Let us now spread open the map of Europe, and search diligently amid the lower range of the Cottian Alps for the rocky dwelling-place of “the men of the valleys.” We shall find it on the Italian side of the giant wall which rises between France and Italy. Their territory, though once of wider extent, including the valleys of the Clusone and Pragela, and stretching into the plain, is now shut within the three narrow valleys of Luserna, or Pellice,—with its two branches Angrogna and Rorà, San Martino, and Perosa. It is about twenty miles in length, and not more than eighteen in its broadest parts, and contains about twenty-two thousand inhabitants.
It is bounded on the north and south by Monte Viso and Mont Genèvre, on the west by the Cols de Julien and La Croix, and on the east by the fertile plains of Piedmont; these last, with the rocky eminence of Mount Cavour in the centre, and the ocean-like vapour with which they are usually overspread, add a beautiful but deceptive finish to the view.
The scenery of these Waldensian valleys possesses features both of Swiss and Italian beauty. Amongst the former, we may class the snowy points of the distant mountains, the nearer and overhanging rocks, the clear streams, and bright herbage; whilst to Italy belong the twice-budding mulberry tree, yielding its crop of summer foliage to supply growth and strength to the silk-worms, that weave those countless multitudes of golden cocoons which are the chief riches of the Vaudois peasant. The gadding vine, too, is Italian, for here, neither clipped nor trammeled, it twines its branches round trees planted at intervals for its support, and meets in graceful festoons in the centre, hanging its pendent fruit over a soil yielding rich crops of maize and waving corn
