The valley winding up to the Peak, again lay before us; but we were now amongst the mountains indeed, and on either side, at the distance of less than half a mile, rose crags, and precipices, and hills covered with pine, towering to the very sky, and forming, as it were the impassable walls of the garden into which we were entering;--for it was a garden. Up to the very foot of the rocks, and climbing up the hills, wherever a spot of vegetable mould was to be found, the highest cultivation was extended, and the most extraordinary verdure. The hay and the corn harvest were both in progress at the same time and the new-mown fields appeared as if covered with rich green velvet, on which the large trees and rocks threw a beautiful transparent shadow. There were a thousand little objects of interest that filled up every spot the eye could rest upon, and satisfied it altogether. The valley all along was spotted with small villages, which seemed to creep for shelter close to the foot of the mountains. Not far on, stood a high rocky mound covered with the ruin of some feudal castle, and below lay a hamlet with its little church and the path winding up to it. Multitudes of small mountain-bridges crossed the river all the way up its course, as it came dashing and foaming over a bed of rocks. The crags, on either side, were broken and interspersed with rich hanging wood, and kept narrowing in the distance, till they seemed to meet, precipice over precipice, with the high conical Pic du Midi, rising purple above them all; and at the same time the warm sunshine, pouring over the hills, gave to all the further parts of the valley a kind of luminous indistinctness. I cannot describe it! It was a congregation of the grandest and the most minute, the most opposite and the most harmonious beauties, that nature can produce! After having staid some time to admire, we passed on over a light, elegant little bridge, and followed an excellent read towards the Eaux Bonnes. In a valley which turns away to the left, lay the little town of Alurdi, scattered amongst some lesser hills. Part of it has been twice destroyed by avalanches, but the people still continue to build up the houses exactly on the same spot. However grand the hills may appear, the eye, unaccustomed to such vast objects, does not judge rightly of their height till it compares them to something with which it is familiar. The steeple of Alurdi served us as a guide to estimate the objects around, and the effect was so extraordinary, that we both laughed on measuring it against the mountain behind. I am sure I know not why I laughed, for there is nothing in the littleness of man's works to make him merry; but so it was, and we went on.