On high again, beyond the cliffs, stretched the Causses, vast, arid and
barren plateaux, flat and featureless save for an occasional low,
rounded mound, a menhir or a dolmen, and (if such may be termed
features) great pits that opened in the earth like cold craters, which
the countryfolk termed avens. A strange, bleak land, inhospitable,
wind-harried, haunted, the home of seven howling devils of desolation...
Rain at length interned the traveller for three days in a little place
called Meyrueis, which lies sweetly in the valley of the Jonte, at its
confluence with the Butezon, long leagues remote from railroads and the
world they stitch together--that world of unrest, uncertainty and
intrigue which in those days seemed no better than a madhouse.
The break in the monotony of daily footfaring proved agreeable. It
suited one well to camp for a space in that quaint town, isolate in the
heart of an enchanted land, with which one was in turn enchanted, and
contemplate soberly the grave issues of Life and Death.
Here (said Duchemin) nothing can disturb me; and it is high time for me
to be considering what I am to make of the remainder of my days.
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