from Mons Jovis Mariani.[89] The road lies through the bright cool green of wide plantations of the silkworm mulberry,[90] with its trim stem and rounded head; and, in the more open parts of the valley, walnut trees of size and shape fit for an ornamental park in England relieve the monotony.  The nearer hills are covered to the top with vines, and the higher and more distant ranges have a naked and thoroughly burned appearance, which suggests the idea of volcanoes to a traveller ignorant of volcanic facts.  The villages which lie at the foot of these rocky hills are built of stones taken from the beds of the streams, and are so completely of one colour with the background of rock, that in many instances it is difficult to determine whether a distant mass of grey is a village or not.  Ruined castles and towers abound; and these, and still more the walls which surround many of the villages, point unmistakeably to times of great disturbance.  The valley of the Drome, up which the road after a time turns, was an important locality in the religious wars; and the town and fort of Crest especially, as its name might suggest, was a famous stronghold, and resisted all the efforts of the Reformed party.  In yet earlier times, Simon de Montfort had frequently tried to take it, without success; and four years after S. Bartholomew, Lesdiguieres met with a like repulse.[91] The same story of sieges and battles might be told of almost every village and defile of the valley.  Thus, Saillans, the third stage, was taken by the Protestant leader Mirabel, and the Catholic Gordes, in 1574, and its fortifications were razed by the Duc de Mayenne in 1581.  Pontaix, again, a remarkable place, with a vaulted street and fortified houses overhanging the river, which here fills up the whole valley and leaves room only for the road and the narrow village-town, was the scene of an obstinate and murderous fight between the Marquis de Gordes on one side, and Lesdiguieres and Dupuy-Montbrun on the other, when the latter was captured, and shortly after beheaded at Grenoble.

The town of Die, Dea Vocontiorum, lies in a broad part of the valley.  It claims to be not Dea Vocontiorum only, but also Augusta Vocontiorum, thereby apparently defrauding the village of Aouste, near Crest, of the earliest form of its name.  Die is possessed of old walls, and has four gates with towers.  The great goddess from whose worship it derives its name was Cybele, notwithstanding the vehement assertions of the official in the Poste-bureau in favour of Ceres; and three different Tauroboles have been discovered here, one of which is in excellent repair, and shows a Roman inscription surmounted by three bulls’ heads.  The ceremony of the Taurobolium was new to me, and appears to have been conducted as follows:—­A small cave was hollowed out, with a thin roof formed by the outer surface of the earth; and immediately above this a bull was sacrificed, so that the blood ran through the earth and dropped on to a priest who was placed in full robes in the cave.  The priest and the blood-stained garments were thenceforth specially sacred, the garments retaining their sanctity for twenty years.  The inscription on the Tauroboles which have been found in and near Die record the names of the priest, the dendrophore, the person who provided the victim, and the emperor for whose safety the sacrifice was offered.