y its western and central
portion. The clear cloudless sky, the moderate heat succeeding to the
sultriness, often overpowering, of the summer months, the magnificent
vineyards and merry vintage time, the noble groves of chestnut, clothing
the lower slopes of the mountains, the bright streams and
flower-spangled meadows of Bearn and Languedoc, render no part of the
year more delightful in those countries than the months of September and
October.

As before mentioned, Dora rode a little in front, with Ashley beside
her, pointing out the beauties of the wild scenery through which we
passed, and occasionally laying a hand upon her bridle to guide the mule
over some unusually rugged portion of the almost trackless mountain.
M'Dermot and I were walking behind, a little puffed by the steepness of
the ascent; our guide, whose name was Cadet, a name answered to by every
second man one meets in that part of France, strode along beside us,
like a pair of compasses with leathern lungs. Presently the last-named
individual turned to me--

"_Ces messieurs veulent-ils voir le Saut de lou Contrabandiste?_" said
he, in the barbarous dialect of the district, half French, half patois,
with a small dash of Spanish.

"_Le Saut du Contrebandier_, the Smuggler's Leap--What is that?" asked
Dora, who had overheard the question, turning round her graceful head,
and dazzling us--me at least--by a sudden view of her lovely face, now
glowing with exercise and the mountain air.

The smuggler's leap, so Cadet informed us, was a narrow cleft in the
rock, of vast depth, and extending for a considerable distance across a
flank of the mountain. It owed its name to the following incident:--Some
five years previously, a smuggler, known by the name of Juan le Negre,
or Black Juan, had, for a considerable period, set the custom-house
officers at defiance, and brought great discredit on them by his success
in passing contraband goods from Spain. In vain did they lie in ambush
and set snares for him; they could never come near him, or if they did
it was when he was backed by such a force of the hardy desperadoes
carrying on the same lawless traffic, that the douaniers were either
forced to beat a retreat or got fearfully mauled in the contest that
ensued. One day, however, three of these green-coated guardians of the
French revenue caught a sight of Juan alone and unarmed. They pursued
him, and a rare race he led them, over cliff and crag, across rock and