djoining rampart, as if they had been
blocks of wood instead of live human heads. The shrieks of the
miserable beings excited no compassion; on the contrary, it afforded
amusement to their executioners: so that games of skittles upon the same
principle were played the whole length of this meadow.

Turning aside from these execrable deeds of man to the works of Nature
and of Nature's God, which have always been and always must be lovely
and worthy of our deepest admiration, let us dwell for a moment upon the
splendid view from the castle-terrace, which forms the principal
promenade of Vezelay. Shaded by large and venerable trees, through the
lofty branches of which many a storm has howled for nearly four hundred
years, the sight from hence is one of the finest panoramic views in
France.

All around, whether on the slope of the hills by the river-side, in the
middle distance, or near the mountains which form the horizon, are seen
hundreds of little villages, and many a white villa scattered among the
green vines as daisies on the turf. To the left and right are St. Pere
and Akin, two hamlets, which seem like faithful dogs sleeping at the
foot of the mountain crowned by Vezelay. The province in which this
cloud-capped fortress-town is situated is a retired spot out of the
beaten track of the tourist, the man of business, or the man of
pleasure--lost, as it were, in the very heart of beautiful France, like
a wild strawberry in the depth of the forest--encircled by woods, and
unknown to the foreigner, who, in his rapid journey to Geneva or to
Lyons, almost elbows it without dreaming of its existence.

Le Morvan rears in its sylvan depths a population of hardy and honest
men and lovely women, fresh as roses, and gay as butterflies. There the
soft evening breezes are charged with the songs of ten thousand birds,
the odours of the eglantine, the lily of the valley, and the violet,
which, shaking off its winter slumbers, opens its dark blue eye and
combines its perfume with that of its snowy companion.

Le Morvan is a country that would delight an Englishman, for it is full
of game; here the sportsman may vary his pleasures as fancy dictates.
The forest abounds with deer; the plain with rabbits and the timid hare;
and in the vineyards, during the merry season of the vintage, the fat
red-stockinged and gray-clad partridges are bagged by bushels. Here the
sportsman may watch in the open glades the treacherous wild cat and the