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Near Bobi is still to be seen a remarkable illustration of English interest long ago felt in the people of these valleys. This is the long embankment or breakwater, built by a grant from Oliver Cromwell, for the purpose of protecting the village against the inundations of the Pelice, by one of which it was nearly destroyed in the time of the Protectorate.
And this apart from the wealth of its historic glories. In reference to climate, the valleys of Pelice, Angrogna, with Perousa, are warm and productive, those of Martino and Pragela cold and barren.
How often I watched it, during my stay there, as its mighty form now became lost, and now flashed forth from the mountain mists! Over what sad scenes has that rock looked! It has seen the peaceful La Tour a heap of smoking ruins, and the clear waters of the Pelice, which meander at its feet, red with the blood of the children of the valleys.
On the other side lie the valleys of Piedmont, in which the French Vaudois were accustomed to take refuge when persecution ravaged their own valleys, passing by the mountain-road we were now about to travel, as far as La Tour, in the valley of the Pelice.
Yet, beautiful and peaceful though this valley of the Pelice now appears, there is scarcely a spot in it but has been consecrated by the blood of martyrs to the cause of liberty and religion.
In order to reach this spot, my companion and I left the town of La Torre by a street bounded on one side by Trinity College. We then crossed the Pelice by a somewhat rustic bridge, and found ourselves very quickly immersed in woods on the mountain side with numberless bye-paths.
The road from hence to la Tour is along the river Pelice, which is kept in sight nearly the whole way. A little below the Pra, where it enters the defile of Mirabouc, the path merely follows what is the bed of the torrent in winter. The descent is down ledges and notches, from rock to rock, with rugged precipices overhanging the ravine for nearly a mile.
On turning a shoulder of the mountain, we looked down upon the head of the valley of the Pelice, a grand and savage scene. The majestic, snow-capped Monte Viso towers up on the right, at the head of the valley, amidst an assemblage of other great mountain masses. From its foot seems to steal the river Pelice, now a quiet rivulet, though in winter a raging torrent.
The surrounding scenery is charming; and from the high grounds, north and south of the town, extensive views may be had in all directions especially up the valley of the Pelice, and eastward over the plains of Piedmont the whole country being, as it were, embroidered with vineyards, corn-fields, and meadows, here and there shaded with groves and thickets, spread over a surface varied by hills, and knolls, and undulating slopes.
Shortly after, they proceeded to divide themselves into two bodies, for the purpose of occupying simultaneously, as recommended by Javanel, the two valleys of the Pelice and St. Martin. But the trials and sufferings they had already endured were as nothing compared with those they were now about to experience. Armies concentrated on them from all points.
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