since become. The failure of all resources is literally
driving away its inhabitants. Those who remain, as in such cases a
certain proportion cannot help doing, sometimes in bad years pass
three, six, and even nine, months without bread. Their small stock of
potatoes is often exhausted long before it can be replenished. "I am at
a loss," said the pastor, "when we are no longer able to give them aid,
to know how they live. The only semblance of food left to them is soup,
for which, perhaps, they haven't even salt, much less meat or
vegetables. Turbid water--_de l'eau trouble, rien de plus!_"

The valley terminates abruptly at what seems an impassable wall of rock.
Upon nearer approach a zigzag path up its face is discovered. Not far
from the top the narrow way creeps by a ledge which barely affords
foothold across a thread of sparkling foam slipping down a perpendicular
precipice. In winter this passage is sheeted in dangerously unstable
ice, and makes Dourmillouse inaccessible for weeks. Neff gives a
spirited account in his journal of leading out a party of young peasants
by torchlight, armed with axes, to cut a path here on the evening before
some service in which he wished the people of the upper and lower
valleys to unite. Dourmillouse lies on a slope above this difficult
ascent. It is a mere group of rude chalets, like the other villages, but
it has a less miserable air. The land-slides are mostly confined to the
lower valley, and here the scanty Alpine pastures and steep patches of
rye are out of reach of the floods. The people are seldom reduced to
actual want of food, and are esteemed prosperous by their more destitute
neighbors below.

Our first visit was to the old priory in which Neff held his winter
schools. A row of half a dozen trees planted by him in front of the
house now shuts off a good deal of much-needed sunshine, but is
nevertheless carefully cherished as a memorial. Beside the priory stands
the _temple_, once a Roman Catholic church, in which, before the
Revolution, a priest is said to have ministered for twenty-five years
without making a single convert, his own servant constituting his flock.
Presently we went to rest and eat the lunch Pastor Charpiot had brought,
at the house of the local _ancien_, or elder. His wife, a sturdy,
smiling young woman, gave us an eager welcome. Two round-cheeked boys
frisked about their old friend the pastor, and a baby--its spirits quite
unclouded by its austere s