hey contrive to scrape a living out of the patches of soil
rescued from the rocks, or hung upon the precipices on the
mountain-side, is a wonder.

One of the horrors of this valley consists in the constant state of
disintegration of the adjoining rocks, which, being of a slaty
formation, frequently break away in large masses, and are hurled into
the lower grounds. This, together with the fall of avalanches in
winter, makes the valley a most perilous place to live in. A little
above Minsals, only a few years since, a tremendous fall of rock and
mud swept over nearly the whole of the cultivated ground, since which
many of the peasantry have had to remove elsewhere. What before was a
well-tilled meadow, is now only a desolate waste, covered with rocks
and debris.

Another of the horrors of the place is its liability to floods, which
come rushing down, from the mountains, and often work sad havoc.
Sometimes a fall of rocks from the cliffs above dams up the bed of the
river, when a lake accumulates behind the barrier until it bursts, and
the torrent swoops down the valley, washing away fields, and bridges,
and mills, and hovels.

Even the stouter-built dwelling of M. Baridon at Les Ribes was nearly
carried away by one of such inundations twelve years ago. It stands
about a hundred yards from the mountain-stream which comes down from
the Pic de la Sea. One day in summer a storm burst over the mountain,
and the stream at once became swollen to a torrent. The inmates of the
dwelling thought the house must eventually be washed away, and gave
themselves up to prayer. The flood, bearing with it rolling rocks,
came nearer and nearer, until it reached a few old walnut trees on a
line with the torrent. A rock of some thirty feet square tumbled
against one of the trees, which staggered and bent, but held fast and
stopped the rock. The debris at once rolled upon it into a bank, the
course of the torrent was turned, and the dwelling and its inmates
were saved.

Another incident, illustrative of the perils of daily life in Val
Fressinieres, was related to me by Mr. Milsom while passing the scene
of one of the mud and rock avalanches so common in the valley. Etienne
Baridon, a member of the same Les Ribes family, an intelligent young
man, disabled for ordinary work by lameness and deformity, occupied
himself in teaching the children in the Protestant school at Violens,
whither he walked daily, accompanied by the pupils from Les Ribes