Page:Costello - A pilgrimage to Auvergne from Picardy to Velay - A 30154 1.pdf/8

vi compagny me where the Vines of Burgundy and Champagne extend, and will feel some curiosity to be introduced to the Dômes and the Puys of one of the most singular and picturesque parts of France, seldom visited and less known to the English traveller than it would be were its beauties appreciated as they deserve. Auvergne is, in fact, the Switzerland of France, and possesses features of its own, nowhere to be met with except in this region of basaltic rocks and chaotic valleys. Not a peak or a glen but has been a scene of wild adventure, and the lover of novelty may there hail the appearance of objects which his travels in other countries have not presented him with.

To the poet and the painter Auvergne and Velay offer new and charming sites, and nowhere could their genius be called forth greater pleasure. No drawback of bad roads or wretched inns need now deter the lover of the picturesque, for a chemin de velours is open to all travellers, from one end of France to the other, and the diffulties of occasionnel crossroads are amply repaid by the beauties to which thez lead.

Dec. 1841.