stood from some gens d'armes whom we met in
the pass; and the houses adjoining it, which seem actually overhanging
the perpendicular edge of the rock, belong to the ancient bourg of
Emenos. Nothing, one would suppose, but the overruling motive of
security, ever could have induced human beings to take up their abode in
such an eagle's nest as this, and its date is therefore probably as
ancient as it professes to be. In days of old, the castle must have been
completely the key of the pass, many hundred yards of which would have
been exposed to stones and arrow-shot from it. A turn to the right
conducted us into the heart of the Val d'Ollioules, as this mountain
chasm is called, which is somewhat on the scale of the celebrated pass
of Pont Aberglasllyn in Wales, but far exceeds it in striking effect. A
dreary whiteness, unrelieved by hardly a single blade of vegetation,
covers the whole, as if it had been recently cleft by a volcanic
eruption, and had as yet had no time to smooth down the sharpness of its
original fissure; and nothing occurs to break the silence, except the
trickling of a narrow brook, which just finds room to creep along the
side of the road, the distant bleating of numberless adventurous goats,
climbing over head from the mere love of peril, and the occasional echo
of large stones disengaged by their leaps. One of these, of a size which
would have shattered the carriage to pieces, came whirling and crashing
down just in the direction which it had quitted. The whole spot, in
short, is such as Tasso might have imagined to be the scene of Ismeno's
incantation, and the congress of devils whom he convoked; and at a
sudden turn of the road, the Chateau Negro peeps from between the
opposite heights in such a new and striking position, as to seem,
without much stretch of imagination, the abode of the wizard himself.
After threading all the sharp angles of this savage pass, some of which
are chiseled out to admit the road, the eye is at length relieved by a
vista of sky, and the sight of the little town of Ollioules close at
hand, sheltered in a grove of orange trees and olives, and just filling
up the entrance of the pass. The view is completed by some singular
gothic ruins to the right, and by the town of Six Fours in the distance,
which is situated on such a commanding conical hill, that we mistook it
for the citadel of Toulon. On emerging from the pass, we turned abruptly
to the left, pursuing our route along t