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The scouts on the hills overlooking the Durance could always see their enemies approach, and the inhabitants were enabled to take refuge in caves in the mountain-sides, or flee to the upper parts of the valley, before the soldiers could clamber up the steep Pas de l'Échelle, and reach the barricaded defile through which the Biasse rushes down the rocky gorge of the Gouffouran.
Far up the mountain, the footpath crosses in front of a lofty cascade La Pisse du Dormilhouse which leaps from the summit of the precipice, and sometimes dashes over the roadway itself. Looking down into the valley from this point, we see the Biasse meandering like a thread in the hollow of the mountains, becoming lost to sight in the ravine near Minsals.
Looking back, the whole village appeared above us, cottage over cottage, and ledge over ledge, with its stern background of rocky mountain. Immediately under the village, in a hollow between two shoulders of rock, the cascade of the Biasse leaps down into the valley.
The view was bold and striking, displaying the grandeur of the scenery of Dormilhouse in one of its best aspects. Setting out on the return journey to Palons, we descended the face of the mountain on which Dormilhouse stands, by a steep footpath right in front of it, down towards the falls of the Biasse.
The inhabitants of the hamlet are a poor hard-working people, pursuing their industry after very primitive methods. Part of the Biasse, as it issues from the defile, is turned aside here and there to drive little fulling-mills of the rudest construction, where the people "waulk" the cloth of their own making.
In front of the parsonage extends a green field planted with walnut and other trees, part of which is walled off as the burying-ground of the hamlet. Alongside, in a deep rocky gully, runs the torrent of the Biasse, leaping from rock to rock on its way to the valley of the Durance, far below.
Following the road along the heights on the right bank of the Biasse, and passing the hamlet of Chancellas, another favourite station of Neff's, a rapid descent led us down into the valley of the Durance, which we crossed a little above the village of St. Crepin, with the strong fortress of Mont Dauphin before us a few miles lower down the valley.
At the upper end of the valley, the mountains come down so close to the river Biasse that no space is left for cultivation, and the slopes are so rocky and abrupt as to be unavailable even for pasturage, excepting of goats. Yet the valley seems never to have been without a population, more or less numerous according to the rigour of the religious persecutions which prevailed in the neighbourhood.
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