east is the still wilder Correze. On the west lie the forests of Black
Perigord. Looking to the east, I saw the mountains of Auvergne, the
Mont-Dore range rising beyond the Correze against the blue sky, as white as
the sugar towers and pinnacles upon a bride-cake. Here it was warm, like
June weather in England; there winter still reigned upon the snowy hills.
Standing against the north-western horizon were the high towers of the vast
feudal fortress of the Viscounts of Turenne. It was there that Madame de
Conde, escaping from Mazarin, planned the rising of Guyenne in 1648. I
could only distinguish the towers, but I knew that a little below them was
the small mediaeval town of Turenne, which grew up under the protection of
the Viscounts, who for centuries were virtually the sovereign princes of
this region. No lover of the picturesque would waste his time by going
there.

Descending from the tableland on the southern side, where the rocks form a
steep little gorge, I came to the stream from which the besieged Cadurci
are supposed to have drawn their water-supply, until it was cut off by
Caesar. Looking at the spot, it is easy to understand how it all happened.
The natural fortress, selected with so much judgment by the Cadurci, was
almost unassailable. To help them, they had the cover of the wood that
still fills the gorge, but which was probably much denser then than it is
now. From his tower of ten stages, which commanded the fountain, Caesar
continually harassed with darts, thrown by the _tormenta_, those who came
to the spring; and he, moreover, tells us that he caused a gallery to be
tunnelled to the fountainhead, and thus drew off the water, to the utter
astonishment and despair of the Cadurci, who perceived in this disaster the
intervention of the gods. A tunnel such as he describes exists, and the
stream flows through it. At a point some distance higher, the sound of
gurgling water can be distinctly heard beneath the stones; and it was here
probably where the stream originally broke out, and where the inhabitants