It is a wondrous spectacle--wall upon wall of lofty limestone, making what seems an impenetrable barrier, closing around us, threatening to shut out the very heavens; at our feet an ever-narrowing mountain pass or valley, the shelves of the rock running vertically down. When at last from our dizzy height our driver bids us look down, we discern the gray roofs of St. Énimie wedged between the congregated escarpments far below, the little town lying immediately under our feet, as the streets around St. Paul's when viewed from the dome. We say to ourselves we can never get there. The feat of descending those perpendicular cliffs seems impossible. It does not do to contemplate the road we have to take, winding like a ribbon round the upright shafts of the Causse. Follow it we must. We are high above the inhabited world, up in cloudland; there is nothing to do but descend as best we can; so we trust to our good driver and steady horses, obliged to follow the sharply-winding road at walking pace. And bit by bit--how we don't know--the horizontal zigzag is accomplished. We are down at last! CHAPTER IX. ST. ÉNIMIE. How can I describe the unimaginable picturesqueness of this little town wedged in between the crowding hills, dropped like a pebble to the bottom of a mountain-girt gulf? St. Énimie has grown terrace-wise, zigzagging the steep sides of the Causse, its quaint spire rising in the midst of rows of whitewashed houses, with steel-gray overhanging roofs, vine-trellised balconies, and little hanging gardens perched aloft. On all sides just outside the town are vineyards, now golden in hue, peach-trees and almond groves, whilst above and far around the gray walls of the Causse shut out all but the meridian rays of the sun. As I write this, at six o'clock on the evening of the 5th of September, the last crimson flush of the setting sun lingers on the sombre, grandiose Causse Méjean. All the rest of the scene, the lower ranges around, are in a cool gray shadow: silvery the spire and roofs just opposite my window, silvery the atmosphere of the entire picture. Nothing can be more poetic in colour, form, and combination. Close under my room are vegetable gardens and orchards, whilst in harmony with the little town, and adding a still greater look of old-worldness, are the arched walls of the old château-fort. As evening closes in, the fascination of the scene deepens; spire and roofs, shadowy hill and stern mountain fastness, are all outlined in pale, silvery tones against a pure pink and opaline sky, the greenery of near vine and peach-tree all standing out in bold relief, blotches of greenish gold upon a dark ground. I must describe our inn, the most rustic we had as yet met with, nevertheless to be warmly recommended on account of the integrity and bonhomie of the people.