The Andorrans are generally robust and well built; the maladies of more populous regions are practically unknown among them.  This speaks much for the simple life!  Costumes and dress are rough and simple and of heavy woolens, clipt from the sheep and woven on the spot.  Public officers, the few representatives of officialdom who exist, alone make any pretense at following the fashions.  The women occupy a very subordinate position in public affairs.  They may not be present at receptions and functions and not even at mass when it is said by the bishop.  Crime is infrequent, and simple, light punishments alone are inflicted.  Things are not so uncivilized in Andorra as one might think!

In need all men may be called upon to serve as soldiers, and each head of a family must have a rifle and ball at hand at all times.  In other words, he must be able to protect himself against marauders.  This does away with the necessity of a large standing police force.

Commerce and industry are free of all taxation in Andorra, and customs dues apply on but few articles.  For this reason there is not a very heavy tax on a people who are mostly cultivators and graziers.  There is little manufacturing industry, as might be supposed, and what is made—­save by hand and in single examples—­is of the most simple character.  “Made in Germany” or “Tabrique en Belgique” are the marks one sees on most of the common manufactured articles.

The Andorrans are a simple, proud, gullible people, who live to-day in the past, of the past and for the past; “Les vallees et souverainetes de l’Andorre” are to them to-day just what they always were—­a little world of their own.

GAVARNIE[A]

[Footnote A:  From “A Tour Through the Pyrenees.”  By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.  Copyright, 1873.]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

From Luz to Gavarnie is eighteen miles.

It is enjoined upon every living creature able to mount a horse, a mule, or any quadruped whatever, to visit Gavarnie; in default of other beasts, he should, putting aside all shame, bestride an ass.  Ladies and convalescents are there in sedan-chairs.

Otherwise, think what a figure you will make on your return.

“You come from the Pyrenees; you’ve seen Gavarnie?”

“No.”

What then did you go to the Pyrenees for?

You hang your head, and your friend triumphs, especially if he was bored at Gavarnie.

You undergo a description of Gavarnie after the last edition of the guide-book.  Gavarnie is a sublime sight; tourists go sixty miles out of their way to see it; the Duchess d’Angouleme had herself carried to the furthest rocks.  Lord Bute, when he saw it for the first time, cried:  “If I were now at the extremity of India, and suspected the existence of what I see at this moment, I should immediately leave in order to enjoy and admire it!” You are overwhelmed with quotations and supercilious smiles; you are convinced of laziness, of dulness of mind, and, as certain English travelers say, of unesthetic insensibility.