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The grapes from which port-wine is made are all grown within the narrow compass of a mountain-valley about twenty-seven miles long by five or six wide, where the conditions of soil and climate most favorable to wine-culture including a large degree of both heat and cold are found in perfection.

The inhabitants of Uri, and partly also those of Schwytz and Unterwalden supplied the Italian markets with their cattle, and the mountain-valley of Urseren flourished particularly by means of this trade. But they had dangerous neighbors in the turbulent Lavinians on the south side of Gotthard.

Each deep gorge or mountain-valley blooms with foliage; and the slopes are clothed with stately trees, graceful shrubs, and climbing plants; while shining streams fall from crag to crag in miniature cascades. Of course Madame Pfeiffer visited the sugar-cane plantations, which cover the broad and fertile plains of Pamplemousse.

At last they pointed out a good place for an encampment, receiving in return a trifling backshish, collected from the whole caravan. A few days later, the travellers, having started at two in the morning, entered a magnificent mountain-valley, which had been cloven through the solid rock by the waters of a copious stream. A narrow stony path followed the course of the stream upward.

As he sat now on the stool in the sunny doorway, and looked up the mountain-valley, to which he had been brought in his declining years to share his married daughter's home, the detail in that tragedy of his childhood, which pictured itself in his mind's eye more clearly than any other, was the shadow of the spreading, coiling puffs of smoke, which had first caught his childish attention, blurring the bars of sunlight on the floor of the Dame's kitchen.

"We do not neglect it," replied the other, "but we practise it in a special place, inclosed in the most charming mountain-valley; and then again we take care that the different instruments are taught in places lying far apart.

The busy, purring mills stood on the edge of the Sarine at the extremity of a flat mountain-valley intersected by innumerable brooks, which, continually overflowing, turn it constantly into a lake. The grass had been under water a week previously, but was now sufficiently dry for us to sit and rest. Whilst we were so doing, Ignaz, our träger, stood before us, his empty basket on his back.

Its volcanic mountains are characterized by the boldest and most picturesque outlines. Its vegetation witnesses everywhere to Nature's lavish use of her materials. Each deep gorge or mountain-valley blooms with foliage; the slopes are hung with stately trees, graceful shrubs, and masses of creeping and climbing plants; from crag to crag falls the silver of miniature cascades.

A few buildings, beside the chapel, were erected, and the community, far removed from all political strife, must have been happy and contented in its mountain-valley home. The chapel is a long, narrow adobe structure, 144 by 27 feet, roofed with red tiles.

The scenery is, of course, of a totally different description from that of Sinchul, or even of the foot of the hills, being that of a deep mountain-valley. I several times made this trip; on the excursion about to be described, and in which I was accompanied by Mr. Barnes, I followed the Great Rungeet to the Teesta, into which it flows.