commenced the ascent towards the 'Devil's City.' A mule-path wound up
the steep side of the gorge, which had been partly reclaimed from the
desert by means of terraces where many almond-trees flourished, safe
from the north wind. Very scanty, however, was the vegetation that
grew upon this dry stony soil, burning in summer, and washed in winter
of its organic matter by the mountain rains. Tall woody spurges two
feet high or more, with tufts of dusty green leaves, managed to draw,
however, abundant moisture from the waste, as the milk that gushed
from the smallest wound attested. An everlasting pea, with very large
flowers of a deep rose-colour, also loved this arid steep. I was
wondering why I found no lavender, when I saw a gray-blue tuft above
me, and welcomed it like an old friend. The air was soon scented with
the plant, and for five days I was in the land of lavender. On nearing
the buttresses of the plateau the ground was less steep, and here I
came to pines, junipers, oaks, and the bird-cherry prunus. But the
tree which I was most pleased to find was a plum, with ripe fruit
about the size of a small greengage, but of a beautiful pale
rose-colour.
I am now upon the _causse_ and already see the castellated outworks
of the 'Devil's City.' The city itself lies in a hollow, and I have
not yet reached it. The mule-path fortunately leads in the right
direction. On my way multitudes of very dark, almost black,
butterflies flutter up from the short turf, which is flecked with
the gold of yellow everlastings. Here and there a solitary
round-headed allium nods from the top of its long leafless stem. I
walk over the shining dark leaves and the scarlet beads of the
bearberry, and am presently roaming in the fantastic streets of the
dolomitic city. To say streets is scarcely an exaggeration, for
these jutting rocks have in places almost the regularity of the
menhirs of Carnac. But the megalithic monuments of Brittany are like
arrow-heads compared to the stones of Montpellier-le-Vieux. In
placing these and in giving them that mimicry of familiar forms at
times so startling to human eyes, Nature has been the sole engineer
and artist. There is but one theory by which the working cause of
the existing phenomena can be brought to our understanding. It is
that these honeycombed and fantastically-shaped masses of dolomite
or magnesian limestone represent the skeletons of vaster rocks whose
less resisting parts were washed away by the wearing action of the
sea. Some are formed of blocks of varying size, lying one upon
another, with a pinnacle or dome at the summit; others show no trace
of stratification, but are integral rocks which in many cases appear
to have been cut away and fashioned to the mocking likeness of some
animal form by a demon statuary. Now it is a colossal owl, now a
frightful head that may be human or devilish, now some inanimate
shape such as a prodigious wineglass which fixes the eye and excites
the fancy. A mass of rock on which can be seen half sitting, half
reclining, a monstrous stony shape with head hideously jovial, has
been named the 'Devil's Chair.'
I saw this spot under circumstances very favourable to the full
reception of its fantastic, mysterious, and gloomy influence. It was
late enough in the afternoon for the feeling of evening and of the
coming night to be in the air, especially here, where dark pines stood
in the mimic streets and squares like cypresses in a cemetery. The
awful mournfulness of the shadowy groves was deepened by my own
solitariness, for although surrounded by frightful shapes that
caricatured humanity, mine was the only human form that moved amongst
the dumb but fiend-like rocks and the pines, which moaned and
whispered like unhappy ghosts. I was alone in the 'Devil's City,' and
perchance with the devil himself. When a hawk flew over and screamed
it was welcome, although there was nothing cheerful in its cry. There
could be no severer trial perhaps to the nerves of a superstitious
person than to take a solitary walk by moonlight through
Montpellier-le-Vieux. The sense of the weird and the horrible would
give him too many cold shudders for him to enjoy the grandeur and the
strangeness of the scene.
The superstitious horror in which this spot has always been held by
the peasants--chiefly shepherds--of the district, together with the
fact that the rustic, uninfluenced from without, never speaks of rocks
except in terms of contempt, however extraordinary their forms may be,
must be the reason why Montpellier-le-Vieux has only been known of
late years to persons interested in such curiosities of nature. To the
geologist it is fascinating ground, as, indeed, is the whole expanse
of these _causses_ of Guyenne and Upper Languedoc, so fissured and
honeycombed--a region of gorges and caverns, of subterranean lakes and
rivers, of bottomless pits and mysterious streams.
