Show SCENE IN THE PYRENEES picturesque goats and goatherds A dart hig aerial twig cutter our solitude however voiceless and lon lonely ly though it seems is not wholly lm d the tinkle of a little bell I 1 is suddenly heard followed by the sharp rattle of falling stones and up the deep rocky gully on our left which almost separates the main wall of tile the mountain from the buttress of cliff that forms our terrace ten ace come a long string etring of genuine pyrenean can goats black shaggy and wild looking as any of those I 1 used to see wandering dinT among the rocks of mimi T or on the craggy heights around be bethlehem see liow low defiantly this big billy who leads tile the file tosses his great horned lead head through the thick black hair of which ilia his luge large lu ge yellow eye glows glow like a live coal as he surveys us with a look of indignant surprise evidently wondering what on earth we are doing up here in his own special domain the of the flock is fully matched by that of the goatherd himself as he be comes striding upward from rock to rock with an elastic spring worthy of our old friends the warrior mountaineers of montenegro with his crisp black curls and olive checked face his spare tall sinewy figure his flat broad cap and rude mountain sandals and the long pole clutched in his hard brown land hand lie looks the very picture of one of those handsome liand some swarthy brigand like muc mu muchachos chachos so BO often encountered by bv don quixote an and d his trusty sancho amid the solitudes of the sierra morenas are a resemblance heightened by the rugged border dialect more spanish than french wherewith lie he greets us in passing when the goats and their leader have disappeared behind a projecting cliff a solemn hush falls up upon oil the great lifeguard of encircling mountains so deep and universal as almost to justify sir be boyle alo P roches we hes famous bull nothing was to be heard but silence all at once however tile the stillness ss is again broken by a faint whirring sound very much like the winding up of a huge clock far away among the dark gray rocks above us then a stone falls another still another and then something that looks like a bundle of sticks comes bounding from crag to crag bringing down along with it in in its final leap a rattling shower of pebbles and gravel from the great heap of rubbish piled up against the base of the cliff are these forerunners of a general landslip and if so will alio alie gully that lies between us and it suffice to check it before it can overwhelm us or not but the calculation which I 1 is not without interest for us at the moment is nipped in the bud by the sudden appearance of the author of all thia disturbance viz a man in peasant dress who is digging dinging like a fly to the face of the precipice about a third of the way up so far as we can call see what lie is about amid the blinding glare of the sun still upon the unsheltered cliff lie ho seems to be cutting tor for fuel the tiny clumps of dwarf box that cling to the higher ledges these lie is making into bundles and flinging down to the foot fool of the cliff to be found and gathered up when lie descends la later teron on it is recorded in the veracious work the koran that mohammed in his bist memorable journey to heaven on the back of the winged horse saw some angels of such extremely ethereal texture that could stand upon the point of an ordinary needle our aerial twi twig cutter though much less fairy like like ill ili build than these singular spirits appears to possess no small share of their capacity for standing 0 comfortably on nothing on a ledge so narrow as hardly to give room for both feet at once lie keeps chopping and tying with all the composure of my old vaudois comrade philippe Marle taz who in the course of one of our alpine accents ascents made a hearty bearty lunch with liia bis legs dangling over the brink of a sheer precipice of nearly feet bundle after bundle does this daring laborer fling down and seems to be nearing hearing the end of his perilous task when suddenly ono one throw falls short and the truant bunch sticks halt way down the earth slide on a heap of stones and rubbish this will never do should it remain thele he will vill have to go out of his way to get it in coming down accordingly to our no small amusement lie he begins to pl play ar a kind of perpendicular game at low bowls Is ringing flinging several other bundles at the castaway with steady aim and in ili quick succession apparently quite forgetful of the strong possibility of his going after them lead head foremost himself at length a lucky shot dislodges the vagrant bundle and down it comes coines hop hop eliop top to join the majority below cor new kew york times |