By Hamish Brown

The mind boggled somewhat at the thought of pursuing Painted Ladies over the hills. "Imagine asking the local Caïd about that" old Partridge commented over a cafe au lait on the terrace of the Balima. "Pas de problem" Ivor Rushton grinned. "There's no need to go through all the channels. Climbers wander up into the Atlas all the time. There's porters and huts and everything. Bit run down perhaps, but the CAF are still active."

"CAF. What's that?"

"Club Alpin Français. I'm actually a member and hope to get up there myself. I've maps and the old Dreish and Lépiney Guide."

"Well, it looks as if you can head the hills officially on this one."

'Sorry, in the spring I'm stuck with the weekly language classes, but a friend of mine, Jean Louis Froment, I know would be free. He knows the Atlas already as he grew up in Marrakch. Just graduated, in France, but in no hurry to settle into a job. He'd lap it up. Speaks good English ...."

Which is how Jean Louis came to make contact with Painted Ladies. The English students tended to refer to them quite unfeelingly by their Latin name Vanessa cardui and they also had an interest in Bath Whites or Pontia daplidice. Maybe it was the very name 'Painted Ladies' that so caught the fancy of Jean Louis. He was an imaginative, lively young Frenchman, after all.

"Ivor, I will go anywhere, anytime, there are ladies involved, painted or not" he had teased Rushton on having the subject broached.

Jean Louis was thorough, too, and even before the Bristol department contacted him direct he began to read up what he could find about these butterflies. It was fascinating. It was so fascinating that Jean Louis could hardly contain himself for the two months before he'd be heading south from Marrakech over the Haouz Plains to the gleaming snows that rim the horizon south of that bustling city. One Sunday afternoon he and Rushton sat in the Moorish Cafe over looking the Bou Regreg and the town of Salé opposite. From Salé came the term 'Sally Rover', some of those pirates being of English origins. One had built some of the Kasbab defences where they sat.

"Ivor, do you realise these beautiful, delicate, flying angels come all the way across the Sahara from West Africa? They cross that blasted waste in tens of thousands only to run up against the Adas Mountains. Djebel Toubkal is 3,165 metres -- that's about 13,500 feet in your funny measurements the highest point in all North Africa. They then cross or go round this colossal barrier, pass the Straits to Spain and then continue over the notorious Bay of Biscay to end up in the south west of England. C'est formidable!"

In his excitement he sent his glass of thé à la menhe on to the tiles.

Ivor laughed. "Stop flying, Jean Louis. You're not a butterfly yet," then added "Look, there's a butterfly. Is it a Painted Lady?"

A butterfly had landed on the soggy lumps of sugar from Jean Louis's tea and stayed, sipping greedily, till a blundering bee, after the same free nectar, blundered into it and the butterfly flapped away over the bougainvillea towards Salé.

Jean Louis had shaken his head and went on to describe just what a Painted Lady looked like.

'Good God" Ivor commented, "You've still never seen one and yet you're quite infatuated!"

"Oh, yes, quite infatuated," Jean Louis agreed. "I dream about them every night. Much safer than the painted ladies of the Rue de Masa in the Medina."

He was only half joking.

Jean Louis called in officially before setting off to meet the Bristol students at the Hotel du Foucauld in Marrakech. He seemed to have everything well organised: a bus laid on to Asni, where, after a night at the Hotel du Toubkal, they would proceed, on mules, up the River Mizane to Around, where there was a CAF refuges which would be their base. Several higher refuges sat about the 3,000 met:re mark would be visited in turn and above them were the snowy cols, with heights of up to 3,800 metres, which would he places, they hoped, for ambushing the migrant papillons. Both Partridge and Rushton had to listen to the life cycle of Vanessa cardui being enthusiastically described. Later, Partridge commented "Seems an efficient enough lad, for a Frencluttian, but a bit crazy, if you ask me. All he has to do is look after our chaps and see they don't upset the locals and yet he seems to have gone overboard about his Painted Ladies. He doesn't own them!"

"It is fascinating, though," Ivor commented "They make that journey, year after year, from West Africa to the West Country. None ever go back - - so how on earth do they know where they're going? I thought bird migration was quite something. This is even more astonishing."

"I'm sure it is," old Partridge smiled indulgently. "Monsieur Froment seems to have infected you with his enthusiasm." He paused. "I'm sorry you're stuck here! think you'd have taken leave to go with your butterfly friend. lnstead of which we'd better get stuck into the monthly returns."

To be continued.

You can find more articles in the archive under The Bothy.