Thuytz 197 



ride of the Montagne de la coup au Colet d'Aisa, of which M. 

 Faujas de St. Fond has given a plate, in his Researches sur les 

 volcanoes eteints, that shows it to be a remarkable object : I began 

 to make inquiries and arrangements for having a mule and a 

 guide to go thither the next morning; the man and his wife 

 attended me at dinner and did not seem, from the difficulties they 

 rasied at every moment, to approve my plan : having asked them 

 some questions about the price of provisions and other things, I 

 suppose they regarded me with suspicious eyes and thought that 

 I had no good intentions. I desired, however, to have the mule 

 — some difficulties were made — I must have two mules. — Very 

 well, get, me two. Then returning, a man was not to be had; 

 with fresh expressions of surprise that I should be eager to see 

 mountains that did not concern me. After raising fresh diffi- 

 culties to everything I said, they at last plainly told me that I 

 should have neither mule nor man; and this with an air that 

 evidently made the case hopeless. About an hour after I 

 received a polite message from the Marquis Deblou, seigneur of 

 the parish, who hearing that an inquisitive Englishman was at 

 the inn inquiring after volcanoes, proposed the pleasure of taking 

 a walk with me. I accepted the offer with alacrity, and going 

 directly towards his house met him in the road. I explained to 

 him my motives and my difficulties ; he said the people had got 

 some absurd suspicions of me from my questions, and that the 

 present time was so dangerous and critical to all travellers that 

 he would advise me by no means to think of any such excursions 

 from the great road, unless I found much readiness in the people 

 to conduct me : that at any other moment than the present he 

 should be happy to do it himself, but that at present it was im- 

 possible for any person to be too cautious. There was no resist- 

 ing this reasoning, and yet to lose the most curious volcanic 

 remains in the country, for the crater of the mountain is as 

 distinct in the print of Monsieur de St. Fond as if the lava was 

 now running from it, was a mortifying circumstance. The 

 marquis then showed me his garden and his chateau, amidst the 

 mountains ; behind it is that of Gravene, which is an extinguished 

 volcano likewise, but the crater not discernible without difficultv. 

 In conversation with him and another gentleman, on agriculture, 

 particularly the produce of mulberries, they mentioned a small 

 piece of land that produced, by silk only, 120 livres {£^ 5s.) a 

 year, and being contiguous to the road we walked to it. Appear- 

 ing very small for such a produce, I stepped it to ascertain the 

 contents, and minuted them in my pocket-book. Soon after, 



