Echelles, a small town, standing in a valley, completely hemmed in with majestic mountains. We drank our tea and slept here at _La Poste_, and I sat out, as long as it was prudent, in an open wooden gallery, (which ran round the outside of the house, and commanded a view of the superb scene), talking with the hostess, a cheerful, well-looking young woman, who was overwhelmed by the number of her progeny. The youngest of the children, a little girl of three years old, came up to me and laid her head upon my knees, with the happy ease of innocent confidence, chattering bad French with all her might; the mother also introduced two of her sons to us (boys of five and seven), who ran in to bid her good night before they went to bed, and to hug and kiss her. The youngest (a fine sturdy rogue) told me that he always said his prayers, and that after _le bon Dieu_, he loved "Maman." This woman, in the midst of her rustic simplicity, had had the true good sense of presenting the Deity to the infant imaginations of her children, under the attractive image of an indulgent parent, thus fulfilling the sacred command of "Give me thine heart." A convent of the Chartreuse still exists in the neighbourhood; I believe it is the famous convent of _La Grande Chartreuse_, a most interesting spot, but inaccessible to women. I made inquiries about some of the natural productions of these mountains, and learnt that so many superior simples and aromatic plants (_note_ A) grew there, as to induce the apothecaries and chemists who lived within reach, to come in search of them very frequently.