raised these barriers of rock,
undermined incessantly by the rippling Loire at their feet, for a
perpetual wonder for spectators. The village of Vouvray nestles, as
it were, among the clefts and crannies of the crags, which begin
to describe a bend at the junction of the Loire and Cise. A whole
population of vine-dressers lives, in fact, in appalling insecurity in
holes in their jagged sides for the whole way between Vouvray and Tours.
In some places there are three tiers of dwellings hollowed out, one
above the other, in the rock, each row communicating with the next by
dizzy staircases cut likewise in the face of the cliff. A little girl
in a short red petticoat runs out into her garden on the roof of another
dwelling; you can watch a wreath of hearth-smoke curling up among
the shoots and trails of the vines. Men are at work in their almost
perpendicular patches of ground, an old woman sits tranquilly spinning
under a blossoming almond tree on a crumbling mass of rock, and smiles
down on the dismay of the travelers far below her feet. The cracks in
the ground trouble her as little as the precarious state of the old
wall, a pendant mass of loose stones, only kept in position by the
crooked stems of its ivy mantle. The sound of coopers' mallets rings
through the skyey caves; for here, where Nature stints human industry of
soil, the soil is everywhere tilled, and everywhere fertile.

No view along the whole course of the Loire can compare with the rich
landscape of Touraine, here outspread beneath the traveler's eyes. The
triple picture, thus barely sketched in outline, is one of those scenes
which the imagination engraves for ever upon the memory; let a poet
fall under its charm, and he shall be haunted by visions which shall
reproduce its romantic loveliness out of the vague substance of dreams.

As the carriage stopped on the bridge over the Cise, white sails came
out here and there from among the islands in the Loire to add new grace
to the perfect view. The subtle scent of the willows by the water's
edge was mingled with the damp odor of the breeze from the river. The
monotonous chant of a goat-herd added a plaintive note to the sound
of birds' songs in a chorus which never ends; the cries of the boatmen
brought tidings of distant busy life. Here was Touraine in all its
glory, and the very height of the splendor of spring. Here was the
one peaceful district in France in those troublous days; for it was
so unlikely