Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/222

148 rock opposite S. Martin, to disfigure the last spur of crag on the Ardéche. Failure has attended the attempt, and the factories are abandoned. Even if they fall into ruins, their ruins cannot possibly become picturesque.

Below is a light and graceful suspension bridge flung across the river to take the place of a stone bridge, swept away by the great flood of 1895, that rose halfway up the church of S. Martin and filled most of the houses.

And now, to conclude this chapter, I must give my personal experiences, which I am usually unwilling to obtrude, but which I give as they may be valuable to others who descend the cañon.

There are humours in travelling; some make you laugh out at once, others only after the experience is past. To this latter belong mine on the day I descended the Ardèche.

The beginning of the trouble was this. I had arranged that the hotel keeper at Vallon should furnish me and my wife and the boatmen with a sound lunch, to be taken on our way down, and when we arrived at the place where the boat was to attend to us we found that neither the garçon of the inn who guided us had brought the food, nor had the boatmen fetched it from the hotel. Time was precious, the distance was considerable, and we could not wait to send back for it. Any one who knows what a French café au lait means will understand how internally unprovided we were for many hours without food. We started, and for five hours were descending the rapids. When we reached S. Martin there was no carriage, but after an hour we obtained at five o'clock an excellent déjeuné, having eaten nothing since 8 a.m.; but we had hardly felt