It is said that the dolomitic city owes its name, Montpellier-le-Vieux,
to the shepherds of Lower Languedoc, who from time immemorial have
brought their flocks in summer to pasture upon these highlands. In
their dialect they call Montpellier, which is to them what Paris is to
the peasants of the Brie, 'Lou Clapas'--literally, a heap of stones. On
seeing rocks covering several acres, and looking like the ruins of a
great city of the past, they could think of no better name for it than
'Lou Clapas Biel,' or 'old heap of stones.' This turned into French
becomes Montpellier-le-Vieux.
The 'Devil's City' can be recommended to the botanist, who need not
fear that the flowers he will find there will wither at his touch like
those gathered for Marguerite by her guileless lover. The
ever-crumbling dolomite has formed a soil very favourable to a varied
flora. As I had, however, to reach the gorge of the Tarn before
nightfall, and it was still far off, I only took away two souvenirs of
the diabolic garden--a white scabious and a bit of rock-potentil.
The name given to the tract of country I was now crossing--the Causse
Noir, fitly describes it, It is singularly dark and mournful, and
almost uninhabited. It is not, strictly speaking, a plateau, but a
succession of valleys and low hills like the bed of the ocean. The
barren land is thickly overgrown with box and juniper, and these
shrubs, which often attain a height of six or eight feet, sufficiently
account for the sombre tone of the landscape. Here and there savage
little, gorges run up between the dismal hills, with trees of larger
growth, such as oaks and pines, in the hollows. There is good reason
to believe that all these _causses_ were at one time more or less
covered by forests; but the reason commonly given for their
disappearance--namely, that they were burnt down during the religious
wars--is less likely to be the true one than that they gradually
perished because it was nobody's business to protect the seedlings
from sheep and goats--animals capable of changing the world into a
treeless desert, but which, fortunately, cease to be profitable when
they come down from the sterile highlands, where they thrive best,
into the rich plains and valleys. The disastrous floods which occur
with such appalling suddenness in the valleys of the Tarn and the Lot
are due in a large measure to the nudity of the _causses_ and the
Cevennes, where these mountains turn northward and cross the Lozère to
meet the Auvergne range. The French Government nurses the hope that it
will be able some day to cover much of the baldness of this extensive
region with magnificent pine-forests, and planting actually goes on in
places; but what with the nibbling flocks, and the increasing seventy
of the winters, the measure of success already obtained by such
laudable efforts is not encouraging.
I wished to reach Peyreleau that night, but how to get there I knew
not otherwise than by persistently keeping in a north-easterly course,
and despising all natural obstacles. I was attracted by what looked
like a road running up between two hills in the right direction; but
when I came to it I found that it was the dry channel of a stream. I
nevertheless took advantage of it, as I have of many another such in
the South, although there are few watercourses whose beds can be
walked upon with comfort. I was lucky now beyond my expectations, for
it was not long before I struck a road which I was sure could lead
nowhere but to Peyreleau. It first took me through a darkly-wooded
gorge, where evening stood like a nun in a chapel. The brilliant sky
had changed to a sad gray. There was to be no gorgeous sunset, with
rosy after-glow, softening with transparent colour the harshness of
the dark box and darker juniper. No: the day that commenced sadly was
ending sadly--going to its grave in a gray habit with drawn cowl. A
great falcon passed slowly on its way under the dull sky, but no bird
nor beast uttered a sound. The Causse Noir was as silent as a crypt.
I became very uncertain where this road over the dismal solitude was
going to lead me, for it turned about in such a way as to put me out
of my reckoning. At length I saw a deep gorge yawning below, and this
told me that I had reached the edge of the _causse_. Oh, the sublime
desolation of these heights and depths in the solemn evening! How,
mournful then is the silence of the innumerable, gray stones and
monstrous rocks which try to speak to us like creatures once eloquent
and possessing the knowledge of wondrous changes, and the key to
problems that everlastingly distress the human mind, but on which the
curse of dumbness has lain for ages!
