Souls, they run about from house to house to eat chesnuts, believing that for every chesnut they swallow, with proper faith and unction, they shall deliver a soul out of purgatory.

The influx of foreigners, increase of commerce, and protection granted to the liberal arts, begin to open the understanding of this people, who have made great strides of late towards sense and philosophy.

There are now but one or two churches at most in each city, that are allowed the privilege of protecting offenders; and murderers are excluded from the benefit of the sanctuary. The proceedings of the Inquisition have grown very mild. If any person leads a scandalous life, or allows his tongue unwarrantable liberties, he is summoned by the holy office and privately admonished; in case of non-amendment, he is committed to prison. Once a year you must answer to that tribunal for the orthodoxy of your family, eveu of every servant, or they must quit the country. But the foreign Protestant houses are passed over unnoticed. Avoid talking on religion, and with a little discretion you may live here in what manner you please.

Every Jew that lands in Spain must declare himself to be such at the Inquisition; which immediately appoints a familiar to attend him all the time he stays on shore, to whom he pays a pistole a day were he to neglect giving this information, he would be liable. to be seized. Yet I have been assured by persons of undoubted credit, that a Jew may travel incognito from Perpignan to Lisbon, and sleep every night at the house of a Jew, being recommended from one to another; and that you may take it for granted, that wherever you see a house remarkably decked out with images, relics, and lamps, and the owner noted for being the most enthusiastic devotee of the parish, there it is ten to one but the family are Israelites at heart. SWINBURNE.

SECT. LXXXIV.

OF THE FLOCKS ON THE PYRENEAN MOUNTAINS.

On the 10th of July, 1787, we left Bagnere de Luchon, and crossed the mountains to Vielle, the town on the Spanish side. The Pyrenees are so great an object of examination, in what ever light they are eonsidered, but especially in that of agriculture, that it would be adding a great deal too much to the length of this paper to speak of here: I shall on another occasion be particular in describing the husbandry practised in them, and at present stop no longer than to mention the pasturage of Catalonian sheep in them. By a little detour out of our direct road, and by passing Hospital, which is the name of a solitary wretched inn, we gained the heights, but free from snow, which the Spaniards hire of the French for the pasturage of their flocks. I must observe, that a consid. erable part of the mountains belong in property to the communities of the respective parishes, and are disposed of by what we should call the Vestry. They hire a very considerable range of many miles. The French mountains, on which they pasture, are four hours distant from Bagnere de Luchon, and belong to that town. Those hours are more than twenty EngJish miles, and are the most distant part of the parish. To arrive at them we followed the river Pique, which upon the maps is sometimes called the Neste. The whole way it runs in a torrent, and falls in cascades of many stories, formed either by large pieces of rock, or by trees carried down and stopped by stones. The eurrent, in process of ages, has worn itself deep glens to pass through, at the bottom of which the tumbling of the water is heard, but can be seen only at breaks in the wood, which hang over and draken the scene. The road, as it is called, passes generally by the river, but hangs, if I may use the expression, like a shelf on the mountain side, and is truly dreadful to the inhabitants of plains from being broken by gullies,

and sloping on the edges of precipices. It is, however, passable by mules, aud by the horses of the mountains. The vale grows so narrow at last, that it is not above an hundred yards wide in some places. The general scene at last has little wood.

The mountains on the south side finish in a pyramidical rock of micaceous schistus, which is constantly tumbing into the plain, from the attacks of the frost, and the melting of the snows, the slope of the river being spread with fragments. We met here with pieces of lead ore and manganese.

