We drive off toward Luchon after the survey, not leaving a final farewell, since we shall pass through once more in returning to cross again the Col d’Aspin.  The col before us now, cutting off the Arreau valley from that of Luchon, is the Col de Peyresourde, the last of the throes of the Route Thermale; and up the sides of the mountain the carriages unceasingly climb during the forenoon until the crest is reached.  From this the road lowers itself again by the usual complicated zigzags.  The dauntless Highway of the Hot Springs here completes its work and allows itself a last well-earned rest along the smoother valley, until by two o’clock we see it find its final end in the broad avenue leading into Luchon.

IV.

Luchon is easily the queen of all these beautiful Pyrenean resorts.  We very soon concur in this.  I have called it the Pyrenees Interlaken, and this perhaps describes it more tersely, than description.  It is in fact surprisingly like Interlaken; its broad, arbored highways or hoehewegs, its rich hotels, its general enamel of opulence and leisure, suggest the charm of that Swiss paradise at every turn.  Only the great glow of the Jungfrau is missing; but one need not go far, as we shall later see, to view almost its full equal.

“It is not possible to be silent about Luchon,” declares the enthusiastic essayist who described so appreciatively the fair valley of Luz, “Luchon is a capital.  No other place in the world represents beauty and pleasure in the same degree; no other town is so thoroughly typical of the district over which it presides.  One can no more imagine the Pyrenees without Luchon than Luchon without the Pyrenees; neither of them is conceivable without the other; together, they form a picture and its frame.  A region of loveliness, amusement and hot water needed a metropolis possessing the same three features in the highest degree; in Luchon they are concentrated with a completeness of which no example is to be found elsewhere.  No valley is so delicious; nowhere is there such an accumulation of diversions; nowhere are there so many or such varied mineral springs.  If it be true that a perfect capital should present a summary of the characteristics and aspects of its country, then Luchon is certainly the most admirable central city that men have built, for no other represents the land around it so faithfully as Luchon does.  Neither Mexico nor Merv, nor Timbuctoo nor Lassa, nor Winnipeg nor Naples, attain its symbolic exactness.”

We find super-luxurious quarters at the Richelieu, one of the handsomest of the handsome hotels, and groan at the narrowing limitations of the calendar.  Before us is a wide, leafy park, with rustic pavilions, and an artificial lake enlivened with swans; these grounds are a constant pleasure; you stroll under the trees and listen to the music and see all humanity unroll itself along the paths about you.  Here