with the thermometer rapidly falling to freezing-point.




CHAPTER V.
RODEZ AND AURILLAC.


To travel from St. Chely d'Apcher to Rodez is like descending a snow-
capped Alpine peak for the flowery, sunbright valley below. Instead of
the stern grandeur of the Lozere, frowning peaks, sombre pine-forests,
vast stony deserts and wintry blasts, we glide swiftly into a balmy
region of golden vineyards, rich chestnut woods, softly murmuring
streams, and the temperature of July. The transformation is magical. It
is like closing a volume of Ossian and opening the pages of Theocritus.

We had spent our morning indoors at St. Chely, cloaked and shawled over
a blazing wood fire, quitting at one o'clock p.m. ice-cold rain, biting
winds, and a gloomy sky. By sundown we had reached the chef-lieu of the
Aveyron; we were in the South indeed! The scenery during the latter
part of the way is beautiful and exhilarating, every feature showing
the ripest, most brilliant tints--hills clothed with the yellowing
chestnut, soil of deep purplish red, the bright gold foliage of the
vine, and between spring-like greenery and azure sky, close to the
railway, the crystal-clear Aveyron.

And here all is new and fresh; no familiar tourist element enters into
the day's experience. As our train stops at one picturesque village
after another, we see young soldiers, reservistes, alight, returning