Pyrenees,
June 5[7?]
My dear Henry
You will not believe your Eyes when you see the date of this letter – I am here without waiting for you, & if I had waited, I should never have arrived.
The weather has not been always fine, but temperate & pleasant – I began at the beginning from San Sebastian to Bayonne, Pau, les Eaux, re-botanizing of course here & there but on the whole rather disappointed in the vegetation for the beginning of summer –. There seem to be an immense variety of plants but the small number of them in flower at this season is surprising. And a greater proportion than I expected belong to our English Flora.
I suspect our British Flora to be an offset of the Pyrenean in its common as well as uncommon plants. I was delighted to find Euphorbia portlandica on the coast of Biscay – with the furze, horned poppies &c. –
The railway carries you easily thro’ the heart of the Landes, a curious tract nobody would otherwise care to visit.
I am full of admiration of the valley from Pau to the Pic du Midi – to the foot of which I went but dared not attempt the summit. The contact of granite with super-incumbent stratified rocks all the East side of the glen is the finest geological junction I ever saw. What numbers of waterfalls – & roaring Gaves. <1>The Pinguiculas are lovely some as large as Primulas. I never remarked their buttery leaves before whence of course their name. <2>
I am much struck with the want of Orchidaceæ – I have seen none except some fine Helleborine cordifera ( Tenore’s <3> longipetala) & Orchis maculata near Irun – & the latter again near Eauxchaudes not a bulb, Allium or anything else. I have been looking hard for Liliohyacinths. I met a man going out bear shooting he said the bears lived on garlic on the mountain tops – which must be our ramsons – we want bears to eat ours. Saxifraga hirta [in] plenty & others apparently not in flower – Ferns are abundant –Dryopteris very fine – if it be not calcareum – I found a pretty Linaria – lilac with round leaves purple beneath – Asphodelus albus <–> Prunella grandiflora – handsome – the gayest wild flower is Erinus alpi & near Bayonne the Cistus – on the rocks near Gabas was a sedum not out but which promised to be something very nearly the same as S. Anglicum. & another like rupestre reflexum.
I tried to collect a few words [of] Basque but my ear was not quick enough. Do you not believe that Guascon, Gascon, Wascon, Vascon<,> Basque, & Aquitain are all from one root & that the race once occupied all Gaul within the Garonne, & all Spain except a few Celts?
I went today up to the top of the Col de Peyresordes – it was very hot I found nothing but fields full of N. <4> Poeticus – & yellow rattle – a few Gentiana verna – Prim <5> farinosa its usual companion, a pretty dwarf Myosotis, Pinguicula in profusion, the large blue heartsease you find on all mountains, & so forth. As a compensation the view towards Pic du midi was glorious. I was at 1531 metres elevation, yet it was powerfully hot to within 100 yards of the top where the breeze came over fresh from the snow.
I suppose the really characteristic plants belong to the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, or, at least the Mediterranean end of them.
I was surprised to find on the plateaux at the foot of the Pyrenees, great heaths all of E. vulgans apparently, varied with groves of oak you might fancy yourself in Westphalia <–> the common heath in the mountains seems to be Mediterranean.
Now the Comet <6> is (not has) exploded, the good folks are expecting a solar eclipse of three days duration, equally dangerous.
I see in the gardens Pawlovnia with long pods. does it ever bear in England?
I suppose you to be enjoying London with Ela & Ros: <7> I hope it is sufficiently gay this year to interest them.
Do not answer this immediately – I do not know my own course exactly & may come home soon. But perhaps you are not in town & may be gone off to Limone or some other field of Flora.
Pce Czartoryski <8> whom I saw at Paris made much enquiry after Caroline. <9> Zamoyski <10> is I believe in London. he is full of interesting information from the East. I hope you may meet with him.
I think the pyrenees more like the Italian than the Swiss Alps. There is now a Scirocco sky that will end in rain I think – wind from S.E. to S.W. It must have been an awfully hot day in Spain today.
How odd it is that three succulents of different genera should have similar names. Houseleek is Sempervivum. <11> S. <12> Telephium is called Livelong in English, & the great Aloe is called Semprevivo in Sicily.
I hope your Assyrian interpretations go on successfully –
Yrs
W F S –
Notes:
1. Pyrenean mountain streams.
2. Latin pinguicula: fatty
3. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
4. Narcissus.
5. Primula.
6. Probably Comet 5D/Brorsen.
7. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter and Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter.
8. Probably Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (1770–1861), Polish statesman and patriot who ran an emigré organisation, initially from London, and who later lived in Paris. [See Encycl. Brit.] WFS had known the family in Warsaw [see Doc. No: 01522].
9. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister. She had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Polish liberation movement – see e.g. Doc. No: 04660.
10. Count Wladyslaw Zamoyski (1803–1868), Polish patriot who came to live in London, where he was involved in the emigré organisation set up by his uncle, Prince Adam Czartoryski, to work for a free Poland. He is mentioned in the Correspondence particularly during the early 1830s.
11. Latin: everlasting
12. Sedum