have belonged, and there they lie, side by side, mysterious relics of the times of chivalry. The pillars inside the church are very celebrated for their extreme beauty: they are of white and blue jasper, found in a quarry near Bielle. A story is told of Henry IV., who greatly admired these pillars, having sent to request the town to make him a present of them, as he found nothing in his capital that could compare with their beauty; he received this answer: "Bous quets meste de noustes coos et de noustes beés; mei per co qui es Deus pialars diu temple, aquets que son di Diu, dab eig quep at bejats." "You may dispose of our hearts and our goods at your will; as for the columns, they belong to God; manage the matter with Him." The Ossalais in this showed no little wit; or, if the tradition is not founded on fact, the story still exhibits their powers of setting a due value on their possessions in a striking light. Bielle was once a place of great importance, and its church belonged to an abbey of Benedictines: there was formerly a stone on the façade, on which was engraved the arms of the Valley--a _Bear and a Bull_, separated by a beech tree, with this device: "_Ussau é Bearn. Vive la Vacca_." The ancient archives of Ossau are kept in a stone coffer at Bielle; and the dignitaries of the country repair to this spot at certain periods of the year to consult on the affairs of the communes. What habitation they find wherein to meet, suitable to their dignity, it would be difficult to say. We stopped an hour at Izeste, and strolled along the one street of this wretched bourg while our horses rested: over almost every house we were surprised to see sculptured stones, with half-effaced arms, showing that once persons of condition inhabited these now degraded dwellings. One in particular, in a singular state of preservation, represented the cognizance of the house of Lusignan, and here we did indeed see the effigy which we had failed to find at the castle near Poitiers, of the serpent-tailed Fairy Melusine. We went into the house of the proprietor, who, with his mother and several of his neighbours, hurried out, after peeping from their windows to watch the operation of the sketching of Melusine, and invited us to see another head of a woman which he had found in the garden of his tenement. We passed along several dim, dark passages, and through large, square, dungeon-like rooms, apparently serving as stables, to the garden, where we found numerous remains of ancient Roman wall and bricks and broken columns, and the head of a statue much defaced. Every house seemed capable of exhibiting similar remains, and on many were dates in stone of 1613, 1660, 1673. One tower of defence is tolerably perfect; and walls and remnants of gates here and there prove how strong and how important Izeste once must have been.