you leave the village of Angrogna, with its
parsonage-house in the most picturesque situation of any we encountered.
About half an hour from this spot the scenery becomes wildly grand,
especially as you draw nigh to the torrent. On one side is the lofty
Vandalin, and on the other precipitous rocks; while in the narrow valley
the stream rushes down with its roar and foam, forming beautiful cascades,
and reminding you of some of the grandest scenery in Switzerland. But,
greatly as I was delighted with the topographical interest of my journey,
yet I would not forget that it was the people and their fathers' deeds and
sufferings that had led me to undertake this rather fatiguing enterprise;
and long before I reached the Barricata, or Pra del Torno, I had a great
enjoyment in being taken by a Vaudois mechanic, who left his work at
Angrogna, and would have no acknowledgment but my thanks, in order to show
me one of those wonderful hiding-places in the very heart of the mountains,
where the God of the hill and of the Vaudois so effectively succoured his
people. The particular cavern I was shown was most difficult of access,
not only by its seclusion, but also on other grounds; the entrance would
only admit one or two persons at a time; but once within there seemed space
enough for about a hundred persons. Here I understood large numbers of the
persecuted Vaudois had found a refuge and a sanctuary in its holiest and
happiest sense. The words, "He shall dwell on high: his place of defence
shall be the munitions of rocks," came to my thoughts with a freshness and
fulness of meaning not previously realized. But the testimony of this
valley is everywhere, "The Lord fought for Israel." The next point of
remarkable interest shows this, viz., the Barricata, which is a kind of
entrance to the enclosure known as Pra del Torno. At this spot the rocks on
either side come down close to the mountain, so that only a mere ledge of
rock remains as a path. Consequently, a small number of men could at this
point drive back a host; and here, during the persecutions of the
fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, the contemptuous foes of
the Vaudois met with humiliating and disastrous repulses, while the Vaudois
themselves escaped comparatively unhurt. This circumstance led the enemy,
during the persecution of 1560, under the Count de la Trinita, to place his
men on the heights above Roccamanente; but his one thousand two hundred men
were suc