So they toil, and thrive, and bless God, under the glorious sun; and as for rain—they have not had rain for these two months—(I speak of April, 1864)—and, though the white limestone dust is ankle deep on every road, say that they want none for two months more, thanks, it is to be presumed, to their deep tillage, which puts the plant-roots out of the reach of drought. In spring they feed their silkworms, and wind their silk. In summer they reap their crops, and hang the maize-heads from their rafters for their own winter food, while they sell the wheat to the poor creatures, objects of their pity, who live in towns, and are forced to eat white bread. From spring to autumn they have fruit, and to spare, for themselves and for their customers; and with the autumn comes the vintage, and all its classic revelries. A happy folk—under a happy clime; which yet has its drawbacks, like all climes on earth. Terrible thunderstorms sweep over it, hail-laden, killing, battering, drowning, destroying in an hour the labours of the year; and there are ugly mistral winds likewise, of which it may be fairly said, that he who can face an eight days’ mistral, without finding his life a burden, must be either a very valiant man, or have neither liver nor mucous membrane. For on a sudden, after still and burning weather, the thermometer suddenly falls from thirty to forty degrees; and out of the north-west rushes a chilly hurricane, blowing fiercer and fiercer each day toward nightfall, and lulling in the small hours, only to burst forth again at sunrise. Parched are all lips and eyes; for the air is full of dust, yea, even of gravel which cuts like hail. Aching are all right-sides; for the sudden chill brings on all manner of liver complaints and indigestions. All who can afford it, draw tight the jalousies, and sulk in darkness; the leaves are parched, as by an Atlantic gale; the air is filled with lurid haze, as in an English north-east wind; and no man can breathe freely, or eat his bread with joy, until the plague is past. What is the cause of these mistrals; why all the cold air of Central France should be suddenly seized with madness, and rush into the sea between the Alps and the Pyrenees; whether the great heat of the sun, acting on the Mediterranean basin, raises up thence—as from the Gulf of Mexico—columns of warm light air, whose place has to be supplied by colder and heavier air from inland; whether the north-west mistral is, or is not, a diverted north-easter; an arctic current which, in its right road toward the tropics across the centre of France, has been called to the eastward of the Pyrenees (instead of, as usual, to the westward), by the sudden demand for cold air,—all this let men of science decide; and having discovered what causes the mistral, discover also what will prevent it. That would be indeed a triumph of science, and a boon to tortured humanity.