The French lords and ladies thought to return to Tarbes as easily as
they had come, but they found the streamlets so deep as to be scarcely
fordable. When they came to pass over the Bearnese Gave,(1) which at the
time of their former passage had been less than two feet in depth,
they found it so broad and swift that they turned aside to seek for
the bridges. But these being only of wood, had been swept away by the
turbulence of the water.
1 The Basques give the name of Gave to those watercourses
which become torrents in certain seasons. The Bearnese Gave,
so named because it passes through the territory of the
ancient city of Beam, takes its source in the Pyrenees, and
flows past Pau to Sorde, where it joins the Adour, which
falls into the sea at Bayonne. It is nowadays generally
known as the Gave of Pau.--L. & M.
Then certain of the company thought to stem the force of the current by
crossing in a body, but they were quickly carried away, and the others
who had been about to follow lost all inclination to do so.
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