one, they claw! rjen the fice of the cart in the most abject state of want and misery, su. l. as can only be known but in being with sl Their complexions are cadaverons in .. treze; many of them afflicted with

superbly picturesque valley of Grip, you trace the sources of the Adour meandering in creamy whiteness by the many breaks of its craggy banks. As the eye extends its compass, the rich valley of Campan opens, embrowned with the ripening harvest: innumerable villages appear with their pointed steeples, which, by their comparative littleness, shew the immensity of the towering mountains. At the small village of Grip, the sources of the Adour are seen dropping from mountain to mountain at a distance of eight miles, as shewn in PLATE XXII. uniting in one cascade of great beauty at the foot of the village.

In bidding adieu to these less frequented and wilder parts of the Pyrenees, I cannot resist a slight notice of a class of people called the Cagots.

In my two months' sojourn amidst these mountains, I sometimes came in contact with this singular race of human beings, and who are, I believe, peculiar to this part of France. No language can describe the utter wretchedness of their appearance; shunned by every one, they crawl upon the face of the earth in the most abject state of want and misery, such as can only be known but in being witnessed. Their complexions are cadaverous in the extreme; many of them afflicted with the goitre,

of dwarfish stature, and for clothing, a sort of sackcloth is all that distinguishes them from "the beasts that perish."

The origin of these poor creatures is lost in the distance of time. Mons. Palassou, who has written a memoir on the subject, is of opinion, that they take their rise from the last of the Saracens, who were defeated by Charles Martel in the neighbourhood of Tours, and subsequently driven into these mountains, and afterwards became objects of hatred and contempt.

The habitations of these outcasts are apart from all the towns and villages, amid dreary valleys and unwholesome swamps. Among other persecutions, they were formerly obliged to bear a badge, indicative of their degraded class. These cruel distinctions pursued them even to the churches, which they entered by a separate door; and the holy waters appropriated to their use would have been thought by their more favoured fellow-beings rather those of contamination than of blessedness.

I was confined to a village by incessant rain one whole day in the neighbourhood of some of these people, and never can I forget the two or three objects which presented themselves, more particularly one, a female: the face was horribly disfigured with the small-pox; the goitre had