The Plomb is an old friend; with the black peaks of the Lioran, it closes our horizon in the valley, as you look to the north-east. Although the highest of our mountains (1858 metres)--and quite a respectable summit, for it is eight metres higher than the Righi--yet the Plomb is less effective than the frail ash-grey peak of Griou (1694 metres). From Olmet, these bound our view to the right. In front of us rises the long saddle-shaped back of the Courpou-Sauvage, strewn with rocks which simulate fantastic ruins. Out of sight, but close at hand, are Peyre-Arse, L’Usclade, Peyroux, Bataillouze, Puy Violent, Chavaroche, le Roc des Ombres. Their names preserve the image of a terror long forgotten. The Wild Creature, with Burnt Rock and Rock Ruddy; their neighbour, the Scorched Mountain, together with Rock Warful, Mount Violent and the Rock of Shadows, all rest in peace these many thousand years; the woods wave, the pasture flowers, the herds feed upon their rocky sides. Only the black stones, rolled smooth so long ago, fallen among our fields of flowering buckwheat; only these, and the veins of lava, which burst their veil of mountain-pink and heather, remain and tell of that enormous upheaval, still apparent, of an elder world. It is astonishing with what personality an accustomed eye invests a mountain. We say: “The Lioran is darker than usual this morning,” as we should say: “Emilia has a headache.” And what a pleasure when, towards September, the Courpou-Sauvage begins to blush with the blossoming heather! No mountains have ever seemed to me so friendly as these. They are not very high above our valley, which is situate some 2000 feet above sea-level, so that we behold a scant two-thirds of their real height. But their forms are lovely in their infinite variety. Time cannot wither them, nor custom stale. Woods cling to them; cliffs and rocks jut from them in peak or turret; cascades and fountains and innumerable streams gush from their hearts of fire; pasture, fern or heather robe them higher than the girdle; only the peaks are bare and take a thousand colours in the changing lights. The hills do not rise sheer from the bottom, as in Switzerland. Innumerable landslips have torn their sides which, at periods of great distance, have fallen away from the cliff, heaping the ground with vast swellings and ridges, in much romantic confusion. Even to-day, these landslips continue, and the aspect of the country is slowly but continually transformed. Covered with beechwood or heather near the heights, green with pasture lower down, these ledges and terraces lead the eye to the valley bottom, which itself is never flat, but cradle-shaped. And therein lies the small winding river of the Cère.