ls opened through his
efforts and generosity; and the whole country responds to the
sentiment.

To return to La Tour. The style of the buildings at its western
end--the church, college, residences, and adjoining cottages, with
their pretty gardens in front, designed, as they have been, by English
architects--give one the idea of the best part of an English town.
But this disappears as you enter the town itself, and proceed through
the principal street, which is long, narrow, and thoroughly Italian.
The situation of the town is exceedingly fine, at the foot of the
Vandalin Mountain, near the confluence of the river Angrogna with the
Pelice. The surrounding scenery is charming; and from the high
grounds, north and south of the town, extensive views may be had in
all directions--especially up the valley of the Pelice, and eastward
over the plains of Piedmont--the whole country being, as it were,
embroidered with vineyards, corn-fields, and meadows, here and there
shaded with groves and thickets, spread over a surface varied by
hills, and knolls, and undulating slopes.

The size, importance, industry, and central situation of La Tour have
always caused it to be regarded as the capital of the valleys.
One-half of the Vaudois population occupies the valley of the Pelice
and the lateral valley of Angrogna; the remainder, more widely
scattered, occupying the valleys of Perouse and Pragela, and the
lateral valley of St. Martin--the entire number of the Protestant
population in the several valleys amounting to about twenty thousand.

Although, as we have already said, there is scarcely a hamlet in the
valleys but has been made famous by the resistance of its inhabitants
in past times to the combined tyranny of the Popes of Rome and the
Dukes of Savoy, perhaps the most interesting events of all have
occurred in the neighbourhood of La Tour, but more especially in the
valley of Angrogna, at whose entrance it stands.

The wonder is, that a scattered community of half-armed peasantry,
without resources, without magazines, without fortresses, should have
been able for any length of time to resist large bodies of regular
troops--Italian, French, Spanish, and even Irish!--led by the most
experienced commanders of the day, and abundantly supplied with arms,
cannon, ammunition, and stores of all kinds. All that the people had
on their side--and it compensated for much--was a good cause, great
bravery, and a perfect knowledge of the c