We are at the source of the Grave, a slender stream of water caught, as it bubbles from the ground, in a series of long beech-trunk troughs, where the mountain shepherds come to water their flocks. The temperature of the spring is 45° F.; and its coolness is a priceless boon for us who have come from the sultry oven of the plain. The cloth is spread on a charming carpet of Alpine plants, with glittering among them the thyme-leaved paronychia, whose wide, thin bracts look like silver scales. The food is taken out of the bags, the bottles extracted from their bed of hay. On this side are the joints, the legs of mutton stuffed with garlic, the stacks of loaves; on that, the tasteless chickens, for our grinders to toy with presently, when the edge has been taken off our appetite. At no great distance, set in a place of honour, are the Ventoux cheeses spiced with winter savory, the little pébré d’asé cheeses, flanked by Aries sausages, whose pink flesh is mottled with cubes of bacon and whole pepper-corns. Over here, in this corner, are green olives still dripping with brine and black olives soaking in oil; in that other, Cavaillon melons, some white, some orange, to suit every taste; and, down there, a jar of anchovies which make you drink hard and so keep your strength up. Lastly, the bottles are cooling in the ice-cold water of the trough over there. Have we forgotten anything? Yes, we have not mentioned the crowning side-dish, the onions, to be eaten raw with salt. Our two Parisians—for we have two among us, my fellow-botanists—are at first a little startled by this very invigorating bill of fare; soon they will be the first to burst into praises. Are we all ready? Then let us sit down. And now begins one of those Homeric repasts which mark red-letter days in one’s life. The first mouthfuls are almost frenzied. Slices of mutton and chunks of bread follow one another with alarming rapidity. Each of us, without communicating his apprehensions to the others, casts an anxious glance at the victuals and asks himself: ‘If this is the way we are going on, shall we have enough for to-night and to-morrow?’ However, the craving is allayed; we began by devouring in silence, we now eat and talk. Our apprehensions for the morrow are likewise relieved; and we give due credit to the man who ordered the menu, who foresaw this hunger-fit and who arranged to cope with it worthily. The time has come for us to appreciate the victuals as connoisseurs. One praises the olives, stabbing them one by one with the point of his knife; another lauds the anchovies as he cuts up the little ochre-coloured fishes on his bread; a third waxes enthusiastic about the sausage; and all with one accord extol the pébré d’asé cheeses, no larger than the palm of a man’s hand. Pipes and cigars are lit; and we stretch ourselves on our backs in the grass, with the sun shining down upon us.