0 feet high, in most places absolutely vertical. This
huge natural wall forms the crest of the Pyrenees, and divides France
from Spain at this part of the chain. In the middle of the natural
barrier is a gap, which, when viewed from the French valley of the
Gave de Gavernie, appears like a notch made in a jaw by the loss of a
single tooth, but which is in reality a magnificent and colossal
portal, 134 feet wide and 330 feet high.

Of course, legendary lore is not at fault to account in its own
poetical manner for this natural phenomenon. According to that oracle,
the Breche owes its origin to Roland, the brave Paladin, who, mounted
on his war-horse, in his hot pursuit of the Moors, clove with one blow
of his trusty sword Durandal a passage through this mighty wall; and
it must be admitted that the sides of the gap are so smooth, that it
requires no great stretch of the imagination to suppose that they were
fashioned in some such artistical manner. Independently of the Breche
itself, which alone is highly deserving of a visit, the surrounding
scenery is of the most imposing and magnificent character, and the
whole, therefore, most justly ranks as one of the chief lions of the
Pyrenees.

The most usual, and by far the most advantageous starting-place, is
the village of Gavarnie, near the Cirque of that name. In my
ignorance, however, of the toilsome nature of the excursion, I started
from Luz, eighteen miles from Gavarnie, where I was sojourning.
Reader, were you ever at Luz? Sweet Luz! with its babbling crystal
brook, in which tribes of pigs undergo sanitary ablutions; and its
inn, famous for good cookery and active fleas. If you have been there,
you will not have forgotten Madame Cazean--a model of a hostess. To
her I made my wishes known respecting the ascent to the Breche, and
begged that she would find me a guide.

In Switzerland, at such a place as Luz, surrounded by numerous
excursion points of great interest, guides would be abundant; here,
however, there are only a few, and these are obliged to pursue the
callings of agriculture and hunting to eke out a subsistence. So, when
I demanded a guide, Madame Cazean said she would send to the fields
for Jaques St Laur, who was the best guide to the Breche. And indeed
if strength of limb and a huge sinewy frame were the chief
qualifications for the affair, Jaques, I apprehend, would have stood
unrivalled, for I never saw a more sturdy or Titanic mountaineer.

The arr