Some vestiges of a castle appeared upon a high-jutting craggy mass, marking the site of the Chateau de Montesquieu, one of the strongest fortresses of the gorge in the Middle Ages.

I guessed rightly by the vines and almonds that La Malene was not far off.  Soon came that sight, ever welcome to the wayfarer—­the village where he intends to seek rest and refreshment.  The inn here was as unpretentious as the one at Les Vignes; but with hare, en civet, a dish of trout, and a bottle of the wine grown upon the sunny terrace above the houses, I had as good a meal as any hungry tramp has a right to expect.  As for myself, I never expect anything so sumptuous, and in this way I let luck have a chance of giving me now and then a pleasant surprise.  The trout in the Upper Tarn do not often reach a large size, because by growing they become too conspicuous in such clear water; but their flesh obtains that firmness which is the gift of mountain streams.  The wine grown upon the slopes of the gorge is a petit vin with a sparkle in it, and it comes as a delightful change to those who have been drinking the tasteless, deep-coloured wines of the Beziers and Narbonne region, with which the South of France has been flooded since the new vineyards upon the plains and slopes of the Mediterranean have been yielding torrents of juice.  The fruit of no plant is so dependent upon the soil for its flavour as that of the vine.  Chalk produces champagne, and some of the best wines of Southern France are grown upon calcareous soils where the eye perceives nothing but stones.  The plant loves to get its roots down into the crevices of a rock.  I now drank the fragrant light wine of the Gevaudan—­the calcareous district of the Upper Tarn—­with a pleasure not unmixed with sorrow; for the phylloxera had found its way up the gorge, and the vineyards were already sick unto death.  The pest had come some years later here than in districts nearer the plains; but it had too surely come, and the fear of poverty was gnawing the hearts of the poor men—­many of them old—­who had been bending their backs such a number of years, and their fathers before them, upon those terraces which had been won from the desert at the price of such long labour.

Before continuing my journey up the gorge, I climbed to the little church overlooking the village, and which stands in the midst of the rough burying-ground where the dead must lie very near the solid rock.  It is a plain Romanesque building, presenting the peculiarity not often seen of exterior steps leading to the belfry.  Against an inner wall is a tablet, which tells of certain men of Florac who ’pro Deo et rege legitime certantes coronati sunt, die II mensis Junii, anni 1793.’  They were guillotined by the Revolutionists at Florac.

I passed the Chateau de la Caze, a small but well-preserved castle, showing the transition from the feudal to the Renaissance style, and still surrounded by its moat.  It has five towers, and is a picturesque building; but I thought it gloomy in the deep shade of the gorge and the surrounding trees.  It must be gloomier still at night when the owls shriek and hoot.  If it is not haunted, it must be because there are so many abandoned solitary great houses in this part of France that the ghosts have become rather spoilt and hard to please.