône has advanced a matter of fourteen
kilometres seaward, and since Aigues-Mortes, which now lies far inland,
is known to be the port from which the sainted Louis set out on his
Crusade, there is no gainsaying the statement. The immediate region
surrounding Aigues-Mortes is a most fascinating one to visit, but would
be a terrible place in which to be obliged to spend a life-time.
Between Roussillon and Spain there are fifteen passes by which one may
cross the chain of the Pyrenees, though indeed two only are practicable
for wheeled traffic.
The Col de Perthus is the chief one, and is traversed by the ancient
"Route Royale" from Paris to Barcelona. There is a town by the same
name, with a population of five hundred and a really good hotel. It's
worth making the journey here just to see how a dull French village can
sleep its time away. The passage is defended by the fine Fortress de
Bellegarde. It was on the Col de Perthus that Pompey erected the famous
"trophy," surmounted by his statue bearing the following legend:
+----------------------------------------+
| FROM THE ALPS TO THE ULTERIOR EXTREMITY|
| OF SPAIN, POMPEY HAS FORCED |
| SUBMISSION TO THE ROMAN REPUBLIC |
| FROM EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX |
| CITIES AND TOWNS. |
+----------------------------------------+
Twenty years after, Caesar erected another tablet beside the former. No
trace of either remains to-day, and there are only frontier boundary
stones marking the territorial limits of France and Spain, which replace
those torn down in the Revolution.
[Illustration]
Proceeding by the coast line, a difficult road into Spain lies by the
Col de Banyuls, just where the Pyrenees plunge beneath the
Mediterranean, a mere shelf of a road.
The _cirques_, or great amphitheatres of mountains, are a characteristic
of the Pyrenees, and the Cirque de Gavarnie is the king of them all. It
represents, very nearly, a sheer perpendicular wall rising to a height
of five hundred metres, and three thousand five hundred metres in
circumference. Perpetual snow is an accompaniment of some of its gorges
and neighbouring peaks, and twelve cascades tumble down its rock walls
at various points. There is nothing quite so impressive in the
world--outside Yosemite or the Yellowstone.
Gavarnie, its _cirque_ and its village, is the natural wonder of the
Pyrenees. Said Victor Hugo: "_Grand nom, petit village._" To explore the
Cirque de Gavarnie is a passion with many; when you get in this state of
mind you become what the touring Frenchman knows as a "_gavarniste_," as
an Alpine climber becomes an "_alpiniste_."
As for the climate of the Pyrenees, it is, for a mountain region, soft
and mild; not so mild as that of the French Riviera perhaps, nor of
Barcelona, nor San Sebastian in Spain, but on the whole not cold, and
certainly more humid than in the Alpes-Maritimes, on the Côte d'Azur.
Generally blowing from the northwest in winter, the wind accumulates
great masses of cloud in the bight of the Golfe de Gascogne and sweeps
them up against the barrier of the Pyrenees, there to be held in
suspension until an exceedingly stiff wind blows them away or the sun
burns them off. The French Riviera is cursed with the mistral, but it
has the blessing of almost continual sunshine, while in the
Pyrénées-Occidentales the wind is less strong as it comes only from the
sea in the northwest, instead of from the north by the Rhône valley, and
the "disagreeable months" (November, December and January) often bring
damp and humid, if not frigidly cold weather with them.
The rainfall is often as much as eight decimetres per annum in the
Landes, one metre in the Pyrenees proper, and a metre and a half in the
Basque country. The average rainfall for France is approximately eight
decimetres, perhaps thirty-two inches.
In the Pyrenees the temperature is, normally, neither very hot nor very
cold. Perpignan is the warmest in winter. Its average is 15° Centigrade
(59° F.), about that of Nice, whilst that for France is 6° Centigrade
(43° F.).
