Vive la Vacca_." The ancient archives of Ossau are kept in a stone coffer at Bielle; and the dignitaries of the country repair to this spot at certain periods of the year to consult on the affairs of the communes.

What habitation they find wherein to meet, suitable to their dignity, it would be difficult to say.
We stopped an hour at Izeste, and strolled along the one street of this wretched bourg while our horses rested: over almost every house we were surprised to see sculptured stones, with half-effaced arms, showing that once persons of condition inhabited these now degraded dwellings.

One in particular, in a singular state of preservation, represented the cognizance of the house of Lusignan, and here we did indeed see the effigy which we had failed to find at the castle near Poitiers, of the serpent-tailed Fairy Melusine.

We went into the house of the proprietor, who, with his mother and several of his neighbours, hurried out, after peeping from their windows to watch the operation of the sketching of Melusine, and invited us to see another head of a woman which he had found in the garden of his tenement.

We passed along several dim, dark passages, and through large, square, dungeon-like rooms, apparently serving as stables, to the garden, where we found numerous remains of ancient Roman wall and bricks and broken columns, and the head of a statue much defaced.