bushes, dying for want of moisture. Farther on, the mountain gorge of
the Infernets showed its yawning chasm amidst tumbled rocks, struck
down by lightning, a huge chaos, a wild desert, rolling stony billows
as far as the eye could reach. Then came all sorts of well remembered
nooks: the valley of Repentance, narrow and shady, a refreshing oasis
amid calcined fields; the wood of Les Trois Bons-Dieux, with hard,
green, varnished pines shedding pitchy tears beneath the burning sun;
the sheep walk of Bouffan, showing white, like a mosque, amidst a
far-stretching blood-red plain. And there were yet bits of blinding,
sinuous roads; ravines, where the heat seemed even to wring bubbling
perspiration from the pebbles; stretches of arid, thirsty sand,
drinking up rivers drop by drop; mole hills, goat paths, and hill
crests, half lost in the azure sky.

'Hallo!' exclaimed Sandoz, turning towards one sketch, 'what's that?'

Claude, indignant, waved his palette. 'What! don't you remember? We
were very nigh breaking our necks there. Surely you recollect the day
we clambered from the very bottom of Jaumegarde with Dubuche? The rock
was as smooth as your hand, and we had to cling to it with our nails,
so that at one moment we could neither get up nor go down again. When
we were once atop and about to cook our cutlets, we, you and I, nearly
came to blows.'

Sandoz now remembered. 'Yes, yes; each had to roast his own cutlet on
rosemary sticks, and, as mine took fire, you exasperated me by
chaffing my cutlet, which was being reduced to cinders.'

They both shook with laughter, until the painter resumed his work,
gravely concluding, 'That's all over, old man. There is to be no more