JOHNSON'S WINTER SKETCHES IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE AND THE
PYRENEES.* THE author of these sketches lately passed a winter at Pan and the watering-place of Bagneres de Bigorre for the benefit of his health. His volume contains an account Of the journey thither, a description of the country, climate, people and accommodations for visitors, with the usual historical recollections touching Henry the Fourth and other good or bad public men who were born or
have flourished in the neighbourhood. •
The style of Mr. Johnson is forcible and graphic; perhaps too much so, for it tempts him into too detailed a description of external things, and to notice matters with which many readers are already familiar. Pau and the Pyrenees are not so haeknied as Italy and the common lines of travel in France and Germany, but they have been described by various writers of various pursuits,—Inglis, the Honourable J. Murray, Mrs. Boddington, Dr. Taylor, and various smaller writers down to a fictitious juvenile tour. Hence there are in these "Winter's Sketches" some description; and several stories or recollections, which if unknown to the public are not so from want of the means of knowledge. Mr. Johnson is a medical man, who was an invalid when he went to Pan; and the observations which his profession or his condition induced are the most valuable parts of the book. The time of his sojourn from the beginning of November to early spring might Five him a further advantage ; for that is not the season when light descriptive writers usually visit the Pyrenees at all events. He appears to have been accompanied by his family; which gave bun a further subject in rent, prices, and genera expenses. At a certain stage of disease, more especially of consumption, change of climate, as Mr. Johnson remarks, is useless. The excitement and fatigue, with the want of home comforts, and perhaps of friends, is more likely to hasten than to retard the catastrophe. In cases where restoration may fairly be hoped for, where prevention of some winter ailment is the object, or even where the inconveniences of an English winter are sought to be avoided, all Southern climates seem to possess this advantage. Fine weather is the rule, bad days are the exception ; whereas in England for some months the reverse is the case—bad weather is the rule, fine days are the exception. Of course the climate should suit the ease; but that is matter of medical advice, and even of individual peculiarity. When Pau is suitable to the invalid, it is said to be the most delightful place possible. There are heavy rains ; but the soil is so gravelly that the rain vanishes as it fails; it is frequently so obliging as to fall in the night; and if not it falls straight, so that you do not g6t wet under an umbrella—if well shod, we should say, and well covered about the legs. The wind when Easterly is not like an Easterly wind at home—in fact it is rather bracing and exhilarating; spring, or something like it, begins at the end of December: but there seems to us to be too great a variation of temperature in a short space of time to be quite wholesome ; though it is affirmed that ill consequences do not follow. However, here is the summary of the winter.
"During the early part of November, the weather had been unfavourable. It was somewhat cold and damp ; fogs rose out the valley morning and night, and the roads were tenaciously sloppy. It was, indeed, a continuation ci the Touraine weather, without the sharp winds. Towards the middle of the month, the sky cleared up ; it became warm ; the air was dry and bracing; and we began to feel as if summer were returning to us, instead of taking ffight to the mid-parts of the earth. At noon the sun was talked of in disparaging terms as a nuisance; parasols and umbrellas appeared to be in requisition; and the weakest of invalids were on daily exercise in the open air, most of them without even the smallest of greatcoats. The last days of November vindicated their ancient reputation ; the air was keen and frosty ; the thermometer fell below freezing ; ice was on the pools in the shade at noon ; but still the mid-day sun afforded sufficient warmth, and the air was dry and clear. During December the same low temperature prevailed ; towards the middle of the month, frosts at night were most intense, bringing down the thermometer to 19° of Faht. ; even the drippings of the fountain were converted into so many frozen blocks, as they ran in the shadow of the old market ; while, on the other hand, in the Place Royale the thermometer exposed to the action of the sun's rays rose to 95' ! "There was sometimes a difference of 40' between the rooms fronting the North and South, when the rays of the sun penetrated into the one and the other was without them. Turning into a sunless street, from the bright glare of the promenades, was rather more than the transition from a warm to a cold bath; and the pedestrian involuntarily muffled up his countenance, and shuffled along at a quicker pace. It required some amount of moral courage to rush through this Greenland of the shady side, before arriving at that natural fireside of Pau, the sunshine. It is not therefore surprising to hear residents for the first season complain bitterly of the extremes of temperature to which they are subjected, and therefore term the climate variable. The truth is, that between the averate winter temperature of Pau and that of many English places of resort, the difference is so trifling as scarcely to merit attention; not amounting to more than 4° above London and 3° below Penzance, both observations being taken in the shade. But it is in the peculiar stillness and dryness of the atmosphere' which exert so powerful an effect over the nervous system ; the entire absence of all cold, dry winds; the penetrating warmth of the sun's nays; the rarity of prolonged damp or fog ; and the combined advantages of mountain air and the soft warm breezes that steal from the South, laden with the highly oxygenated products of Tropical vegetation it is in these advantages, which .1'mi possesses to an extent perhaps unparalleled, that the invalid will find the benefit."
