Pamplona in Spain, the old kingly capital of Navarre, is eighty kilometres distant. One leaves Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port by diligence at eleven in the morning, takes _déjeuner_ at Val Carlos, and at two in the afternoon takes the Spanish diligence and sleeps at Burgette, leaving again at four in the morning and arriving at Pamplona at eight. This is a classic excursion and ought to be made by all who visit the Pyrenees. Val Carlos is the Spanish customs station, and soon after one passes through the magnificent rocky Défile de Val Carlos and finally over the crest of the Pyrenees by either the Port d'Ibañeta or the Col de Ronçevaux, at a height of one thousand and fifty-seven metres. The route from Ronçevaux to Pamplona is equally as good on Spanish soil as it was on French--an agreeable surprise to those who have thought the good roads' movement had not "arrived" in Spain. The diligence may not be an ideally comfortable means of travel, but at least it's a romantic one, and has some advantages over driving from Saint Jean in your own, or a hired, conveyance, as an expostulating Frenchman we met had done. He freed the frontier all right enough, but within a few kilometres was arrested by a roving Spanish officer who turned him back to the official-looking building--which he had no right to pass without stopping anyway--labelled "Aduana Nacional" in staring letters, that any passer-by might read without straining his eyes. "Surely he would never have driven by in this manner," said the dutiful functionary, "unless he was intending to sell the horse and carriage and all that therein was, without acquitting the lawful rights which would enable a royal government to present a decent fiscal balance sheet." Pamplona is the end of our itinerary, and was the capital of Spanish Navarre. It's not at all a bad sort of a place, and while it doesn't look French in the least, it is no more primitive than many a French city or town of its pretentions. It has a population of thirty thousand, is the seat of a bishop, has a fine old cathedral, a bull ring--which is a sight to see on the fête day of San Sebastian (January twentieth)--and a hotel called _La Perla_ which by its very name is a thing of quality. CHAPTER XXVII THE VALLEY OF THE NIVE