example of our countryman--M. Vaysse de Villiers, author of the
'Itineraire Descriptif de la France,' did in 1816, or thereabouts,
accomplish the journey from Mende to Florac by way of Sauveterre.
'Never,' he wrote, 'have I seen a more complete aridity, so utter a
desert,' He goes on to describe the beauty of the Tarnon (a small river
of the Lozere) and its verdant banks. 'All this, added to the
delightfulness of the autumn day and the horrible Causse of
Sauveterre,' but just passed, transformed the dreary town and narrow
valley of Florac into a delicious retreat. In a note he gives the
accepted derivation of _Causse_ from _calx_, saying that it
was of general application, and that the word certainly filled a blank
in French nomenclature.

It is now instructive to turn to French guidebooks and see how
completely the region here described was ignored till within the last
few years. I have before me Joanne's invaluable and conscientious
guides for Auvergne, including the Cevennes, published respectively in
1874 and 1883. In the former, whilst the Causses figure in the map,
beyond a brief allusion to the Causse Noir, they are ignored
altogether. St. Enimie is not once mentioned, and nothing is said about
the gorges of the Tarn. As to Montpellier-le-Vieux, it could find no
place in a guide-book of that date, seeing that it was only discovered
ten years later. We now take the edition of 1883. Here, the route from
Mende to St. Enimie by way of Sauveterre is described also in the
fewest possible words, two pages being found sufficient for short
descriptions of the gorges of the Tarn by way of Florac, St. Enimie and
the valley of the Joute. Montpellier-le-Vieux, for the very good reason
mentioned above, is still absent. But just a year later we find the
guide-book remodelled altogether. Joanne now devotes an entire, volume
to the Cevennes, and states in his preface that the new issue of the