and shortly strike off from the road and up among the bushes.  There is a well-worn pathway, and it toils easily skyward, doubling back on itself to rest and unrolling wider and wider vistas of the valley.  The Gourzy across the chasm enlarges its proportions as we rise.  Here comes a peasant or two posting valley-ward, going to his world-centre, the metropolis of Eaux Chaudes, or perchance even on to the universe-hub,—­Laruns.  Birches and beeches mingle everywhere with the darker, green of the fir-trees; alders and oaks and hazels are abundant; among all run the heavy growths of box.  Tree life is profuse and rich on these warm lower flanks of the range, while wild flowers and butterflies tempt one to constant digressions.  The path grows steeper.  After all,

      “to ascend, to view the cheerful skies
  In this the task and mighty labor lies.”

Virgil must have had this very occasion prophetically in mind: 

“To few great Jupiter imparts this grace,—­And those of shining worth and heavenly race!  Betwixt those regions and our upper light, Deep forests and impenetrable night Possess the middle space; the infernal bounds Cocytus with his sable waves surrounds,”—­

Cocytus being an evident euphemism for the Gave.

We meet another peasant, this time a woman, who stares and replies that Goust is very near.  Another incline is mounted, we come out upon an uneven break of pasture-land, and our destination is at hand.

We are not positive as to this at first.  Eight hoary, grey-stone hovels are before us, a few rods away, and the path passing along the side of a high stone wall goes on to their doors.  We follow it, finding the way grown muddy and stony, and finally stop inquiringly before the cellar-like opening of the most prominent “hutch.”  So this is the principality of Goust!  A woman has been peering at us from over the wall we have passed by, and now our arrival brings other women to their respective doors, to stare in the unison of uncertainty.  Approaching, I doff my hat, and politely explain that we are visitors, that we have come from America to see this settlement, and that any courtesies they may extend will be considered as official by the nation we represent.  The dumb neutrality of the beldames, at this, is soon dispelled by our friendly interest, and they gradually come out and group around us in the mud of the path, with interest no less friendly and even greater.  Their faces are intelligent and shrewd and practical; there is abundance of wise if narrow lore lined out in those strong, crude features.  Their frames are brawny; they are used to work.  They are those who fill, and fill faithfully, their single niches, living moveless, as the trees; change, new surroundings, the world, they have not known.  Their life has cut its one deep dent and there it is hidden,—­as boulders sink their way into the glacier-fields.