Chapter II: Preface: To the Third Edition

This third edition of my book on the Pyrenees necessarily suffers somewhat from the fact that it is published after the interval of the Great War.

The book in its original form was written in the course of 1908-09, and contained a number of particular details on prices, etc., which the war has completely changed. These I have had to revise _only approximately_, for the value of the franc still fluctuates violently. But the present conditions of currency in Europe are not permanent. In other matters the book is as applicable to the present condition of the Pyrenees as it was to that thirteen or fourteen years ago. The road system is the same, and though one or two of the inns may have changed hands, the account of these I give holds in the main. There have been no new maps issued, either, since the date on which the book was written. I have not added anything on the present system of passports, because that also presumably will be out of date in a short time; but I may mention that at the moment of writing these lines (September, 1922), it is advisable to have one’s passport _viséd_ to Spain before visiting the mountains. Even if the reader has no intention of crossing the frontier he may be compelled to do so under stress of weather, or he may easily do so by error in the confusion of the higher valleys, and in the first Spanish town he comes to his passport is sure to be demanded.

The train service differs little now from what it was before the war. The night and day services and the average number of hours required for approaching the mountains from Paris or London, are again much what they were fourteen years ago.