On the northern ridge, bearing to the West, are the pastures of the Spanish flocks. This ridge is not, however, the whole. There are two other mountains, quite in a different situation, and the sheep travel from one to another, as the pasture is short or plentiful. I examined the soil of these mountain pastures, and found it in general stony; what in the West of England would be called a stone brash, with some mixture of loam, and in a few places a little peaty. The plants are many of them untouched by the sheep. Many ferns, narcissus, violets, and the narrow-leaved plaintain, were eaten, as may be supposed, close. I looked for trefoils, but found searcely any. It was very apparent, that soil and peculiarity of herbage had little to do in rendering these heights proper for sheep. In the northern parts of Europe, the tops of mountains half the height of these (for we were above snow in July) are bogs. All are so which I have seen in our islands: or, at least, the proportion of dry land is very trifling to that which is extremely wet. Here they are in general very dry. Now a great range of dry land, let the plants be what they may, will in every country suit sheep. The flock is brought every night to one spot, which is situated at the end of the valley on the river I have mentioned, and near the port or passage of Picada. It is a level spot sheltered from all winds. The soil is eight or nine inches deep of old dung, not at all inclosed; and from the freedom from wood all round it,

seems to be chosen partly for safety against wolves and bears. Near it is a very large stone, or rather rock, fallen from the mountain. This the shepherds have taken for shelter, and built a hut against it. Their beds are sheep skins, and their doors so small that they crawl in. I saw no place for fire, but they have it, since they dress here the flesh of their sheep, and in the night sometimes keep off the bears, by whirling fire-brands. Four of them, belonging to the flock mentioned above, lie here. We viewed their flock very carefully, and by means of our guide and interpreter, made some enquiries of the shepherds, which they answered readily, and very civilly. A Spaniard at Venasque, a city in the Pyrenees, gives six hundred livres French (the livre is ten pence halfpenny English) a year, for the pasturage of this flock of two thousand sheep. In the winter he sends them into the lower parts of Catalonia, a journey of twelve or thirteen days and when the snow is melted enough in the spring, they are conducted back again. They are the whole year kept in motion, and moving from spot to spot, which is owing to the great range they every where have of pasture. They are always in the open air, never housed or under cover, and never taste of any food but what they can find on the hills.

Four shepherds, and from four to six large Spanish dogs, have the care of this flock. The latter are in France called of the Pyrenees breed. They are black and white, of the size of a large wolf, a large head and neck, armed with collars stuck with iron spikes. No wolf can stand against them; but bears are more potent adversaries. If a bear can reach a tree he is safe. He rises on his hind legs, with his back to the tree, and sets the dogs at defiance. In the night the shepherds rely entirely on their dogs, but on hearing them bark, are ready with fire-arms, as the dogs rarely bark if a bear is not at hand. I was surprised to find that they are fed only with bread and milk. The head shepherd is paid one hundred and twenty livres a year wages and bread; the others eighty fivers and bread. But they are allowed to keep goats,

VOL. II.

C

of which they have many, which they milk every day. Their food is milk and bread, except the flesh of such sheep or lambs as accidents give them. The head shepherd keeps on the mountain top, on an elevated spot, from whence he can the better see around, while the flock traverses the declivities. In doing this the sheep are exposed to great danger in places that are stony; for some of them, especially the goats, by walking among the rocks, move the stones, which rolling down the hills acquire an accelerated force enough to knock a man down; and sheep are often killed by them. Yet we saw how alert they were to avoid such stones, and cautiously on their guard against them. We examined the sheep attentively. They are in general polled, but some have horns; which in the rams turus backward behind the ears, and project half a cirele forwards; the ewes' horns turn also behind the ears, but do not project: the legs, white or reddish; speckled faces, some white, some reddish: they would weigh, fat, I reckon, on an average, from fifteen to eighteen pounds a quarter. There are a few black sheep among them; and some with a very little tuft of wool on their foreheads. On the whole they resemble those on the South Downs. Their legs are as short as those of that breed; a point which merits observation, as they travel so much and so well.

tic.

Having satisfied ourselves with our examination of this flock, we returned to the direct road for Vielle, which also leads to one of the most woody regions of the Pyrenees, and at the same time the most romanThe road is so bad that no horse but those of the mountains could pass it; but our mules trod securely amidst rolling stones on the edges of precipices of a tremendous depth; but sure-footed as they are, they are not free from stumbling; and when they happen to trip a little in those situations, they electrify their riders in a manner not all together so pleasant as Mr. Walker. These mountains are chiefly rocks of micaceous chistus, but there are large detached fragments of granite.

We pass the frontier line which divides France