Many little rivers run
from all sides in cliffy valleys; and one of them, a few miles from
Monastier, bears the great name of Loire. The mean level of the
country is a little more than three thousand feet above the sea,
which makes the atmosphere proportionally brisk and wholesome.
There is little timber except pines, and the greater part of the
country lies in moorland pasture. The country is wild and tumbled
rather than commanding; an upland rather than a mountain district;
and the most striking as well as the most agreeable scenery lies
low beside the rivers. There, indeed, you will find many corners
that take the fancy; such as made the English noble choose his
grave by a Swiss streamlet, where nature is at her freshest, and
looks as young as on the seventh morning. Such a place is the
course of the Gazeille, where it waters the common of Monastier and
thence downwards till it joins the Loire; a place to hear birds
singing; a place for lovers to frequent. The name of the river was
perhaps suggested by the sound of its passage over the stones; for
it is a great warbler, and at night, after I was in bed at
Monastier, I could hear it go singing down the valley till I fell
asleep.
On the whole, this is a Scottish landscape, although not so noble
as the best in Scotland; and by an odd coincidence, the population
is, in its way, as Scottish as the country.
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