the great encouragement of all his followers, and the strengthening of their faith upon all occasions."

Such was the ancestor, of whom the pastor's wife of Bobi has reason to be proud, and whom she resembles in meekness and humility of temper, and in the endurance of suffering; she is often tried by ill health, and I have seen her exert herself, as she did on the day of our visit to the presbytery, when every effort to appear cheerful was put forth in the midst of acute bodily pain. Her door, like that of Madame Bert at La Torre, is constantly open to the distressed wanderer; and I speak as a witness, when I add, that no petitioner goes unrelieved from the houses of the Vaudois clergy. Some dole of alms is sure to be received, when appeals are made to their charity; and be it remembered, that the mendicants who beg in the valleys are all strangers.

The mention of Madame Muston's honourable descent from the hero Jahier reminds me of an observation, which may not unfitly be introduced in this place. There are no distinctions among the Vaudois beyond that of pastoral and magisterial precedency. All the Vaudois give place to their clergy and syndics and elders. I could hear of no seigneurial rights or privileges; gentle and simple are merged in one. "Each man is the son of his own deeds." Family pride is consequently entirely out of the question; and the individual who has raised himself by his talents

or industry above his former station, or that of his kindred, displays no leaven of vanity. He speaks of his brothers or his sisters who may chance to be in a humbler state of life, without the least disguise, and he talks of the "paternal house," be it the merest hovel, with all the affection of hereditary attachment. I noticed two striking instances of this. A pastor pointed to a cabin, There," said he, "I was born, and there my forefathers have lived for generations -my heart beats at the sight of it." A Waldensian, who had left the valleys early in life, and had accumulated a comfortable independency of his own, besides acquiring some property with his wife, conducted me to a humble farm house, and with a generous expression of complacency, spoke of the enjoyment which he felt in revisiting the sacred hearths of his ancestors.

There is no great man to throw the rest of the Vaudois in shade. There is not a chateau, or villa, in the three valleys, which would answer to our notions of a gentleman's seat, which is occupied by one who moves in the higher circles of society at Turin. It is many years since the Vaudois could enumerate any of noble birth' among the professors of

The historian Leger, mentions in his autobiography, that his father's family was noble, and that by his mother's side, through the Laurens, the Rostains, and the Pascals, he could shew a sacerdotal line of Vaudois pastors for 400 years and more. Leger was born in 1615.

The

their faith. Gilles, the Waldensian historian, in his annals of the year 1617, makes mention of one, whose melancholy fate he describes at some length. This was the Lady Octavia Solara, the daughter of a nobleman of ancient and illustrious family, which had long been distinguished for its zealous adherence to the Protestant tenets. father of this lady, after having suffered greatly from persecution, was stript of all his lands and property, and took refuge with his wife and children in the valley of Luserna :-" Après avoir souffert la confiscation de toutes ses Seigneuries, et autres biens à cause d'icelle Religion." The beauty and virtues of Octavia attracted the notice of the Count de Cavour, a man of great wealth and influence at the court of Turin, who promised not only to respect her religious opinions, and to permit her to enjoy the free exercise of her religion, but engaged to exert his interest for the restoration of the confiscated property of the family, if she would marry him. Contrary to the expostulations of the pastor of La Torre, who foresaw and predicted the result, she accepted the count's hand. Soon after their marriage, he used every means in his power to force her to conform to the Church of Rome. He took away her Bible and Psalm Book, and her other books of devotion; he prevented her having any communication with a spiritual comforter of her own faith, and drove her into a state of low melancholy, which

cut her off in the flower of her youth. A short time before she died, a female friend expressed a hope that she might yet recover.

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Pray not for my recovery," said the noble lady, "but implore the Almighty to receive me while I am yet true to my crucified Saviour, and before weakness of mind or body shall reduce me to a condition, in which I may be so lost as to deny the Lord who bought me."

I wish to correct an error which appears in the notice of Bobi in my first narrative. I have there said, the break-water constructed to protect the village from the violence of the winter torrents, was erected by the aid of subscriptions raised in Holland. Mr. Muston shewed me a book of accounts, which goes like an heir-loom with the presbytery of Bobi, from which it appears that it was built by means of English contributions, after the fatal inundation in the year 1740. The sum remitted from England was 42,383 francs, or about 25037., according to the value of money and exchange at that time. This money was expended in making the digue, or mole, which still remains, and in assisting the sufferers who had been injured by the flood.

The central school of Bobi was not open, nor were any of the small schools, when we visited the village; but at Col. Beckwith's girls' school, we found several of the children industriously and usefully employed.

CHAPTER VIII.

Excursion to Rora. Face of the Country. Observations on the Extent of the Vaudois Territory. Luserna. The former Sufferings and present Prospects of Rora. The Silver Cup of Victor Amadée. The Fire-fly.

JULY 10. Rora is the most southern village of the whole Vaudois territory, and lies on the chain of mountains, which, rising from the vale of the Pelice, swell and sink in irregular elevations, till they form the lofty ridge which separates the valley of Luserna from that of the Po. I had not visited this eagle's nest in 1823, and the whole of the country on the other side of Luserna was

new to me.

From the extreme confines of Rora, the furthest point south, or from the summit of the mountain line, which separates the valley of Luserna from the valley of the Po, to the summit of the Col Albergian, the furthest point north, the extent of the present Vaudois country, measured in a straight line, is about twenty miles, according to the scale laid down in Mr. Acland's map of the valleys, and twenty-four miles, according to that in Mr. Bridge's