I thought that I must have wandered beyond the peopled world, when
suddenly I saw, far down in the bottom of the widening valley, a
village or small town at the foot of a cone-shaped hill. The little
river running near satisfied me that I was in view of Peyreleau. The
descent was tedious and long, notwithstanding the loops that I cut off
of the curling road by scrambling down the steep sides of the gorge
over the loose stones and lavender. It was still daylight when I
reached a small hotel, outside of which some tourists were smoking
cigarettes and drinking beer while waiting for dinner. Until then I
had not seen a tourist after leaving Albi. All through the Albigeois
and the Rouergue, I was looked upon as an animal of unknown species,
and possibly noxious; but here I was recognised at once as one of a
familiar tribe, of small brain development, but harmless. I had
entered a region which for several years past had drawn to it many
persons--mostly French--who had heard of the grand gorge, or cañon, of
the Tarn.
I had been told that the right way--the one followed by all sensible
people--of seeing the gorge from Sainte-Enimie to Le Rozier was to
come down the stream in a boat; but circumstances, or my own
perversity, had led me once more to do the thing that was considered
wrong. Instead of coming down the swift stream like a fly on a leaf,
my intention was to crawl up the gorge by such goat or mule paths as
were available on the margin of the river or on the ledges of the
cliffs. Thus I should not be obliged to treat every fresh view as if
it were a bird on the wing, but could dawdle as long as I pleased over
this or that object without being a trouble to anybody.
It was far from unpleasant, however, to spend an evening at this
water-side inn with people fresh from Paris, bringing with them the
spray of the sea that beats against the shores of high-strung life.
Nor was it unpleasant to find a little refinement in the kitchen
again, and to eat trout not saturated with the essence of garlic.
THE CAÑON OF THE TARN.
At an early hour next morning I was making my way up the gorge beside
the Tarn; but before leaving Peyreleau, I wandered about its steep
streets--in some places a series of steps cut in the rock--noted
Gothic doorways, and houses with interior vaulting, and climbed to the
top of a machicolated tower built over the ivy-draped wall of a ruined
castle. The place is very charming to the eye; but in this region one
soon becomes a spoilt child of the picturesque, and the mind, fatigued
by admiration, loses something of its sensibility to the impressions
of beauty and grandeur, and is capable of passing by almost unmoved
what, where Nature deals out her surprises with a calmer hand, might
engrave upon the memory images of lasting delight. This is the chief
reason, perhaps, why I hate the hurry of the sightseer who, even in
his pleasure, makes himself the bondman of time and the creature of
convention.
It was pleasant and easy walking on the bank of the river, for as yet
the cliffs were far apart, and in the valley there were strips of
meadow and flowering buckwheat. The water, where it was not broken
into white anger by the rocky channel, was intensely green with the
reflection of poplar and alder, although of crystal clearness. I
watched the large trout swimming in the pools, and wished I had a rod,
but consoled myself with the thought that if I had brought one I
should probably have not seen a fish. Opportunities are never so ready
to show themselves as when we have not the means of seizing them.
While I was looking at the river, a boat shot into view round a bend
of the gorge and came down like an arrow over the rapids. It contained
a small party of tourists and two boatmen, who stood in. the
flat-bottomed craft with poles in their hands, with which they kept it
clear of the rocks. I understood at once the delicious excitement of
coming down the Tarn in this fashion. Bucketfuls of water are often
shipped where the stream rushes furiously between walls of rock; but
the men have become so expert with practice that the risk of being
capsized is very slight. In a few minutes the boat had vanished, and
then the gorge became wilder and sterner; but just as I thought the
sentiment of desolation perfect, a little goatherd, who had climbed
high up the rocks somewhere with his equally sure-footed companions,
began to sing, not a pastoral ditty in the Southern dialect, but the
'Marseillaise,' thus recalling with shocking incongruity impressions
of screaming barrel-organs at the fête of St. Cloud.
The gorge narrowed and the rocks rose higher, the topmost crags being
1,000 or 1,200 feet above the water. Although everything here was on a
grander scale, all the strong peculiarities of formation which I had
remarked elsewhere in Guyenne and Languedoc, wherever the layers of
Jurassic rock have split asunder and produced gorges more or less
profound, were repeated in this cañon of the Tarn.
