They have probably just arrived here, these savage tribes, dressed in greyish blue; they are recent settlers, for all their arrangements are new and improvised, and so likewise is the interminable winding road which they have laid out, and which to-day our motor cars, with the help of a little goodwill, manage to climb so rapidly. One of the peculiarities of these hidden villages which crouch in the shade of the lofty forest trees is that each has its own cemetery, tenderly cared for, so close that it almost borders on the dwellings, as if the living were anxious not to sever their comradeship with the dead. But how comes it that death is so frequent among these limpid streams, in a region where the air is so invigorating and so pure? These tombs, so disquieting in their disproportionate numbers, are ranged in rows, all with the same humble crosses of wood. They have borders of ferns carefully watered, or of little pebbles, well selected. Flowers such as thrive in shady places and are common in these parts, shoot up their pretty pink spikes all around, and the whole scene is steeped in the green translucent twilight which envelops the whole mountain, the twilight of these unchanging trees, pines and larches, stretching away into infinity, crowded together like wheat in a field, tall and straight like gigantic masts. In our haste to reach that Inn of the Good Samaritan, which is our destination, we keep on climbing at a rapid pace, notwithstanding acute-angled corners where our cars have to back before they can effect the turn, and other awkward places where our cars slip on the wet soil, skid, and come to a stop. These tribes, so primitive in appearance, through whose midst we have been travelling since the morning, seem to be concentrating their energies especially on making these roads, which, one would think, cannot really be necessary to their simple mode of existence. In our onward course we meet nearly all these men, working with might and main, with axes, shovels, stakes and picks, hurrying as if the task were urgent. They stand erect for a moment to salute us, smiling a little with touching and respectful familiarity, and then they bend down again to their arduous work, levelling, enlarging, timbering, or digging out roots that are in the way, and rocks that encroach. And when we were told that it is scarcely ten months since they began this exhausting work in the midst of forest, virgin hitherto, we are fain to believe that all the Genii of the mountains have roused themselves and lent their magic help.