All This To Carry The Water Of A
Couple Of Springs To A Little Provincial City!
The con-
duit on the top has retained its shape and traces of
the cement with which it was lined.
When the vague
twilight began to gather, the lonely valley seemed to
fill itself with the shadow of the Roman name, as if
the mighty empire were still as erect as the supports
of the aqueduct; and it was open to a solitary tourist,
sitting there sentimental, to believe that no people has
ever been, or will ever be, as great as that, measured,
as we measure the greatness of an individual, by the
push they gave to what they undertook. The Pont du
Gard is one of the three or four deepest impressions
they have left; it speaks of them in a manner with
which they might have been satisfied.
I feel as if it were scarcely discreet to indicate the
whereabouts of the chateau of the obliging young
man I had met on the way from Nimes; I must con-
tent myself with saying that it nestled in an en-
chanting valley, - _dans le fond_, as they say in France,
- and that I took my course thither on foot, after
leaving the Pont du Gard. I find it noted in my
journal as "an adorable little corner." The principal
feature of the place is a couple of very ancient towers,
brownish-yellow in hue, and mantled in scarlet Vir-
ginia-creeper. One of these towers, reputed to be
of Saracenic origin, is isolated, and is only the more
effective; the other is incorporated in the house,
which is delightfully fragmentary and irregular.
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