Competent geologists, however, have noted a distinctive difference,
namely: that, of all the rivers running in the fissures of the
_causses_, the Tarn is the only one whose water does not penetrate to
the beds of marl beneath the lias; and this is said to partly explain
the great height and verticality of the cliffs, for when the water
reaches the marl it saps the foundations of the rocks, and these,
subsiding, send their dislocated masses rolling to the bottom of the
gorge.
I overtook a man and two boys who were hauling and pushing a boat
up-stream. The man was wading in the water with a towing-rope over his
shoulder, and the boys were in the punt plying their boat-hooks
against the rocks and the bed of the river. They made very slow
headway on account of the strength and frequency of the rapids. In
coming down the Tarn, all that the boatman has to do is to use his
_gaffe_ so as to keep clear of the rocks; but the return-journey is by
no means so pleasant and exciting.
I passed a little cluster of hovels built against the rock, and here a
kind woman offered me some sheep's milk, which I declined for no
better reason than because it was sheep's.
Towards mid-day I reached the village of Les Vignes, which takes its
name from the vineyards which have long been cultivated here, where
the gorge widens somewhat, and offers opportunities to husbandry. The
great cliffs protect vegetation and human life from the mountain
climate which prevails upon the dismal Causse Méjan and the Causse de
Sauveterre, separated by the deep fissure. Until tourists came to the
Tarn, Les Vignes was quite cut off from the world, but now it is a
halting-place for the boatmen and their passengers; and a little
auberge, while retaining all its rustic charm, provides the traveller
with a good meal at a fair price. The rush of strangers during the
summer has not yet been sufficient to spoil the river-side people
between Sainte-Enimie and Peyreleau by fostering that spirit of
speculation which, when it takes hold of an inn-keeper, almost fatally
classifies him with predatory animals.
On reaching the auberge I walked straight into the kitchen as usual. A
fowl and a leg of mutton were turning on the spit, and the hostess was
very busy with stewpans and other utensils on various parts of her
broad hearth. I soon learnt that a party of several persons had
arrived before me, and that all these preparations were for them. My
application for a meal was not met with a refusal, but it was evident
that I should have to wait until others were served, and that, they
having bespoken the best of everything in the house, my position was
not as satisfactory as could be desired. I suppose I must have looked
rather sad, for one of the party who had so swooped down upon the
little inn and all its resources suggested that I should take my meal
at their table. I should have accepted this offer with more hesitation
had I known that they had brought with them the _pièce de résistance_,
the leg of mutton, nearly as large as an English one, that was
browning upon the spit before the blazing wood. After thinking myself
unlucky, it turned out that I was in luck's way.
I was presently seated at a long table with about a dozen others of
both sexes, all relatives or old friends. They belonged to the small
town of Severac, and had driven in two queer countrified vehicles
about fifteen miles in order to spend a happy day at Les Vignes. They
were terribly noisy, but boundlessly good-natured. Not only was I made
to share their leg of mutton, but also the champagne which they had
brought with them. The modest lunch that I had expected became a
veritable feast, and having been entangled in the convivial meshes, I
had to stay until the end of it all. The experience was worth
something as a study of provincial life and manners. These
people--husbands and wives and friends--had come out with the
determination to enjoy themselves, and their enjoyment was not merely
hearty; it was hurricane-like. There were moments when pieces of bread
and green almonds were flying across the table, and the noise of
voices was so terrific that the quiet hostess looked in at the door
with a scared expression which made me think she was wondering how
much longer the roof would be able to remain in its right place. Then,
the jokes that were exchanged over the table were as broad as the
humour of the South is broad. I felt sorry for the women, but quite
unnecessarily. Although the local colour was not refined, human nature
present was frank, hospitable, and irresistibly warm-hearted. The
vulgarity of the party was of the unselfish sort, and therefore
amusing. The enjoyment of each was the enjoyment of all; and even when
the tempest of humour was at its height, not a word was said that was
intended to be offensive. As a compliment to me, they all rose to
their feet, glasses in hand, and the hostess was again startled by a
mighty rush of sound repeating the words 'Vive l'Angleterre!' far up
and down the valley.
