However this might be, we certainly saw nothing beyond very ordinary faces, and the common defect of mountainous countries--the frightful _goitre_--too evident.

It is the custom with most persons, when they first arrive in a place, to adopt some received opinion, which not the strongest evidence of their senses is allowed afterwards to shake; and thus it appears heresy, either to disbelieve in the salubrity of Pau, or in the beauty of the inhabitants of all the country round.

If beauty were merely comparative, the notion may be true; but, though those who are not affected with _goitre_, and who are not hollow-cheeked, and thin, and brown, are prettier than those who are, "Yet beautie is beautie in every degree;" and "pretty Bessies" appeared to me to be very rare in Bearn.
There is a very imposing building situated on the Gave, of which the townspeople are extremely proud: it is a corn-mill, of great power, lately erected, and extremely successful.

It appears that the town of Orthez is in a flourishing condition, as to trade.

Here are prepared most of the hams so celebrated throughout France, under the name of Bayonne-hams; and here numerous flocks of the fat geese which furnish the markets of the neighbouring towns with _cuisses d'oies_, so prized by gourmands, are to be seen.