furious descent before settling, sometimes close beside the path, or
even after crossing it in a final bound. The precipices from which they
had detached themselves are composed of strangely-twisted strata, and
frequently recurring streaks of lurid red give them a fierce and ghastly
aspect. Landslips and torrents of stones are so frequent of late years
that no more attempts are made to clear away the rubbish thus deposited.
Where these scourges have not fallen the sullen stream has carried
devastation. Floods occur every year. That of 1856 wrought a ruin from
which the villages have never rallied. In the whole upper half of the
valley of Fressinière there is not, I suppose, an acre of land capable
of cultivation. In the time of Neff, wretched as its condition must
always have been, the poverty of this region was not so utterly hopeless
as it has since become. The failure of all resources is literally
driving away its inhabitants. Those who remain, as in such cases a
certain proportion cannot help doing, sometimes in bad years pass
three, six, and even nine, months without bread. Their small stock of
potatoes is often exhausted long before it can be replenished. "I am at
a loss," said the pastor, "when we are no longer able to give them aid,
to know how they live. The only semblance of food left to them is soup,
for which, perhaps, they haven't even salt, much less meat or
vegetables. Turbid water--_de l'eau trouble, rien de plus!_"

The valley terminates abruptly at what seems an impassable wall of rock.
Upon nearer approach a zigzag path up its face is discovered. Not far
from the top the narrow way creeps by a ledge which barely affords
foothold across a thread of sparkling foam slipping down a perpendicular
precipice. In winter this passage is sheeted in dangerously unstable
ice, and makes Dourmillouse inaccessible for weeks. Neff gives a
spirited account in his journal of leading out a party of young peasants
by torchlight, armed with axes, to cut a path here on the evening before