The gap of the Val d’Ossau--Gan--Original course of the Gave-- Buzy--Gorges de Germe--Arudy--Destruction of forests--Boxwood-- Cromlechs--Bielle--Independence of the Republic of Ossau-- Costume--Dances--Laruns--Eaux Chaudes--Beggary--Gabas--Eaux Bonnes--Death of the Rev. Merton Smith. Looking south from the terrace at Pau one sees a noble portal in the mountain chain apparently leading to the roots of the Pic du Midi d’Ossau. But it is a mistake to suppose that the drainage of those snowy crests can descend at once into the Gave at one’s feet. Between the Val d’Ossau and that of the Gave de Pau a region of hills intervenes. Moreover, the valley that gapes does not lead to the foot of that noble pyramid. It leads to Laruns only, and there the broad trough ends, and above that the Gave descends through a cleft painfully cut through intervening strata. On the railway from Pau to Laruns the first station is at Gan. In this village, as I remember it fifty years ago, there were but two houses with glass windows, the parsonage and a Renaissance dwelling that belonged to Corisande d’Andouins, one of the many mistresses of Henri Quatre. When cold weather arrived, then the peasants closed their shutters, perforated with a few holes--a heart, a cross, an S--and through this opening derived their light. The train clambers up the heights past Buzy, and then all at once bursts on the sight the broad Val d’Ossau--rich, fertile, smiling with maize and vines, and villages, and beyond the Pic du Midi. The Gave d’Ossau descending from the snowy range on the frontier of Spain ran due north, as if to reach Pau in one direct channel, but was arrested by the hills, and turned along the depression at Buzy and turned westward where now goes the branch line to Oloron. But dissatisfied with this bed, it tore at the rocks near Arudy, and sawed for itself the Gorges de Germe, a savage ravine, very tortuous, cut through hills covered with woods. The abandoned bed was taken possession of by man. It lies at a lower level than the actual channel, and the river must have been deflected by immense piles of rubbish brought down from the mountains. At the west end of the church at Buzy may be seen a huge boulder rounded by rolling, used as the pedestal to the village cross. The ancient channel furnishes turf for fuel, and in it are grown beds of rank bulrushes. Beyond Buzy, on the way to Arudy, is a dolmen already referred to, but not on its original site. When the road was altered it was removed and re-erected. The train halts again at Arudy, only interesting for the view, and for the tomb of a bishop, and a fifteenth-century church with a reredos. The Val d’Ossau in its lower parts is a wreck. The mountain spurs on each side were once clothed with magnificent forests of pine.