The Hunting Wasps 



a heap of stones broken up for road-mending 

 purposes. Raise this heap suddenly to a 

 height of a mile and a quarter, increase its 

 base in proportion, cover the white of the 

 limestone with the black patch of the forests 

 and you have a clear idea of the general as- 

 pect of the mountain. This accumulation of 

 rubbish — sometimes small chips, sometimes 

 huge blocks — rises from the plain without 

 preliminary slopes or successive terraces 

 that would render the ascent less arduous by 

 dividing it into stages. The climb begins at 

 once by rocky paths, the best of which is 

 worse than the surface of a road newly 

 strewn with stones, and continues, becoming 

 ever rougher and rougher, right to the sum- 

 mit, the height of which is 6,270 feet. 

 Greenswards, babbling brooks, the spacious 

 shade of venerable trees, all the things, in 

 short, that lend such charm to other mount- 

 ains are here unknown and are replaced by 

 an interminable bed of limestone broken into 

 scales, which slip under our feet with a sharp, 

 almost metallic "click." By way of cas- 

 cades the Ventoux has rills of stones; the 

 rattle of falling rocks takes the place of the 

 whispering waters. 



We are at Bedoin, at the foot of the 

 214 



