One might best compare the Ventoux with a heap of stones broken up for road-mending purposes. Raise this heap suddenly to a height of a mile and a quarter, increase its base in proportion, cover the white of the limestone with the black patch of the forests, and you have a clear idea of the general aspect of the mountain. This accumulation of rubbish—sometimes small chips, sometimes huge blocks—rises from the plain without preliminary slopes or successive terraces that would render the ascent less arduous by dividing it into stages. The climb begins at once by rocky paths, the best of which is worse than the surface of a road newly strewn with stones, and continues, becoming ever rougher and rougher, right to the summit, the height of which is 6270 feet. Greenswards, babbling brooks, the spacious shade of venerable trees, all the things, in short, that lend such charm to other mountains, are here unknown and are replaced by an interminable bed of limestone broken into scales, which slip under our feet with a sharp, almost metallic ‘click.’ By way of cascades the Ventoux has rills of stones; the rattle of falling rocks takes the place of the whispering waters. We are at Bédoin, at the foot of the mountain. The arrangements with the guide have been made, the hour of the start fixed; the provisions are being talked over and got ready. Let us try to rest, for we shall have to spend a sleepless night on the mountain to-morrow. But sleeping is just the difficulty; I have never managed it and that is where the chief cause of fatigue lies. I would therefore advise those of my readers who think of making a botanizing ascent of the Ventoux not to arrive at Bédoin on a Sunday evening. They will thus avoid the noisy bustle of an inn with a café attached to it, those endless loud-voiced conversations, those echoing cannons of the billiard-balls, the ringing of glasses, the drinking-songs, the ditties of nocturnal wayfarers, the bellowing of the brass band at the ball hard by, and the other tribulations inseparable from this blessed day of idleness and jollification. Will they obtain a better rest on a week-day? I hope so, but I do not guarantee it. For my part, I did not close an eye. All night long, the rusty spit, working to provide us with food, creaked and groaned under my bedroom. A thin board was all that separated me from that machine of the devil. But already the sky is growing light. A donkey brays beneath the windows. It is time to get up. We might as well not have gone to bed. Foodstuffs and baggage are strapped on; and, with a ‘Ja! Hi!’ from the guide, we are off. It is four o’clock in the morning. At the head of the caravan walks Triboulet, with his Mule and his Ass: Triboulet, the Nestor of the Ventoux guides. My botanical colleagues inspect the vegetation on either side of the road by the cold light of the dawn; the others talk. I follow the party with a barometer slung from my shoulder and a note-book and pencil in my hand.