desert of stones, what soft and vernal beauty was there!
Over the grass of living green was spread the gold of cowslips, just
as if that strip of meadow, with its gently-gliding river, had been
lifted out of an English dale and dropped into the midst of the
sternest scenery of Southern France.

As I went on I soon found that the stony wastes had their flowers too.
It would seem as if Nature had wished to console the desert by giving
to it her loveliest and most enticing blossoms. I came upon colonies
of the poet's narcissus, breathing over the rocks so sweet a fragrance
that it was as if a miracle had been wrought to draw it out of the
earth. I walked knee-deep through blooming asphodels, beautiful and
strange, but only noticed here by the wild bee. I gathered sprays of
the graceful alpine-tea, densely crowded with delicate white bloom,
and marvelled at the wanton splendour of the iris colouring the gray
and yellow stones with its gorgeous blue.

Still following the Ouysse, I came to a spot where the valley ended in
an amphitheatre formed by steep hills more than 600 feet high, and
covered for the most part with dwarf oak. In the hollow under the dark
cliffs was a little lake or pool forty or fifty yards from shore to
shore. The water showed no sign of trouble save where it overflowed
its basin on the western side, and formed the river that I had been
keeping in sight for hours. The pool filled the Gouffre de St.
Sauveur. Until the Ouysse finds this opening in the earth it is a
subterranean river, and it must flow at a great depth, probably at the
base of the calcareous formation, inasmuch as it continues to rise
from the gulf the whole year, although from the month of August until
the autumn rains nearly every water-course in the country is marked by
a curving line of dry pebbles. The funnel-shaped hole descends
vertically to the depth of about ninety feet, but there is no means of
knowing how far it descends obliquely. The tourist may occasionally
catch sight of a shepherd boy or girl with goats or sheep upon the
bare or wooded rocks, but his feeling will be one of deep loneliness.
He will see ravens and hawks about the crags, and about the river half
covered in summer with floating pond-weed, watercress, and the broad
leaves of the yellow lily, he will notice many a water-ouzel bobbing
with white breast, water-hens gliding from bank to bank, merry bands
of divers, and the brilliant blue gleam of the passing kingfis