e lap of the Vaudois, corn, and wine,
and fruit. Their sides were covered throughout with vineyards,
corn-fields, glades of green pasturages, clumps of forests and
fruit-trees, mansions and chalets, and silvery streamlets, which
meandered amid their terraces, or leaped in flashing light down the
mountain, to join the Pelice at its bottom. Not a foot-breadth was
barren. This teeming luxuriance attested at once the qualities of the
soil and sun, and the industry of the Vaudois.

As I proceeded up the Val Lucerna, the same scene of mingled richness
and magnificence continued. The golden vine still kept its place in the
bottom of the valley, and stretched out its arms in very wantonness, as
if the limits of the Val Lucerna were too small for its exuberant and
generous fruitfulness. The hills gained in height, without losing in
fertility and beauty. They offered to the eye the same picture of
vine-rows, pasturages, chestnut-groves, and chalets, from the torrent at
their bottom, up to the edge of the floating mist that covered their
tops. At times the sun would break in, and add to the variety of lights
which diversified the landscape. For already the hand of autumn had
scattered over the foliage her beautiful tints of all shades, from the
bright green of the pastures, down through the golden yellow of the
vine, to the deep crimson of those trees which are the first to fade.

A farther advance, and the aspect of the Val Lucerna changed slightly.
The vineyards ceased on the level grounds at the bottom of the valley,
and in their place came rich meadow lands, on which herds were grazing.
The hills on the left were still ribbed with the vine. On the right,
along which, at a high level on the hill-side, ran the road, the
chestnut groves became more frequent, and large boulders began
occasionally to be seen. It was here that the rolling mass of cloud, so
fearfully black, that it seemed of denser materials than vapour, which
had followed me up hill, overtook me, and by the deluge of rain which it
let fall, effectually forbade my farther progress.

The same shower which forbade my farther exploration of the Val Lucerna,
arresting me, with cruel interdict, as it seemed, on the very threshold
of a region teeming with grandeur, and encompassed with the halo of
imperishable deeds, threw me, by a sort of compensatory chance, upon the
discovery of another most interesting peculiarity of the Waldensian
territory. The heavy rain compelled