A tour through the Pyrenees . tly cut off, drops perpendicularly like the wallof a citadel; at the summit, a thousand feet abovethe highway, are esplanades expanding in forestsand meadows, a crown green and moist, whencecascades ooze forth by the hundred. They windbroken and flaky along the breast of the mountain,like necklaces of pearls told off between the fingers,bathing the feet of the lustrous oaks, deluging thebowlders with their tempest, then at last spreadingthemselves out in long beds where the level rocklures them to sleep. The wall of granite falls away; at the east, anamphitheatre
A tour through the Pyrenees . tly cut off, drops perpendicularly like the wallof a citadel; at the summit, a thousand feet abovethe highway, are esplanades expanding in forestsand meadows, a crown green and moist, whencecascades ooze forth by the hundred. They windbroken and flaky along the breast of the mountain,like necklaces of pearls told off between the fingers,bathing the feet of the lustrous oaks, deluging thebowlders with their tempest, then at last spreadingthemselves out in long beds where the level rocklures them to sleep. The wall of granite falls away; at the east, anamphitheatre of forests suddenly opens up. On allsides, as far as the eye can reach, the mountains are 174 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. loaded with wood to the very top; several of themrise, in all their blackness, into the heart of the light,and their fringe of trees bristles against the palesky. The charming cup of verdure rounds its gildedmargin, then drops into hollows, overflowing withbirch and oak, with tender, changeable hues that. lend additional sweetness to the mists of a hamlet is to be seen, no smoke, no culture;it is a wild and sunny nest, no doubt like to thevalley that, on the finest day of the happiest spring-tide of the universe, received the first man. The highway makes a turn, and everythingchanges. The old troop of parched mountainsreappears with a threatening air. One of them Chap. V. EA UX- CHA UDES. 175 in the west is crumbling, shattered as if by aCyclopean hammer. It is strewn with squared blocks,dark vertebrae snatched from its spine; the head iswanting, and the monstrous bones, crushed and indisorder, scattered to the brink of the Gave, an-nounce some ancient defeat. Another lying opposite,with a dreary air, extends its bald back a league away;in vain you go on or change your view: it is alwaysthere, always huge and melancholy. Its nakedgranite suffers neither tree nor spot of verdure; afew patches of snow alone whiten the hollows in itssides, and its
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