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It would scarcely be possible to convey any adequate idea of the contrast. The country had been grand with a desolate sort of grandeur softened by the sunshine and water and the beautiful skies, but now the river with its darkly-wooded hills was not only grand but was weirdly beautiful as well.

As we left the steamy valley and wound up a rapidly ascending path among the lower fringes and outliers of the forest our spirits rose, and by the time we had clambered up the last stiff pull and emerged from the darkly-wooded track into the little clearing, where perches the village of Babamarishi, we were positively cheerful.

On the other side of the house is a small balcony that looks upon the road, the peaceful valley, and the darkly-wooded cliffs just beyond the Vezere.

Down an extreme gulf the full sunlight, as if darting on a jewel in the deeps, seizes the blue-green lake with its isles. The villages along the darkly-wooded borders of the lake show white as clustered swans; here and there a tented boat is visible, shooting from terraces of vines, or hanging on its shadow.

The villa inhabited by Countess d'Isorella was on the water's edge, within clear view of the projecting Villa Ricciardi, in that darkly-wooded region of the lake which leads up to the Italian-Swiss canton. Violetta received here an envoy from Anna of Lenkenstein, direct out of Milan: an English lady, calling herself Mrs. Sedley, and a particular friend of Countess Anna.

Down an extreme gulf the full sunlight, as if darting on a jewel in the deeps, seizes the blue-green lake with its isles. The villages along the darkly-wooded borders of the lake show white as clustered swans; here and there a tented boat is visible, shooting from terraces of vines, or hanging on its shadow.

I nevertheless took advantage of it, as I have of many another such in the South, although there are few watercourses whose beds can be walked upon with comfort. I was lucky now beyond my expectations, for it was not long before I struck a road which I was sure could lead nowhere but to Peyreleau. It first took me through a darkly-wooded gorge, where evening stood like a nun in a chapel.

I passed almost at the foot of one of those darkly-wooded, precipitous hills or cliffs which now approach the water's edge and now recede for a mile or more in this part of the valley; widening or diminishing the cultivated land accordingly as the rocky sides of the fissure resisted the washing and mining of the ancient waters.