roof of the grotto, covered with big massive icicles, the least of which, falling on me, had been sufficient to scramble up my brains and knock me to pieces; so much so that I was like to that criminal, whom they say is punished in Hell, by the continual fear of a big stone, which seems as though it must suddenly fall on his ears. There are besides the large hall of the grotto, some rather roomy corners, where the gentlemen of the neighborhood, put their venison to cool in summer, and we saw the hooks, where they hang the wild fowl. It is true, that when we were there, we saw neither game nor wild fowl, and I think, that if we had found any of it, we were men to carry off some of it. We walked around for about a quarter of an hour, in this _Froidiere_ and we should have staid there longer if the cold had not driven us out; which struck in to our backs, even to make our teeth crack; we reascended the slope, not forgetting, all of us as many as we were, to provide and load ourselves with ice, which served us at lunch in the little village mentioned above to drink most delightfully, assuring you that it is impossible to drink more freshly than we drank then. I thought of those old voluptuaries, who cooled their wine with snow, and it seemed to me, as though they might have had it much cheaper if in their time there had been many such _Froidieres_, to refresh it with ice, instead of with snow, as some of the gentlemen of the neighborhood of the _Froidiere_ and some of the most notable persons of the neighborhood of Bezenson do; who by night, have a good supply brought on horses, which they keep in their caves, and use at their meals and banquets. Turning back towards the Imperial city of Bezenson, I carried for about two great leagues, a rather large icicle in my hands, which little by little melted and was a pleasant and agreeable cooler, on account of the great heat of the weather. After having thought over in my mind, the cause of this _antiperistase_, I could find none other but this: to wit, that as heat domineers in summer, the cold retires to places low and subterranean, such as is this one, to which the rays of the sun cannot approach, and that in such an aquatic and humid place, it operates the results, which we have shown above. Which seemed to me so much more likely, that on asking the peasants of the neighboring village, if in winter there was ice in this _Froidiere_, they answered me that there was none, and that on the contrary, it was very warm there. Whatever may be the cause, whether this or another, I can assure you, that I admired this singularity as much as any I have seen, since a large church, cut into a rock which I had seen a few years previously, in a little town of Gascony called St. Milion, distant seven leagues from Bordeaux; on the steeple of which is the cemetery, where they bury the dead; a thing to be marvelled at by him who has not seen it.