I examined the building carefully, but could not satisfy myself that I had really discovered the walled-up entrance, by which alone, _it is said_, the wretched cagots were formerly permitted to enter the church.

The figures which flitted near, pausing, occasionally, to inspect my work, habited, as they were, in the long cloak and _capuchon_ of the country, might well have passed for contemporaries of the superstitious fear which excluded the unfortunate victims of disease from an equality of rights with their fellow-men; but the cagot himself is no longer visible.

Here I loitered, till it was too dark to draw another line; and then wended back to the _Hotel des Pyrenees_, to recruit myself after the fatigues of the day, and prepare for those of the morrow.
Long before the day broke, we were again in the saddle, and, as we passed St.Sauveur, its long range of white buildings could only be faintly traced; but, as we advanced, the snowy peak of Bergons, glowing in the rays of the rising sun, seemed to light us on our way, and coily the charms of the valley revealed themselves to my eager gaze.

I have wandered in many lands, and seen much mountain-scenery; but I think I never beheld any that approaches the beauty and sublimity of the road to Gavarnie.

There is everything here to delight the eye, and fill the mind with wonder,-- "All that expands the spirit, yet appals." For some miles the road continues to ascend; in many places, a mere horse-track, cut in the mountain side, and fenced by a low wall from an abyss of fearful depth, in whose dark cavity is heard the roar of the torrent which afterwards converts the generic name of Gave into one peculiar to itself.