rather ill-made lane and passed a village. Then it was my business to
make straight up the farther wall of the gorge, and as there was wood
upon this, it looked an easy matter.

But when I came to it, it was not easy. The wood grew in loose rocks
and the slope was much too steep for anything but hands and knees, and
far too soft and broken for true climbing. And no wonder this ridge
seemed a wall for steepness and difficulty, since it was the watershed
between the Mediterranean and the cold North Sea. But I did not know
this at the time. It must have taken me close on an hour before I had
covered the last thousand feet or so that brought me to the top of the
ridge, and there, to my great astonishment, was a road. Where could
such a road lead, and why did it follow right along the highest edge
of the mountains? The Jura with their unique parallels provide twenty
such problems.

Wherever it led, however, this road was plainly perpendicular to my
true route, and I had but to press on my straight line. So I crossed
it, saw for a last time through the trees the gorge of the Doubs, and
then got upon a path which led down through a field more or less in
the direction of my pilgrimage.

Here the country was so broken that one could make out but little of
its general features, but of course, on the whole, I was following
down yet another southern slope, the southern slope of the _third_
chain of the Jura, when, after passing through many glades and along a
stony path, I found a kind of gate between two high rocks, and emerged
somewhat suddenly upon a wide down studded with old trees and also
many stunted yews, and this sank down to a noble valley which lay all
before me.