The climate of the Pyrenees comes within the _climat Girondin_, and the
average for the year is 13° Centigrade. The _climat-maritime_ is a
further division, and is considerably more elevated in degree. This
comes from the western and northwestern winds off the sea, which, it may
be remarked, almost invariably bring rain with them. At Montauban the
saying is: "_Montagne claire, Bordeaux obscure, pluie à coup sur._" In
Gascogne: "_Jamais pluie au printemps ne passe pour mauvais temps._" At
Bordeaux the average summer temperature is but 29° Centigrade, at
Toulouse 21.5° Centigrade and Pau about the same, with a winter
temperature often 4° or 5° below zero Centigrade.
The general aspect of the region of the Pyrenees is one of the most
varied and agreeable in all southern France. There is a grandeur and
natural character about it that has not fallen before the march of
twentieth century progress, save in the "resorts," such as Biarritz or
Pau; and yet the primitiveness and savagery is not so uncomfortable as
to make the traveller long for the super-civilization of great capitals.
It is virgin in its beauty and varied wildness, and yet it is a soft,
pleasant land where even the winter snows of the mountains seem less
rigorous than the snow and cold of Savoie or Switzerland. On one side is
the great bulwark of the Pyrenees, and on two others the dazzling waters
of the ocean, while to the north the valley of the Garonne, west of the
Cevennes, is not at all a frigid, austere, frost-bound region, save only
in the very coldest "snaps."
The ranges of foothills in the Pyrenees divide the surface of the land
into slopes and valleys every bit as charming as those of Switzerland,
and yet oh! so different! And the fresh, limpid rivulets and rivers are
real rivers, and not mere trickling brooks, whose colouring and
transparency are the marvel of all who view. The majesty of the sea on
either side, and of the mountains between, makes the very aspect of life
luxurious and less hard than that in the more northerly Alpine climes,
and above all the outlook on life is French, and not that money-grabbing
Anglo-German-Swiss commercialism which the genuine traveller abhors. He
sees less of that sort of thing here in the Pyrenees, even at Pau and
Biarritz, than anywhere else in southern Europe.
At Nice, Monte Carlo, Naples, Capri, along the Italian lakes, and
everywhere in French, German or Italian speaking Switzerland, one must
pay! pay! pay! continually, and often for nothing. Here you pay for what
you get, and then not always its full value, according to standards with
which you have previously become familiar. The Pyrenees form quite the
ideal mountain playground of Europe.
The Basses-Pyrénées, made up from the coherent masses of Navarre, the
Basque country, Béarn, and a part of Chalosse and the Landes, contains a
superficial area of seven hundred and sixty-three thousand nine hundred
and ninety French acres. Its name comes naturally enough from the
western end of the Pyrenean mountain chain.
Throughout, the department is watered by innumerable streams and
rivulets, whose banks and beds are as reminiscent of romanticism as any
waterways extant. The Adour is one of the "picture-rivers" of the world;
it joins the rustling, tumbling Nive, as it rushes down by Cambo from
the Spanish valleys, and forms the port of Bayonne.
The Gave de Pau commences in the high Pyrenees, in the wonderfully
spectacular Cirque de Gavarnie, literally in a cascade falling nearly
one thousand three hundred feet, perhaps the highest cascade known in
the four quarters of the globe, or as the French say, "in the five
parts of the world," which is more quaint if less literal.
The Gave d'Oloron has its birth in the valley of the Aspe, and is a
tributary of the Gave de Pau. It is what one might call pretty, but has
little suggestion of the scenic splendour of the latter.
The Bidassoa is one of the world's historic rivers. It forms the
Atlantic frontier between France and Spain, and was the scene of
Wellington's celebrated "Passage of the Bidassoa" in 1813, also of a
still more famous historical event which took place centuries before on
the Ile des Faisans.
The Nivelle is a tiny stream which comes to light on Spanish soil, over
the crest of the Pyrenees, and flows rapidly down to the sea at
Saint-Jean-de-Luz, on the shores of the Gulf of Gascony.
