A tour through the Pyrenees . two mountains covered with brushwood, bald inplaces, spotted with moss and heather from whichthe rocks peep out like bones, while the flanks startforth in grayish embossments or bend in darkcrevices. The plain of the harvests and meadowsburies itself in the anfractuosities as if in creeks ;its contour folds itself about each new mass; itessays to scale the lower ridges, and stops, van-quished by the barren rock. We go through threeor four hamlets whitened by dust, whose roofs shine ii6 THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. Book II. with a dull color like tarnished lead. Then the h
A tour through the Pyrenees . two mountains covered with brushwood, bald inplaces, spotted with moss and heather from whichthe rocks peep out like bones, while the flanks startforth in grayish embossments or bend in darkcrevices. The plain of the harvests and meadowsburies itself in the anfractuosities as if in creeks ;its contour folds itself about each new mass; itessays to scale the lower ridges, and stops, van-quished by the barren rock. We go through threeor four hamlets whitened by dust, whose roofs shine ii6 THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. Book II. with a dull color like tarnished lead. Then the hori-zon is shut off; Mount Gourzy, robed in forests, barsthe route; beyond and above, like a second barrier,the peak of the Ger lifts its bald head, silvered withsnows. The carriage slowly scales an acclivitywhich winds upon the flank of the mountain ; atthe turn of a rock, in the shelter of a small gorge,may be seen P^aux CHAPTER III. EA UX I THOUGHT that here I should find the coun-try ; a village like a hundred others, with longroofs of thatch or tiles, with crannied walls andshaky doors, and in the courts a pell-mell of cartswith fagots, and tools, and domestic animals, inshort, the whole picturesque and charming uncon-straint of country life. I find a Paris street andthe promenades of the Bois de Boulogne. Never was country less countrified: you skirt arow of houses drawn up in line, like a row of soldierswhen carrying arms, all pierced regularly with regu-lar windows, decked with signs and posters, bor-dered by a side-walk, and having the disagreeablydecent aspect oihotelsgarnis. These uniform build-ings, mathematical lines, this disciplined and formalarchitecture make a laughable contrast with the THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. Book II. green ridges that flank them. It seems grotesquethat a httle warm water should have imported into
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