hat long and superb chain of the Pyrenees which forms the
embattled isthmus of the peninsula, in the centre of those blue
pyramids, covered in gradation with snow, forests, and downs, there
opens a narrow defile, a path cut in the dried-up bed of a perpendicular
torrent; it circulates among rocks, glides under bridges of frozen snow,
twines along the edges of inundated precipices to scale the adjacent
mountains of Urdoz and Oleron, and at last rising over their unequal
ridges, turns their nebulous peak into a new country which has also its
mountains and its depths, and, quitting France, descends into Spain.
Never has the hoof of the mule left its trace in these windings; man
himself can with difficulty stand upright there, even with the hempen
boots which can not slip, and the hook of the pikestaff to force into
the crevices of the rocks.

In the fine summer months the 'pastour', in his brown cape, and his
black long-bearded ram lead hither flocks, whose flowing wool sweeps the
turf. Nothing is heard in these rugged places but the sound of the
large bells which the sheep carry, and whose irregular tinklings produce
unexpected harmonies, casual gamuts, which astonish the traveller and
delight the savage and silent shepherd. But when the long month of
September comes, a shroud of snow spreads itself from the peak of the
mountains down to their base, respecting only this deeply excavated
path, a few gorges open by torrents, and some rocks of granite, which
stretch out their fantastical forms, like the bones of a buried world.

It is then that light troops of chamois make their appearance, with
their twisted horns extending over their backs, spring from rock to
rock as if driven before the wind, and take possession of their aerial
desert. Flights of ravens and crows incessantly wheel round and round
in the gulfs and natural wells which they transform into dark dovecots,
while the brown bear, followed by her shaggy family, who sport and
tumble around her in the snow, slowly descends from their retreat
invaded by the frost. But these are neither the most savage nor the most
cruel inhabitants that winter brings into these mountains; the daring
smuggler raises for himself a dwelling of wood on the very boundary of
nature and of politics. There unknown treaties, secret exchanges, are
made between the two Navarres, amid fogs and winds.

It was in this narrow path on the frontiers of France that, about two
months after the scene