Painful and hideous, to an eye accustomed to British parks,
are the forms of these once noble trees.
Suddenly we descend a brow into the Yale of Tarbes: a good land and
large; a labyrinth of clear streams, water-meadows, cherry-orchards,
and crops of every kind, and in the midst the pleasant old city, with
its once famous University. Of Tarbes, you may read in the pages of
Froissart--or, if you prefer a later authority, in those of Dumas,
'Trois Mousquetaires;' for this is the native land of the immortal
Ulysses of Gascony, the Chevalier d'Artagnan.
There you may see, to your surprise, not only gentlemen, but ladies,
taking their pleasure on horseback after the English fashion; for
there is close by a great 'haras,' or Government establishment for
horse-breeding. You may watch the quaint dresses in the marketplace;
you may rest, as Froissart rested of old, in a 'right pleasant inn;'
you may eat of the delicious cookery which is to be found, even in
remote towns, throughout the south of France, and even--if you dare--
of 'Coquilles aux Champignons.
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