The little player at first seemed somewhat astounded at such an unexpected alteration in his prospects; but learning that, in the very first place, board and lodging was to be provided for him, and a horse as soon as one could be procured, his countenance brightened up, and he trudged contentedly after the band of smugglers, eating a large lump of cheese and a biscuit, which Garcias had given him as occupation on the road. Strange, strange world, where the most abject poverty is the surest buckler against misfortune! When I stood and considered that wretched player's feelings and my own, and saw how little he was affected by things which would have pained me to the very soul--how little he heeded being torn from his native land, with nothing but blank uncertainty before him--and how he enjoyed the crust which fortune had given him--I could hardly help envying his very misery, which so armoured him against all the shafts of adversity to which I stood nakedly opposed. My present journey through the Pyrenees, though tending very nearly in the same direction as the first, lay amongst scenes of a still wilder description, for the smugglers carefully avoid all the ordinary paths, and, though now unburdened with any seizable goods, as heedfully guarded against a meeting with the officers of the _douane_ as if they were escorting a whole cargo. They seemed to take a delight in the mystery and secrecy of their ways; but, in truth they found it necessary to keep the whole world, except those concerned, in perfect ignorance of the great extent to which their contraband traffic was carried on, and for this purpose, glided along through the deepest shades of the pine forests, and over the highest and least frequented parts of the hills, by paths impracticable to any but themselves. Towards the close of the first day, we halted by the side of a small mountain-lake, whose calm, still, shadowy waves, I almost hoped were the waters of oblivion. Round about, the mountains rose up on every side, seeming to shelter it from a world, and not a breath of wind rippled the surface of the water, so that the reflections of the high snowy peaks of the hills above, the dark rocks that dipped themselves in its waves, and the gloomy pines that skirted it to the east, were all seen looking up like ghosts from below, while ever and anon a light evening cloud skimming over the sky found there its reflection too, and was seen gliding over the bosom of the calm expanse. The turf that spread from the margin of the lake to the bases of the mighty rocks that towered up around, was covered with every kind of flower, though at so great an elevation; and the rhododendron in full blossom, vied with the beautiful pink saffron, as if striving which should most embellish that favoured spot of green that nature seemed to have fancifully placed there, as a contrast between the cold dark waters and the stern grey rock.