more perfect in its way than their tout ensemble, when combined
with the surrounding scenery.

[Footnote 46: Vide Cooke's Views.]

To Orgon twelve miles: winding still round the base of the cluster of
rocks which form the southern barrier of the vale of Avignon, and which
assumed every variety of whimsical shape during our morning's route. At
about a mile and a half from the conclusion of our stage, we joined the
high road from Avignon to Marseilles, which renders the Hotel de la
Poste at Orgon, a good and well-accustomed inn. While we were at
breakfast, a Soeur de la Charite called on us to beg for an hospital
newly established, and in truth her request was but reasonable, for the
town seems poor enough, and unequal to the maintenance of such an
establishment. Several of the houses are well built, but wear a decayed
appearance, as if they had seen much better days. Orgon still deserves
notice from its beautiful situation, and from its having been the place
where Buonaparte met with so narrow an escape from the fury of the
inhabitants during his journey to Elba. "Vous allez sans doute voir la
Pierre Percee," said every body at the inn, whom we interrogated as to
what was best worth seeing in the compass of an hour's walk. To the
Pierre Percee we went accordingly, and found it nothing but a common
tunnel cut in a neighbouring rock, to draw off the waters of the Durance
when swoln with avalanches, from the vale of Avignon, and supply a
canal communicating with the Etang de Berre.[47] The summit of the rock
affords by far the best view of Orgon, and one which seems expressly
constructed for the purposes of landscape: nothing can group better
together than an old ruined castle just above it, and a dilapidated
convent on the summit of the hill, standing out in bold relief from the
narrow vale of the Durance, up which we traced the course of our next
stage; and the variety of exotic dwarf shrubs, which grew on the cliff
where we were standing, gave great richness to the foreground. These,
and the hedges of cypress and cane, which we occasionally saw, began to
give an Italian character to this part of France.

[Footnote 47: Vide Cooke's Views.]

The adjoining part of the vale of the Durance is called the district of
the Cheval Blanc, and, like its namesake, the vale of White Horse in
Berks, is celebrated for its fertility. To Lambesc twelve miles. For six
or seven miles the road follows the course of the Durance, which, to