We were at the fountain of La Grave, a slender thread of water caught, as it issues from the ground, in a line of long troughs made of beech trunks, where the mountain shepherds water their flocks. The temperature of the spring was 7 degrees Cent.—a freshness inestimable for us who came up from the sultry heat of the plain. The cloth was spread over a charming carpet of Alpine plants, among which glittered the thyme-leaved Paronychia, whose large thin bracts are like silver scales. The provisions are taken out of their bags, the bottles out of their bed of hay. On this side are the solid dishes, legs of mutton stuffed with garlic, and piles of bread; there the insipid chickens, good to amuse one’s grinders when serious hunger has been appeased. Not far off, in a place of honour, are the Ventoux cheeses sprinkled with asses’ pepper, and hard by Arles sausages, whose pink flesh is marbled with squares of bacon and whole pepper. In this corner are green olives still dripping with pickle, and black ones seasoned with oil. In another are melons from Cavaillon, some white, some orange, to suit all tastes, and there a pot of anchovies which make a man drink hard and be tireless on the march, and finally the bottles, cooling in the icy water of a trough. Is nothing forgotten? Yes, we have not mentioned the crown of the feast, raw onions eaten with salt. Our two Parisians, for there are two among us, my fellow botanists, are at first taken somewhat aback by this decidedly bracing bill of fare. They will be the first, a little later, to break forth in its praise. All is ready. Let us to table! Then began one of those homeric meals which make an epoch in one’s life. The first mouthfuls have a touch of frenzy. Slices of leg of mutton and bread succeed one another with alarming rapidity. Each of us, without communicating his apprehensions, casts an anxious look on the provender, and says inwardly, “If we go on at this rate, will there be enough for this evening and to-morrow?” However, the craving abated: first we devoured silently, then we ate and talked; fears for the next day abated too; we did justice to him who ordered the bill of fare, and who, foreseeing our voracity, arranged to meet it worthily. Now came the time to appreciate the provisions as connoisseurs; one praises the olives, stabbing them singly with the point of his knife; another lauds the anchovies as he cuts up the little yellow-ochre fish on his bread; a third speaks enthusiastically of the sausages; and one and all agree in praising the asses’-pepper cheeses, no bigger than the palm of one’s hand. Pipes and cigars are lighted, and we lie on our backs in the sun upon the grass.