y by sentiment, but by industry; the
banks of the stream being disfigured by a pair of hideous mills for the
manufacture of paper and of wool. In an enterprising and economical age
the water-power of the Sorgues was too obvious a motive; and I must say
that, as the torrent rushed past them, the wheels of the dirty little
factories appeared to turn merrily enough. The footpath on the left
bank, of which I just spoke, carries one fortunately quite out of sight
of them, and out of sound as well, inasmuch as on the day of my visit
the stream itself, which was in tremendous force, tended more and more,
as one approached the fountain, to fill the valley with its own echoes.
Its colour was magnificent, and the whole spectacle more like a corner
of Switzerland than a nook in Provence. The protrusions of the mountain
shut it in, and you penetrate to the bottom of the recess which they
form. The Sorgues rushes and rushes; it is almost like Niagara after the
jump of the cataract. There are dreadful little booths beside the path,
for the sale of photographs and _immortelles_--I don't know what one is
to do with the immortelles--where you are offered a brush dipped in tar
to write your name withal on the rocks. Thousands of vulgar persons, of
both sexes, and exclusively, it appeared, of the French nationality, had
availed themselves of this implement, for every square inch of
accessible stone was scored over with some human appellation. It is not
only we in America, therefore, who besmirch our scenery; the practice

[Illustration: VAUCLUSE--RUINS OF CASTLE]

exists, in a more organised form (like everything else in France), in
the country of good taste. You leave the little booths and stalls
behind; but the bescribbled crag, bristling with human vanity, keeps you
company even when you stand face to face with the fountain. This happens
when you find yourself at the foot of the enormous straight cliff out of
which the river gushes. It rears itself to an extraordinary height--a
huge forehead of bare stone--looking as if it were the half of a
tremendous mound split open by volcanic action. The little valley,
seeing it there, at a bend, stops suddenly and receives in its arms the
magical spring. I call it magical on account of the mysterious manner in
which it comes into the world, with the huge shoulder of the mountain
rising over it as if to protect the secret. From under the mountain it
silently rises, without visible movement, fillin