ry; and there is one part of it that is not perhaps
surpassed even by the famous Via Mala leading up to the Spluegen. It is
about three miles above Bourg d'Oisans, from which we started early
next morning. There the road leaves the plain and enters the wild
gorge of Freney, climbing by a steep road up the Rampe des Commieres.
The view from the height when gained is really superb, commanding an
extremely bold and picturesque valley, hemmed in by mountains. The
ledges on the hillsides spread out in some places so as to afford
sufficient breadths for cultivation; occasional hamlets appear amidst
the fields and pine-woods; and far up, between you and the sky, an
occasional church spire peeps up, indicating still loftier
settlements, though how the people contrive to climb up to those
heights is a wonder to the spectator who views them from below.

The route follows the profile of the mountain, winding in and out
along its rugged face, scarped and blasted so as to form the road. At
one place it passes along a gallery about six hundred feet in length,
cut through a precipitous rock overhanging the river, which dashes,
roaring and foaming, more than a thousand feet below, through the
rocky abyss of the Gorge de l'Infernet. Perhaps there is nothing to be
seen in Switzerland finer of its kind than the succession of charming
landscapes which meet the eye in descending this pass.

Beyond the village of Freney we enter another defile, so narrow that
in places there is room only for the river and the road; and in winter
the river sometimes plays sad havoc with the engineer's constructions.
Above this gorge, the Romanche is joined by the Ferrand, an impetuous
torrent which comes down from the glaciers of the Grand Rousses.
Immediately over their point of confluence, seated on a lofty
promontory, is the village of Mizoen--a place which, because of the
outlook it commands, as well as because of its natural strength, was
one of the places in which the Vaudois were accustomed to take refuge
in the times of the persecutions. Further on, we pass through another
gallery in the rock, then across the little green valley of Chambon to
Le Dauphin, after which the scenery becomes wilder, the valley--here
called the Combe de Malaval (the "Cursed Valley")--rocky and sterile,
the only feature to enliven it being the Cascade de la Pisse, which
falls from a height of over six hundred feet, first in one jet, then
becomes split by a projecting rock in