Some of these fragments, it is said, contain a hundred thousand cubic feet, and the blocks lie in all directions, uncounted tons of them, grotesque and menacing, piled often one upon two, bulging out over the diminished carriages or entirely disconcerting the hurrying torrent.

“That block bigger than the church of Luz,” points out Johnson, writing of this spot, “has been split in twain by the other monster that has followed in its track and cracked it as a schoolboy might do his playfellow’s marble.  We cease to estimate them by their weight in tons, as is the manner of hand-books, but liken, them to great castles encased in solid stonework; or calculate that half-a-dozen or so would have made up St. Paul’s; or speculate upon the length of ladder we would want to reach the purple auricula that is flowering in the crevice half way up.”

Beyond this, as we draw near the end of our course, there is an opening in the mountains on the right.  A peak and a long bed of ice and snow are seen high beyond, and the drivers tell us that we are looking at a side glacier of the Vignemale, whose face we saw from the Lac de Gaube when we climbed up the parallel defile from Cauterets.

But here is the village of Gavarnie.  We are in the courtyard before the inn, bristling with an abatis of mules and horses in waiting row.

VIII.

Negotiations for transport now begin.  The black walls of the Cirque rise beyond the village, closing the valley, seemingly just before us; but it is a full league from the inn to the stalls of that august proscenium.  The ladies recall their unrestful saddle-ride to the lake, and decide this time for sedan-chairs.  The entire village is put in commotion by the order; for three men, one as relief, are required for each chair, (four on steeper routes,) and it takes but a very few times three to foot up a quick and difficult total, where the call is sudden and the supply small.  The chairs themselves are promptly produced; they have short legs, a dangling foot-rest, and long poles for the bearers, as in Switzerland, but are ornamented besides with a hood or cover which shuts back like a miniature buggy-top.  Soon the additional men are brought in, called from different vocations for the emergency; all of them broad-shouldered and sturdy and with a willing twinkle in their eyes.  The ladies seat themselves, the first relays take their places before and behind the chairs, pass the straps from the poles up over the shoulders, bend their knees, grasp the handles, and with a simultaneous “huh!” lift the litters and their fair freight from the ground.  This automatic performance is always interesting and always executed with military precision.  They pass down the village road with rhythmic, measured tread, the substitutes carrying the wraps; the petit garcon of the party journeys forth on a donkey; and the rest of us, duly disencumbered and shod with hemp, resist the importunities of the youth at the inn to order a lunch for the return, and follow after on foot.