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Scrope, in his interesting account of the geology of Central France, "are called 'causses' in the provincial dialect, and they have a singularly dreary and desert aspect from the monotony of their form and their barren and rocky character. The valleys which separate them are rarely of considerable width.
The Causses, he declared, were treacherous; men sometimes lost their way upon those lofty plains and were never heard of more. Duchemin didn't in the least mind getting lost, that is to say failing to make his final objective; at worst he could depend upon a good memory and an unfailing sense of direction to lead him back the way he had come.
To those who have the special knowledge that is requisite, the caverns of the Causses de Sauveterre and Méjan offer great enticement, for only a few of their secrets, covered by the darkness of incalculable ages, have yet been brought to light.
Each of the Causses is silent; but the silence of the Causse of Mende is scorched and frozen into its stones, and is as old as they: all around, the torrents which have sawn their black canons upon every side of the block frame this silence with their rumble.
Above, not a rill, not a beck, refreshes the spongy, crumbling earth; we must travel far, penetrate the openings just indicated by the dark- blue shadows in the distance, and descend the lofty walls of the Causses to find silvery cascades, impetuous rivers, and fountains gushing from mossy clefts.
It would take weeks, not days, to explore these scenes from the archaeological or geological point of view. I will content myself with describing what is in store for the tourist. We now enter the defile or detroit, at which point grace and bewitchingness are exchanged for sublimity and grandeur, and the scenery of the Causses and the Tarn reach their acme.
Since the failure of the vines which formerly flourished upon the causses wherever there was a favourable slope the peasants have learnt to make a mildly alcoholic liquor by gathering and fermenting the juniper berries, which previously they had never put to any use.
There is good reason to believe that all these causses were at one time more or less covered by forests; but the reason commonly given for their disappearance namely, that they were burnt down during the religious wars is less likely to be the true one than that they gradually perished because it was nobody's business to protect the seedlings from sheep and goats animals capable of changing the world into a treeless desert, but which, fortunately, cease to be profitable when they come down from the sterile highlands, where they thrive best, into the rich plains and valleys.
Again and again we fancy we can descry crumbling watch-towers, bastions, and donjons on the banks of the Tarn, so fantastic the forms of the Causses on either side. What a scene for a Dore!
Imagine, then, a group of promontories, their area equal to that of Salisbury Plain, Dartmoor and Exmoor combined, with the varying altitudes of the loftiest Devonshire tor and Cumberland hill. Such a comparison may convey some feeble notion of the three Causses just named, two of which belong to the Lozere. The Causse Noir is partly in the Aveyron.
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