very bad cold which he had caught in the
Lebanon. The cure was effectual, and the fame of
Le Vernet established—for a time. It has now
dropped probably to its just estimation, as a
very interesting (to the botanist, geologist,
and hill-climber), pleasant, and health-giving
summer sojourn. Other places of outbreak of
thermal springs are closed in winter, either
by the invasion of snow, or the desertion of
fashion. Barèges, to whose waters great virtue
is attributed, possesses a detestable, almost
Siberian, climate. Even in the height of summer,
the variations of temperature are enormous;
in winter, the place is utterly deserted,
and a part of its only street consists of wooden
booths, taken down every autumn to let the
avalanches have their own way. That bit of
the village was once protected by a wood,
since cut down for firing. Iron stakes have
been planted instead; but they only led to the
discovery that poles of iron are not fir-trees.

The writers visited Amélie in June, all of us
requiring climate rather than waters, and knowing
that, if we found it too hot there, we could
easily sliift to Le Vernet, or elsewhere. But it
was only pleasantly warm; so we made a stay.
(Remember that, in the course of last June,
a damp and chilly spell came, like a wet
blanket, over the whole of Great Britain,
France, and probably over other parts of
Europe.) From a summer visit I infer its
winter climate on these grounds: The hedges
are gay with scarlet pomegranate blossoms,
interspersed here and there with tufts of
American aloes. The rocks, wherever water
trickles over them, are luxuriantly festooned
with true maidens' hair fern, Adiantum capillus
Veneris, and in certain chinks we find
the fountain spleenwort. That handsome
and curious-tempered plant, the tree mallow
(which follows the line of coast from the
north of Scotland to the south of England,
but refuses to thrive in midland situations),
puts forth here its small-leaved flowering
branches (before flowering, the leaves are
large), and ripens seed by pecksful. In the
gardens are tall castor-oil plants, which must
have passed the winter somewhere; and the
town, I believe, no more possesses a
greenhouse, than it does (known to civilians) a map
of Europe. The eucalyptus, and several
Australian acacias, are trees. The small-leaved
rose, R. microphylla, blooms abundantly, as
do the evergreen Japan spindle trees, enonymus,
both plain-leaved and variegated. The
olive climbs the sunny slopes to a considerable
height above the town; the vine (which,
however, is no test of winter climate) produces
wine a good deal higher. The orange-tree,
not cultivated either for flowers to flavour
perfumes and confectionery, or for fruit to
contract your mouth like alum, still grows, as an
ornamental shrub, in sheltered nooks, and bears
golden balls which are real oranges. Where
such things are, the winter can be neither very
severe nor very damp; some of those plants
would be frozen, while others would not. For
the rest, they are not spoiled by over-gardening.
What will grow of itself, without much care, is
stuck in the ground, and that is all. There is not
even a gardener in the place who sells plants, or
rears and propagates plants for sale.
Nevertheless, there are frequent waterings,
principally by irrigation, as rain falls rarely, and
then not abundantly; the field crops, too, are
hoed; and the stony soil, in which the vines
grow, is kept clear of weeds.

Besides the many pretty shrubs which, with
us, have to pass the winter in greenhouses,
the gardens display, grouped with arbutuses,
both single and double-flowered oleanders. A
variety of the latter, with single white flowers,
produces a charming effect in contrast with
the pink. The mountain-sides in the
neighbourhood, not blessed with aspects suitable
for vines and olives—Ireland is the only
country in which you can have a garden with a
south wall all the way round it—are principally
covered with chesnut-copses, which, when in
bloom, diffuse a sickening odour. Every six
years or so, they are cut down to the ground
for making the hoops which hold wine-casks
together. Higher up, betwixt boulders, and
in uncultivable spots, grows the tall
Mediterranean heath, whose stumpy roots are
grubbed up, to be carved into pipes now in
fashion. While we poked along the mule-paths
for unaccustomed plants and flowers, there
came upon us, noiselessly, three men with
sandalled feet, naked legs, crimson-sashed waists,
and red cloth caps hanging over on one side,
surmounted each with a sackful of heath-
roots, for the use of native artists or for
exportation. After an interval, followed three
Catalan mules, trailing their hind feet down
the steep descent, bearing their burden—-
charcoal, burnt aloft, for the use of cooks and
blacksmiths.

But besides the climate, and the perfumed
strawberries, and the little St. John's apricots,
and the early French beans, we also came in
quest of the waters, to coax back, to one of
us, a missing voice, and to frighten away from
another happily-absent rheumatism and gout;
for we had already found Pyreneean springs
not only a remedy but a prophylactic. Now I
have a theory of my own about these thermal
waters, which the reader may deride and
demolish, if he will.

Not long ago, heat was caloric, a simple
fluid, and nothing more. A ray of sunshine,
too, was a ray of sunshine, and nothing more,
until Newton dissected it. Since then, we have
discovered that there are invisible rays beyond
those which his prismatic spectrum shows us.
Moreover, we find that the dissected rays in
his spectrum are endowed with different qualities;
there are rays which induce chemical
action, rays which convey heat, rays which
excite seeds and plants to germinate and sprout.
It would be great presumption in any one to
say that we are at present cognisant of all the
qualities of all the rays, seen and unseen, which
radiate from the sun. They doubtless exert
influences which we are as yet, and may perhaps
remain, unable to trace. The same of heat,