Instead of going on to La Malène that afternoon, as I had intended, I
went after crayfish with one of the members of this jovial party, who
had brought with him the necessary tackle for the sport. There are
various ways of catching crayfish; but in this district the favourite
method is the following: Small wire hoops, about a foot in diameter,
are covered with netting strained nearly tight, and to this pieces of
liver or other meat are tied. A cord a few yards long, fastened to the
centre of the netting, completes the tackle. The baited snare is
thrown into the stream, not far from the bank, and generally where the
bottom is strewn with stones. No more art is needed. The crayfish,
supposing them to be in the humour to eat, soon smell the meat or
divine its presence, and, coming forth from their lairs beneath the
stones, make towards the lure with greedy alacrity. Their movements
can be generally watched, for although they are not delicate feeders,
they are as difficult as Chinamen to please in the matter of water,
and are only to be found in very clear streams. As is the case with
their congeners--the sea crayfish and the crab--greediness renders
them stupid, and, rather than leave a piece of meat which is to their
taste, they will allow themselves to be pulled with it out of the
water. It sometimes happens that the netting is covered with these
creatures in a few minutes, and that all the trouble the fisherman has
is to haul them up. But they are capricious, and, notwithstanding
their voracity, there are times when they will not leave their holes
upon any consideration. Such was their humour to-day. The cause of
their sullenness was said to be a wind that rippled the surface of the
water; but, whatever the reason, not a crayfish did we catch.
The breeze which was supposed to have upset the temper of the
crustaceous multitude in the Tarn blew up bad weather before night.
The panic-stricken leaves upon the alders and poplars announced the
change with palsied movements and plaintive cries; the willows
whitened, and bent towards the stream; and muttered threats of the
strife-breeding spirits in nature seemed to issue from caverns half
hidden by sombre foliage. As the gorge darkened, the gusts grew
stronger, and the moaning rose at times to a shriek. Now the thunder
groaned, the lightning flashed, and the face of the river gleamed. I
returned to the inn just as the hissing rain began to fall. I was by
this time alone, for the party from Severac had left at the approach
of the storm.
As I took my solitary evening meal in a low building cut off from the
inn, composed of a large _salle-à-manger_--the same in which the feast
was held--and a bedroom, where I was to pass the rest of the night, I
could not help contrasting the exuberant joviality of the morning with
the absolute want of it now. The place seemed much too big for me; I
had rather it had been half as large, to have got rid of half the
shadow. Instead of the tempestuous laughter, there was the thunder's
roar. There was also the lightning's flash to drive the shadows out of
the corners from time to time. It was a wild and awful night.
I was busily building around me a vaporous rampart of tobacco-smoke,
as a barrier to gloomy suggestions from without, when the door
suddenly opened, and in walked two gendarmes--one a very
self-important-looking brigadier, with thin sharp nose and keen,
weasel-like eyes. My immediate impression was that they had come to
question me respecting my intentions--inasmuch as I was not going to
work in the same way as other tourists--and possibly to ask me for my
papers; but I was mistaken. They had merely taken shelter from the
rain, and they had not found a refuge too soon, for their appearance
was that of half-drowned rats. The brigadier called for a bottle of
beer, and while he and his younger companion were drinking it I learnt
from their conversation what business had taken them out of doors that
night. Their object was to surprise the fish-poachers at the illegal,
but very exciting and picturesque, sport of spearing by torchlight.
Now, as I had already seen these night-poachers at work on the Tarn, I
may as well describe their method here.
I was walking one dark night on the bank of the river near Ambialet,
when a glare of lurid light suddenly shot up from the water some
distance in front of me, illuminating the willows, and even the black
woods, on each side of the gorge. I imagined myself at once in a
Canadian forest, near an Indian camp-fire. The light came gliding in
my direction, and presently I distinguished the forms of men in a
boat, all lit up by the glare. One was punting; another was holding
aloft, not a torch, but blazing brushwood--which I afterwards learnt
was broom-that he replenished from a heap in the boat; and a third was
in the stern, gazing intently at the water, and holding in his hand a
staff, which he plunged from time to time to the bottom of the stream.
I understood that this was the _pêche au flambeau_, of which I had
already heard.