The Ministry for the Interior in France classes all these chief rivers
as _flottable_ for certain classes of boats and barges through a portion
of their length, and each of them as _navigable_ for a few leagues from
the sea.
Four great "Routes Nationales" cross the Basses-Pyrénées. They are the
legitimate successors of the "Routes Royales" of monarchial days. The
"Route Royale de Paris à Madrid, par Vittoria et Burgos," the very same
over which Charles Quint travelled to Paris, via Amboise, as the guest
of François Premier, passes via Bayonne and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. It is a
veritable historic highway throughout every league of its length.
The climate of the Basses-Pyrénées is by no means as warm as its
latitude would seem to bespeak, the snow-capped Pyrenees keeping the
temperature somewhat low. Pau and Luchon in the interior (as well as
Bayonne and Biarritz on the coast) seem, curiously enough, to be
somewhat milder than the open country between. The Pyrenees, though less
overrun and less exploited than the Alps, are not an unknown world to be
ventured into only by heroes and adventurers. They are what the French
call a "new world" lively in aspect, infinitely varied, and as yet quite
unspoiled, take them as a whole. This is a fact which makes the
historical monuments and souvenirs of the region the more appealing in
interest, particularly to one who has "done" the conventionally overrun
resorts of the Tyrol, Egypt or Norway; and the country here is far more
accessible. Furthermore the comforts of modern travel, as regards palace
hotels and sleeping-cars, if less highly developed, are more to be
remarked. One lives bountifully throughout the whole of the French
slopes of the Pyrenees, from a table well supplied with many exotic
articles of food such as truffles, and _salaisons_ of all sorts, fresh
mountain lake trout, and those delightful _crouchades_ and _cassoulets_,
which in the more populous centres are only occasional, expensive
luxuries.
Both the valleys and the mountains are equally charming and
characteristic. The lowlanders and the mountaineers are two different
species of man, but they both join hands in the admiration of, and
devotion to their beloved country.
The soft, sloping valleys and the plains below, in the great watersheds
of the Garonne, the Aude, the Nive, or the Adour, tell one story, and
the _terre debout_, as the French geographers call the mountains, quite
another. The contrast and juxtaposition of these two topographical
aspects, the varying manners and customs of the peoples, and the
picturesque framing given to the châteaux and historic sites make an
undeniably appealing ensemble which the writer thinks is not equalled
elsewhere in travelled Europe.
One of the chief characteristics of the chain of the Pyrenees is that
it possesses numerous passages or passes at very considerable
elevations, being outranked by surrounding peaks usually to the extent
of a thousand metres only. These passes are not always practicable for
wheeled traffic to be sure, but still they form a series of exits and
entrances from and into Spain which are open to the dwellers in the high
valleys of either country on foot or on donkey back. They are
distinguished by various prefixes such as _puerto_, _collada_, _passo_,
_hourque_, _hourquette_, _brèche_, _port_, _col_, and _passage_, but one
and all answer more or less specifically to the name of a mountain pass.
The expression of "_il y a des Pyrénées_," has been paraphrased in
latter days as "_il n'y a plus de Pyrénées_." A Spanish aeronaut has
recently crossed the crest of the range in a balloon, from Pau to
Grenada--seven hundred and thirty kilometres as the birds fly. This
intrepid sportsman, in his balloon "El Cierzo," crossed the divide in
the dead of night, at an elevation varying between two thousand three
hundred and two thousand nine hundred metres, somewhere between the Pic
d'Anie and the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. In these days when automobiles beat
express trains, and motor-boats beat steamships for speed, this
crossing of the Pyrenees by balloon stands unique in the annals of
sport.
The crossing of the Pyrenees has already resolved itself into a
momentous economic question. Half a dozen roads fit for carriage
traffic, and two gateways by which pass the railways of the east and
west coasts, are the sole practicable means of communication between
France and Spain.
The chain of the Pyrenees from west to east presents nearly a uniform
height; its simplicity and uniformity is remarkable. It is a veritable
wall.
