is generally the case, at the mountain preachings, the granary of the Pra was prepared for the solemnity. At nine o'clock, a man ascended the roof of the auberge, and blew a loud and long blast with a conch-shell, this he repeated at half-past nine, and at ten. The summons, I was told, might be heard at a great distance. After the first blast, we saw people approaching from different quarters, and this picturesque gathering continued for more than an hour. The service then commenced, and never did I behold a more attentive congregation. M. Bonjour's text was from Isaiah lii. 7. -"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth." The sermon was eloquent, appropriate, and touching. It was delivered with great animation and feeling, and seemed to make a lively impression upon his hearers. The preacher's allusions to the deliverances of Almighty God, and his preservation of the Vaudois, and to the advantages of a mountain life', in a religious point of view, and to removal from the temptations of

1 Semler has observed, with great truth, that mountaineers are less addicted to the grovelling absurdities of image worship, than other people. How, indeed, can the vast and sublime objects by which they are surrounded, suffer them to accept any perishable work of man's hands, as the representative of the Great and Eternal Being who called those objects into existence.

the world, were calculated to sink deep into the heart; and not less so, his appeals to consciences, which had from early youth been awakened by those means of grace, which the Lord had vouchsafed in an especial degree to the Waldensian Church.

Our ascent of the Col de la Croix from Pra was made under torrents of rain, and such gusts of wind, that we were frequently obliged to stop for some time beneath the shelter of a rock, for fear of being blown down the side of the mountain. Two Frenchmen whom we met, advised us not to proceed; but having once mounted towards the ridge, we were obliged to advance as well as we could, for there was not even a hut to receive us between Pra on the Italian, and La Monta on the French side. The state of the weather rendered the descent difficult and even hazardous; the path, running in places along the face of a shelving slope, was so narrow, broken, and slippery, that I thought it unsafe for Mrs. Gilly to ride, and she was obliged to walk the greater part of the way. The time of crossing the Col, from Pra to La Monta, was about two hours and a half, that is to say, we were occupied so long in going over the extreme summit of the Alps, from one side to the other of the frontier line; but the real ascent and descent of the main chain should be calculated from Bobi to La Monta, or about seven hours' constant walking. The traveller is still walled in H h

by mountains after leaving La Monta, but as he follows the course of the Guil, through transversal valleys to Guillestre, the worst of the passage is over when the Col is surmounted.

When Strabo said, that it would require five days to reach the summit of the Alps, he was speaking of very slow progress, and must have been reckoning from the plains at the foot of the first steeps to the very summit; and even so, must have taken the Alpine range at its greatest breadth. Simler, who published his work in 1574, observing upon Strabo's statement, remarked, that in his time it would require several days to go from the plains to the top of the Alps; but added, that climbing the ridge only, the passage might possibly be achieved in one day. "We," said he, "when we talk of the ascent of the Alps, speak of the crest of the mountain, where all is cold and sterile; when we have arrived at this point, then we say, we begin to climb the summit, den berg angon'.'

It does not enter into my present plan to detail all the particulars of my journey, in search of those embers of ancient Protestantism, or rather of the primitive churches, which yet remain in the mountain recesses of Dauphiné. I found so much to interest me, that it would require much more room than is left in this volume, to give a satis

1 Simleri Val. descrip. p. 185,

factory narrative of it. It will be enough to add here, that we went into most of the villages and hamlets where Neff had laboured, and never shall I forget the proofs which we witnessed of the strong devotional feeling, and pure Christian spirit implanted among the Protestant families, in Val Queiras and Val Frassynière. Neff's name is so reverenced, that it cannot be pronounced without producing a sigh or a tear, and a blessing upon his memory.

After sleeping at Abriès, we crossed a mountain, and visited Molines, Pierre-grosse, Foussillard, and San Veran. In the two latter, Protestant churches have lately been erected. From these remote places, where they had never before seen a female above the condition of a peasant, or dressed otherwise than in coarse woollen, we descended again towards the Guil, and passed a night at Chateau Queiras. The next day's walk took us to Arvieux, Chalp, and Brunichard. At Arvieux there is a Protestant church; and at Chalp the clergyman, M. Herman, resides who succeeded Mr. Neff, and who is the only minister who officiates among the scattered congregation, in the valleys of Queiras and Frassynière, between Dormilleuse and Foussillard; the two are nearly five-and-forty miles distant. He is scarcely ever at home, and takes up his habitation for a week together, now at one hamlet, and then at another. M. Herman was absent when we were at Arvieux. The day before our arrival

his wife had taken in a forlorn woman, a stranger, and her three children. The wanderer was confined the same night, and thus five were hospitably harboured. Our path to Guillestre was through a defile, where there is barely room for the torrent; the path itself in many places is hewn out of the perpendicular face of rocks, whose summits rise to the very clouds. No mountain pass that I have seen equals this in gloomy horrors. I should say its tremendous attractions exceed those of the valley of Gondo, in the passage of the Simplon.

On the fourth day after our departure from Pra, we found ourselves, for a few hours, on the high road between Embrun and Briançon, but at La Roche, we crossed the Durance, and ascended towards the Val Frassynière. We visited Palons, Frassynière, Violin, Mensals, and Dormilleuse; the three last are peopled entirely by Protestants; the whole of the Roman Catholic population of Violin and Mensals was converted by M. Neff. No Dormilleusian ever bowed his knee before an image of the Roman Church. The village of Dormilleuse, in its situation at the foot of the glacier, in its impregnable position, and in its desolate and savage aspect, answered all our high-wrought expectations. And so did the people. At Palons, a young man, who accompanied us from Guillestre, made it known that I was a Protestant clergyman. The inhabitants left their houses,