INTRODUCTORY.


It is upon this occasion my rare and happy privilege to introduce the
reader to something absolutely new. How many English-speaking tourists
have found their way to the Roof of France--in other words, the ancient
Gevaudan, the romantic department of the Lozere? How many English--or
for the matter of that French travellers either--have so much as heard
of the Causses, [Footnote: From calx, lime] those lofty tablelands of
limestone, groups of a veritable archipelago, once an integral whole,
now cleft asunder, forming the most picturesque gorges and magnificent
defiles; offering contrasts of scenery as striking as they are sublime,
and a phenomenon unique in geological history? On the plateau of the
typical Causse, wide in extent as Dartmoor, lofty as Helvellyn, we
realize all the sombreness and solitude of the Russian steppe. These
stony wastes, aridity itself, yet a carpet of wild-flowers in spring,
are sparsely peopled by a race having a peculiar language, a
characteristic physique, and primitive customs. Here are laboriously
cultivated oats, rye, potatoes--not a blade of wheat, not an apple-tree
is to be discerned; no spring or rivulet freshens the parched soil. The
length and severity of the winter are betokened by the trees and poles
seen at intervals on either side of the road. But for such precautions,
even the native wayfarer would be lost when six feet of snow cover the
ground. Winter lasts eight months, and the short summer is tropical.

But descend these grandiose passes, dividing one limestone promontory
from another--go down into the valleys, each watered by lovely rivers,