To-day the Parisian journals are all printing scare-heads, reading,
"_Plus de Pyrénées_" and announcing railway projects which will bring
Paris and Madrid within twenty hours of each other, and Paris and
Algiers within forty. New tunnels, or _ports_, to the extent of five in
place of two, are to be opened, and if balloons or air-ships don't come
to supersede railways there will be a net-work of iron rails throughout
the upper valleys of the Pyrenees as there are in Switzerland.
The _ville d'eaux_, or watering-places, of the Pyrenees date from
prehistoric times. At Ax-les-Thermes there has recently been discovered
a tank buried under three metres of alluvial soil, and dating from the
bronze age.
Old maps of these parts show that the baths and waters of the region
were widely known in mediæval times. It was not, however, until the
reign of Louis XV that the "stations" took on that popular development
brought about by the sovereigns and their courts who frequented them.
[Illustration: _The Five Proposed Railways_]
Not all of these can be indicated or described here but the accompanying
map indicates them and their locations plainly enough.
[Illustration]
Nearly every malady, real or imaginary (and there have been many
imaginary ones here, that have undergone a cure), can be benefited by
the waters of the Pyrenees. Only a specialist could prescribe though.
In point of popularity as resorts the baths and springs of the Pyrenees
rank about as follows: Eaux-Bonnes, Eaux-Chaudes, Cauterets, St.
Sauveur, Barèges, Bagnères de Bigorre, Luchon, Salies de Béarn, Ussat,
Ax-les-Thermes, Vernet and Amélie les Bains.
Whatever the efficacy of their waters may be, one and all may be classed
as resorts where "all the attractions"--as the posters announce--of
similar places elsewhere may be found,--great and expensive hotels, tea
shops, theatres, golf, tennis and "the game." If the waters don't cure,
one is sure to have been amused, if not edified. The watering-places of
the Pyrenees may not possess establishments or bath houses as grand or
notorious as those of Vichy, Aix, or Homburg, and their attendant
amusements of sport and high stakes and cards may not be the chief
reason they are patronized, but all the same they are very popular
little resorts, with as charming settings and delightful surroundings as
any known.
At Eaux-Bonnes there are four famous springs, and at Eaux-Chaudes are
six of diverse temperatures, all of them exceedingly efficacious
"cures" for rheumatism. At Cambo--a new-found retreat for French
painters and literary folk--are two _sources_, one sulphurous and the
other ferruginous. Mostly the waters of Cambo are drunk; for bathing
purposes they are always heated. Napoleon first set the pace at Cambo,
but its fame was a long while becoming widespread. In 1808 the emperor
proposed to erect a military hospital here, and one hundred and fifty
thousand francs were actually appropriated for it, but the fall of the
Empire ended that hope as it did many others. In the commune of Salies
is a _source_, a _fontaine_, which gives a considerable supply of salt
to be obtained through evaporation; also in the mountains neighbouring
upon Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and in the Arrondissement of Mauléon, are
still other springs from which the extraction of salt is a profitable
industry.
In the borders of the blue Gave de Pau, in full view of the extended
horizon on one side and the lowland plain on the other, one appreciates
the characteristics of the Pyrenees at their very best.
One recalls the gentle hills and vales of the Ile de France, the rude,
granite slopes of Bretagne, the sublime peaks of the Savoian Alps, and
all the rest of the topographic tableau of "la belle France," but
nothing seen before--nor to be seen later--excels the Pyrenees region
for infinite variety. It is truly remarkable, from the grandeur of its
sky-line to the winsomeness and softness of its valleys, peopled
everywhere (always excepting the alien importations of the resorts) with
a reminiscent civilization of the past, with little or no care for the
super-refinements of more populous and progressive regions. The
Pyrenees, as a whole, are still unspoiled for the serious-minded
traveller. This is more than can be said of the Swiss Alps, the French
Riviera, the German Rhine, or the byways of merry England.