A tour through the Pyrenees . through little green valleys, planted with ash andalder in clusters, according to th(> capric(;s of theslopes, and with their feet bathed in li\ing water;a pellucid stream borders the road, with waters som- Chap. II. PAU. 115 bre and hurried under the cover of the trees, andthen, by fits and starts, brilhant and blue as the times in the course of a league it encounters amill, leaps and foams, then resumes its course, hur-ried and stealthy ; during two leagues we have itscompany, half hid among the trees that it nourishes,and breathing: the freshness it
A tour through the Pyrenees . through little green valleys, planted with ash andalder in clusters, according to th(> capric(;s of theslopes, and with their feet bathed in li\ing water;a pellucid stream borders the road, with waters som- Chap. II. PAU. 115 bre and hurried under the cover of the trees, andthen, by fits and starts, brilhant and blue as the times in the course of a league it encounters amill, leaps and foams, then resumes its course, hur-ried and stealthy ; during two leagues we have itscompany, half hid among the trees that it nourishes,and breathing: the freshness it exhales. In theseoforofes, water is the mother of all life and the nurseof all beauty. At Louvie the valley of Ossau opens up between. 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 Bonnes.
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