A tour through the Pyrenees . was thesole inhabitant of this abandoned field. Was it notsingular to meet with a marsh at the heit^ht of \^ feet ? V. Toward the south the river becomes a a league from Luchon it is swallowed up in adeep defile of red rocks, many of which have fallen ;the bed is choked with blocks ; the two walls ofrock close together in the north, and the danuued- Chap. V. LUC HON. 497 •H « Up water roars to get out of its prison; but thetrees grow in the ~~ crevices, and alongthe wall the whiteflowers of the bram-ble hang in locks. Very near here, ona ro
A tour through the Pyrenees . was thesole inhabitant of this abandoned field. Was it notsingular to meet with a marsh at the heit^ht of \^ feet ? V. Toward the south the river becomes a a league from Luchon it is swallowed up in adeep defile of red rocks, many of which have fallen ;the bed is choked with blocks ; the two walls ofrock close together in the north, and the danuued- Chap. V. LUC HON. 497 •H « Up water roars to get out of its prison; but thetrees grow in the ~~ crevices, and alongthe wall the whiteflowers of the bram-ble hang in locks. Very near here, ona round eminence ofbare rock, rises theruin of a Moorishtower, named Cas-tel-Vieil. Its sideis bordered wnth afriehtful mountain,black and brown,perfectly bald and re-sembling a decayedamphitheatre; thelayers hang one overanother, notched, dis-located, bleeding;the sharp edges andfractures are yel-lowed with wretchedmoss, vegetable ul-cers that defile withtheir leprous patchesthe nudity of the stone. The pieces of this mon-32. 498 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. strous skeleton hold together only by their mass ;it is crannied with deep fissures, bristling withfalling blocks, broken to the very base; it is nothingbut a ruin dreary and colossal, sitting at the en-trance of a valley, like a battered giant. There was an old beggar-woman there, withnaked feet and arms, Avho was worthy of the moun-tain. For a dress she had a bundle of rags of everycolor sewn together, and remained the whole daylonof crouched in the dust. One mio-ht have countedthe muscles and tendons of her limbs ; the sun haddried her flesh and burned her skin ; she resembledthe rock aeainst which she was sittino-; she was tall,with large, regular features, a brow seamed withwrinkles like the bark of an oak, beneath hergrizzled lids a savage black eye, a mat of whitehair hanging in the dust. If a sculptor hadwished to make a statue of Dryness, the modelwas there. The valley narrows and ascends ; the Gave rollsbetween t
Size: 1035px × 2415px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublishernewyorkhholtandcom
