To any one with any love of plants, to any one with blood in his veins, the expedition was a tempting one. So we see him set out for the twenty-third time in company with two colleagues [61] and five others. Let us join them if we wish to make the acquaintance of the botanist of Mont Ventoux as well as the botany; for Fabre is one who throws himself wholly into all that he does, and his history can no more be divorced from that of his plants than from that of his beloved insects. 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. My barometer, intended for taking the altitude of the principal botanical halts, soon becomes a pretext for attacks on the gourd with the rum. No sooner is a noteworthy plant observed than somebody cries: “Quick, let’s look at the barometer!” And we all crowd around the gourd, the scientific instrument coming later. The coolness of the morning and our walk make us appreciate these references to the barometer so thoroughly that the level of the stimulant falls even more swiftly than that of the mercury. In the interests of the immediate future I must consult Torricelli’s tube a little less often. As the temperature grows too cold for them, first the oak and the ilex disappear by degrees; then the vine and the almond-tree; and next the mulberry, the walnut-tree, and the white oak. Box becomes plentiful. We enter upon a monotonous region extending from the end of the cultivated fields to the lower boundary of the beech-woods, where the predominant plant is Satureia montana, the winter savory, known here by its popular name of pébré d’asé, Ass’s pepper, because of the acrid flavour of its tiny leaves, impregnated with essential oil. Certain small cheeses forming part of our stores are powdered with this strong spice. Already more than one of us is biting into them in imagination and casting hungry glances at the provision bags carried by the Mule. Our hard morning exercise has brought appetite, and more than appetite, a devouring hunger, what Horace calls latrans stomachus. I teach my colleagues how to stay this rumbling stomach until they reach the next halt; I show them a little sorrel-plant, with arrow-head leaves, the Rumex scutatus, or French sorrel; and, practising what I preach, I pick a mouthful. At first they laugh at my suggestion. I let them laugh and soon see them all occupied, each more eagerly than his fellow, in plucking the precious sorrel.