issues the Oriège; the Etangs of Peyrisse from which the water descends in a series of cascades to form the large and beautiful Lake of Naguilles, a reservoir to be utilized some day for the irrigation of the plain of Pamiers, and any number of others lying asleep at the bottom of valleys, in which, with the exception of a few shepherds, no other face is seen."
All this portion of the chain is almost barren and sad. The road leads through a dreary country, where the snow lies long, and the scanty grass is burnt with the frozen streams, and heaped with granitic blocks thrown up by moraines of glaciers that no longer exist. A few miserable villages are passed till the ruins are reached of the Castle of Carol, of which two towers remain. This was at one time the chief place of the valley, and it maintained independence in the midst of the county of Cerdagne.
At Quès the river of Carol, flowing south, is arrested by a barrier of rocks, formed to serve for irrigation by means of a canal, as far as Puygcerda. It is, perhaps, the earliest recorded instance, at least in medieval times, of such an economic undertaking. This canal was constructed in 1318, by virtue of a charter of Sanchez, King of Majorca. It was so well constructed that it serves its purpose admirably to the present day, fertilizing the fields below it, whereas above the life-giving stream the mountain side is barren. When the Treaty of the Pirenees was drawn in 1659 it was stipulated that this barrier and the canal from it, though on territory ceded to France, should be maintained in good order.
The Cerdagne became an independent state soon after the Moorish invasion of 731. It was governed by a Berber chief, Munuza by name, who threw in his lot with the Franks against the Yemenite Arabs of the South, and even married a daughter of Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine. But he was killed
