XIII AN ASCENT OF MONT VENTOUX 191 



time we emptied. Soon the sun rose. To the 

 farthest limit of the horizon Mont Ventoux projected 

 its triangular shadow, tinted violet from the effect of 

 the diffracted rays. Southward and westward stretched 

 misty plains, where, when the sun rose higher, one 

 would distinguish the Rhone as a silver thread. On 

 the north and east an enormous cloud-bed spreads 

 under our feet like a sea of cotton wool, whence the 

 dark tops of the lower mountains rise as if they 

 were islets of scoriae, while others with their glaciers 

 shine glorious on the side where the Alps uplift 

 their chain of mountains. 



But botany calls, and we must tear ourselves from 

 this magic spectacle. August, the month when we 

 made our ascent, is somewhat late ; many plants 

 were out of blossom. Those who really want to be 

 successful should come up here in the first fortnight 

 of July, and, above all, should forestall the arrival of 

 the herds and flocks on these heights. Where a 

 sheep has browsed one finds but poor remains. As 

 yet spared by the grazing flocks, the stony screes on 

 the top of Mont Ventoux are in July literally a bed 

 of flowers. Memory calls up the lovely dew-bathed 

 tufts of Androsace villosa, with white flowers and 

 rosy centres ; Viola cenisia, opening great blue 

 corollas on the shattered heaps of limestone; Valeriana 

 saliunca, with perfumed blossoms, but roots that 

 smell like dung ; Globularia cordifolia, forming close 

 carpets of a crude green, starred with little blue 

 heads ; Alpine forget-me-not, blue as the sky above 

 it ; the iberis of Candolle, whose slender stalk bears 

 a dense head of tiny white flowers and creeps down 

 among the loose stones ; Saxifraga oppositifolia and 



