INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
Country of the Waldenses—its climate, productions, and the character of its inhabitants.
TO read the history of a country, without having first become acquainted with its geographical position and local characteristics, is some thing like travelling through it in a railway carriage. Cities, rivers, and battle-fields pass by us in bewildering rapidity, and the memory retains little else than the names which are repeated at every station of temporary halt.
Speed and distance, however, not being the object of our ambition, which is to form intelligent, rather than extensive travellers, we shall commence our history of the Waldensian Church[1] with a short account of the Vaudois country—such preparatory information being especially needed where,
- ↑ It is necessary to distinguish the Vaudois or Waldensians of the Italian Alps from the people of the Pays de Vaud in Switzerland, and from the French Vaudois of the Hautes Alpes.
