Gabas, the last village on the French side of the chain, is a halting-place for travellers and for muleteers conveying goods from Spain. It is a cantonment of custom-house officers; and here may be seen picturesque groups of shepherds in their fleecy jackets, Spaniards in their richly-coloured blankets, and the uniformed douaniers. The path leading to the plateau is lined with fir trees, but on all sides may be seen the ravages of fire, the axe, and winter storm, in charred stumps, twisted or hewn-down trunks, thrown down to be floated by the Gave through its stages to the lower valley. The distance from Laruns to Eaux Bonnes is much the same as it is to Eaux Chaudes. On reaching the former watering-place--“Je comptais trouver ici la campagne,” wrote M. Taine. “Je rencontre une rue de Paris et les promenades du Bois de Boulogne!” It is a place of big hotels, baths, pensions, shops where toys, trinkets, and trumpery are displayed for sale, and, of course, a casino. “In whichever direction we turn,” says Mr. Blackburn, “there are houses built into and often forming part of the mountain, resting on ledges of rock, like to eyries; but so cleverly contrived is the arrangement of the place, so admirably has space been economized, that there is a feeling of freedom about it, quite inconsistent with living in a bird’s nest. “Thus, with the mountains several thousand feet above our heads, and the Val d’Ossau stretching away for many miles at our feet, with rocks overhanging and tree-tops waving, through which we can see the blue sky--with scarcely a foot of level ground anywhere, save the Promenade Horizontale, with cascades and waterfalls at our windows, we find ourselves as comfortably and luxuriously housed as in any modern city.” Speaking of the church Taine says: “Cette église est une boïte ronde, en pierre et plâtre, faite pour cinquante personnes, ou l’on en met deux cents.” This box of stone and plaster has disappeared to make room for one of more suitable dimensions in what is caricature of Romanesque. There is a good carriage road from Eaux Bonnes over a fine pass into the Val d’Aruns and to Argelez. The chief excursion is to the Pic de Gers, 8570 feet high. The Eaux Bonnes springs have been known for centuries. The Béarnais soldiers wounded in the battle of Pavia in 1525, were sent here to be healed; and for some time after that the springs went by the name of les Eaux d’arquebusades. But they owe their modern renown to the works of Théophile Bordeu. There are seven sources of sulphurated waters, which are good for throat disorders, wounds, sores, and morbid maladies.