Mont Pelvoux (a mountain nearly 14,000 feet high), intending to
cross a high pass above La Berarde down to Briancon, but when we got
to St. Christophe we were told the pass would not be open till
August, so returned and slept a second night at Bourg d'Oisans. The
valley, however, was all that could be desired, mingled sun and
shadow, tumbling river, rich wood, and mountain pastures, precipices
all around, and snow-clad summits continually unfolding themselves;
Murray is right in calling the valley above Venosc a scene of savage
sterility. At Venosc, in the poorest of hostelries was a tuneless
cracked old instrument, half piano, half harpsichord--how it ever
found its way there we were at a loss to conceive--and an irrelevant
clock that struck seven times by fits and starts at its own
convenience during our one o'clock dinner; we returned to Bourg
d'Oisans at seven, and were in bed by nine.

Saturday, June 13.

Having found that a conveyance to Briancon was beyond our finances,
and that they would not take us any distance at a reasonable charge,
we determined to walk the whole fifty miles in the day, and half-way
down the mountains, sauntering listlessly accordingly left Bourg
d'Oisans at a few minutes before five in the morning. The clouds
were floating over the uplands, but they soon began to rise, and
before seven o'clock the sky was cloudless; along the road were
passing hundreds of people (though it was only five in the morning)
in detachments of from two to nine, with cattle, sheep, pigs, and
goats, picturesque enough but miserably lean and gaunt: we leave
them to proceed to the fair, and after a three miles' level walk
through a straight poplar avenue, commence ascending far above the
Romanche; all day long we slowly ascend, stopping occasionally to