X.

The restaurant, no less than the idlers, ruins the effect of solitude, but we find that we bear this with more equanimity.  We are glad we resisted the village inn’s importunities and can remain here for lunch instead.  While we are at the table, our jovial porters, grouped near the path outside, while away the time in stentorian songs.  We walk out afterward some space farther toward the base of the cliffs; but the foot of the fall is still two furlongs away, along the left wall,—­a distance equal to its height; and over the broken boulders of the bottom it seems useless toil to clamber.  So we sit and gaze again at the scene, seeking to crowd this sensation of immensity even more deeply into the mind.  We cast about for some comparison to the scene.  The sweep of the Gemmi precipices rising around the village of Leukerbad in Switzerland is like it in kind; but almost another Gemmi, mortared with ice and glacier, would need to be reared upon the first, to overtop the snows of the Gavarnie Cirque.

We turn back to the porters at last, and the cavalcade of chairs forms again.  The men are earning three francs each by this noon holiday, and they are in good spirits.  They do not think the sum too little and we certainly do not deem it too much.  When we regain the inn at the village, they wait about unobtrusively for their pay, and after arming ourselves with coin for the division we come out among them.  At once we become the centre of a large and respectful assemblage, all other loungers drawing near to witness the coming ceremony.  Our informal words of appreciation become rather a speech when delivered before so many.  The leader now approaches, and we publicly entrust him with the division of the fund, adding, as we state aloud, our good-will and a pourboire for each.  Instantly, and with, almost startling simultaneousness, every, cap in view comes off in unison; the movement is so general, so, immediate, and so gravely uniform, as to be somewhat astonishing; and a satisfied and metronomic chorus of “Merci, Monsieur, merci bien!” rises like a measured paean around us.

This little performance over, the carriages come to the fore, and we retrace the road in the pleasant afternoon, under the Pimene, through the Chaos, by Gedre and the opening of the Troumouse gorge, and on down the ravine out to the Bridge of Napoleon which leads us over to St. Sauveur.

The long, trim street of St. Sauveur backed against the mountain is a resort much in favor.  It is not large enough to be noisily stylish, but in a quiet way it is select and severe.  It is patronized by ladies more than by the sterner sex.  Its springs are mild, helpful for cases of hysteria and atonic dyspepsia; and the nervous, middle-aged females who frequent it find a grateful sedative in the air and surroundings as well as in the springs.  The hotels have the garb of prosperity, and the location, commanding both the Gavarnie gorge and the valley of Luz,-could not have been better chosen; in fact, headquarters for the trip to the Cirque might be and usually are fixed here quite as comfortably as at Luz.