There is a pass called the Bon Agua, and also Bon Aigo, which leads from the heights of the Catalans to those other heights of Aragon, or as some would say of Bearn, for the pass is from the south of the mountains to the north; on the northern side one knows why it is called Bon Agua, because one sees many thousands of feet below one the little bracelet, the little chain, of the young Garonne. Do not mistake me, there are two sources of the Garonne. That which is most famous does the most famous thing; for it rises on the far side of the mountains and it plunges into a pond, quite a little pond. Then it cascades underground, through dark passages of which no one knows anything, and comes out beyond the main chain of the hills to join its other quieter sister from the Bon Agua. This startling source, I say, is the most famous, because it does the most startling things, though not more wonderful than what a Yorkshire river does, for there is a Yorkshire river in the West Riding which runs into the pond called Mallam Tarn and reappears afterwards beyond a rocky ridge; but this Garonne of which I speak goes right under high and silent mountains where there are no men, and this is a feat performed, I think, by no other river, not even by the Rhone, which also is lost for the time underground (though few people know it), nor by the River Mole, which plays at being lost and never quite is, and certainly has not the courage to attempt the tunnelling of any hill, though it is proud to be called the “snouzling Mole,” which, by the way, it was first called in the year 1903--but I digress, and I must return to the Bon Agua. Well, then, there I say under the Bon Agua runs the quieter of the two streams which unite in the Val D’Aran to form the Garonne, and there it was that a companion of mine seeing that little stream looked at it with profound sadness, and said--the things which shall be the text of what I have to say here. For he said: “Poor little Garonne! Innocent and lovely little Garonne! I have never seen a stream so small, nor so pure, nor so young, nor so far from men. But you are on your way to things you do not know. For first of all you will join that boasting sister of yours which has come from under the hills, and can talk of nothing else; and then you will go past the King’s Bridge being no longer among kind and silent Spaniards, and you will have entered the territory of the Republic which is fierce and evil, and you will grow greater and wider and not more happy until you will come to the perfectly detestable town of Toulouse.... Thence after you will have no pleasure, but only a certain grandeur to be passing through the Gascon fields, and all your desire will be for the sea in which at last you shall merge and be lost. And so strong will be your desire for that dissolution that you will be willing to mix your name with another name, to marry the Dordogne, and then you will die and you will be glad of it.”