Ait Ascent of Mont Ventoux 197 



tinuous carpet on the lower slopes ; in a few 

 hours they will be treading the dark hassocks 

 of the opposite-leaved saxifrage, the first plant 

 to greet the botanist who lands on the coast of 

 Spitzbergen in July. Below, in the hedges, 

 you have picked the scarlet flowers of the 

 pomegranate, a lover of African skies ; above 

 you will pick a shaggy little poppy, which 

 shelters its stalks under a coverlet of tiny 

 fragments of stone and unfolds its spreading 

 yellow corolla as readily in the icy solitudes of 

 Greenland and the North Cape as on the upper 

 slopes of the Ventoux. 



These contrasts have always something fresh 

 and stimulating about them ; and, after twenty- 

 five ascents, they still retain their interest for 

 me. I made my twenty- third in August 1865. 

 There were eight of us : three whose chief 

 object was to botanize and five attracted by a 

 mountain expedition and the panorama of the 

 heights. Not one of our five companions who 

 were not interested in the study of plants has 

 since expressed a desire to accompany me a 

 second time. The fact is that the climb is a 

 hard and tiring one ; and the sight of a sunrise 

 does not make up for the fatigue endured. 



One might best compare the Ventoux with 

 a heap of stones broken up for road-mending 

 purposes. Raise this heap suddenly to a height 



