No
other grain or vegetable can be raised. Mould quickly attacks the flour
in this mountain-air, and the year's baking is accordingly done in the
autumn as soon as the rye comes back from the mill. The coarse black
loaves grow perfectly hard in a few weeks, and have to be chopped into
pieces and soaked in hot water before they can be eaten. It is only at
the head of the valley, above the hamlet of Dourmillouse, that any
pastures are found, and many of those are inaccessible to cattle and
scarcely safe for sheep. They are besides so meagre that in dry summers
no hay can be made, and the peasants are forced to sell their beasts at
a loss or else see them die for want of food. The addition of a little
salted meat to the half-grown potatoes and the stony bread is a luxury
of only the most prosperous years. The bald mountain-slopes furnish no
fuel, and it is of course only in the smallest quantities that the
people can afford to buy wood in the valley of the Durance. Their
resource against the winter's cold is moving into their stables, where,
huddled together in a corner cleared for the purpose, they pass four or
five months. The smoky and confined air is a welcome change from the icy
winds outside, and the steaming cattle are a source of grateful warmth.
"This village," Neff writes, about the middle of September, from the
smallest and most destitute of the hamlets of Fressiniere, "is squeezed
up in the very narrowest gorge of the valley, and is now buried in snow,
and without the hope of seeing the sun during the rest of the winter.
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