There is a good deal more about the climate, and roses in January, and early green peas and asparagus ; and as these things, with a February and March at Bagneres set Mr. Johnson on his
legs again, he does right to speak well of bridge that has carried him safe over. Of course you have to pay for these advan :. ;441-tr's e' of t South of w"*rt4 /:eer%V.tdVIer1 110ff1T;re.
ILC,S. Eng., Rt. ice, Published by Chapman and Ball.
tages. Pau is not a cheap place—where is there a cheap place that has got anything worth selling or hiring ?—and, to avoid the particulars of the original text, we may say that it wants a sanitary commissioner. "On one head, the stranger who visits Pau without some previous knowledge, is pretty certain to be disagreeably surprised. If he has imbibed certain prevailing notions, that living in the South of France is an economy of means, the first season in Pau will for ever disabuse him of the error. We purpose in a few lines handing over to him our experience in that way. Each house is divided into flats or stories, as in the old towns of Scotland and almost all the cities of France; each of these is termed an apartment, is usually furnished, and can only be obtained for a tenancy of the season, which extends from October to May inclusive. For apartments such as these, suitable for a family, and more or less extensive in accommodation, from 2000 to 8000 francs—i. e. from 80/. to 320/.—are required, exclusive of plate and linen, which may be obtained at an additional charge of front 10/. to 30/. Of furnished lodgings with attendance after the English
faehion, there are literally none. *
"The market affords daily throughout the winter vegetable luxuries, unknown to the English soil in that season, and weekly It is abundantly supplied with the country produce. Not the least formidable article of consumption is the wood-fuel ; brought in bullock-waggons from the neighbouring forest, and cut into sizes adapted to the hearth on which it is to be burned. The cost may be calculated at about a franc a day for each fire' varying somewhat with the access which that great caltnifier the sun has to the rooms occupied."
The .judgment of Mr. Johnson on prices at Pau applies, we conclude, to those who know how to bargain. If you are not aware of the mode, or do not like to adopt it, you will pay still higher. This is the way to buy at Pau.
"As a rule, the British purchaser must offer one-half the price asked. i
Everybody does it, and it s in no way offensive, because the sum has been prearranged accordingly. The British costume springs the market at least ten per cent, bad French ten more, and an apparent ignorance of both market and language cannot be let of at leas than thirty or forty. Expostulation is useless even when convenient; the torrent of impossible,' mcroyable,' ' que c'est gentil," ravisaant," beau ' would drown any opposition. The only chance is to be deaf to argument, 'dumb to solicitations, to place the sum proposed before the merchant, and if it be not accepted retire in dignified silence. Ten to one you will be followed, and a fresh assault of marehander commenced : be resolute, and the some odds you get your bargain."
Things seemed to be better in the Pyrenees ; but then it was some months before the season at the baths, while at Pau the season was at its height.
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