I raced down to Abries, and went on through the gorge of the Guil to Mont Dauphin. The next day found me at La Bessée, at the junction of the Val Louise with the valley of the Durance, in full view of Mont Pelvoux; and by chance I walked into a cabaret where a Frenchman was breakfasting who a few days before had made an unsuccessful attempt to ascend that mountain with three Englishmen and the guide Michel Croz of Chamounix—a right good fellow, by name Jean Reynaud. The same night I slept at Briançon, intending to take the courier on the following day to Grenoble, but all places had been secured several days beforehand, so I set out at two P.M. on the next, day for a seventy-mile walk. The weather was again bad, and on the summit of the Col de Lautaret I was forced to seek shelter in the wretched little hospice. It was filled with workmen who were employed on the road, and with noxious vapors which proceeded from them. The inclemency of the weather was preferable to the inhospitality of the interior. Outside, it was disagreeable, but grand—inside, it was disagreeable and mean. The walk was continued under a deluge of rain, and I felt the way down, so intense was the darkness, to the village of La Grave, where the people of the inn detained me forcibly. It was perhaps fortunate that they did so, for during that night blocks of rock fell at several places from the cliffs on to the road with such force that they made large holes in the macadam, which looked as if there had been explosions of gunpowder. I resumed the walk at half-past five next morning, and proceeded, under steady rain, through Bourg d’Oysans to Grenoble, arriving at the latter place soon after seven P. M., having accomplished the entire distance from Briançon in about eighteen hours of actual walking. This was the end of the Alpine portion of my tour of 1860, on which I was introduced to the great peaks, and acquired the passion for mountain-scrambling the development of which is described in the following chapters. [Illustration: BRIANÇON] CHAPTER II. THE ASCENT OF MONT PELVOUX. The district of which Mont Pelvoux and the neighboring summits are the culminating points is, both historically and topographically, one of the most interesting in the Alps. As the nursery and the home of the Vaudois, it has claims to permanent attention: the names of Waldo and of Neff will be remembered when men more famous in their time are forgotten, and the memory of the heroic courage and the simple piety of their disciples will endure as long as history lasts. This district contains the highest summits in France, and some of its finest scenery. It has not perhaps the beauties of Switzerland, but has charms of its own: its cliffs, its torrents and its gorges are unsurpassed, its deep and savage valleys present pictures of grandeur, and even sublimity, and it is second to none in the boldness of its mountain forms.