A Feast-Day on the Rhone by Thomas A. Janvier

Below Viviers the Rhone breaks out from its broad upper valley into its broader lower valley through the Defile of Donzere. Here the foothills of the Alps and the foothills of the Cevennes come together, and behind this natural dam there must have been anciently a great lake which extended to the northward of where now is Valence. The Defile is a veritable canon that would be quite in place in the Sierra Madre. On each side of the sharply-narrowed river the walls of rock rise sheer to a height of two hundred feet. The rush of the water is tumultuous. In mid-stream, surrounded by eddies and whirling waves, is the Roche-des-Anglais -- against which the boat of a luckless party of English travellers struck and was shattered a hundred years ago. Indeed, so dangerous was this passage held to be of old -- when faith was stronger and boats were weaker than in our day of skepticism and compound-engines -- that it was customary to tie-up at the head of the Defile and pray for grace to come through it safely; and sincerely faithful travellers tied-up again when the passage was ended to offer a service of grateful praise. But nowadays they clap five men on the tiller and put on more steam -- and the practical result is the same.

The cliffs bordering the canon, being of a crumbling nature, are known as the Maraniousques; but usually are called by the Rhone boatmen the Monkey Rocks -- because of the monkeys who dwelt in them in legendary times and stoned from their heights the passing travellers. It was a long while ago that the monkeys were in possession -- in the time immediately succeeding the Deluge. During the subsidence of the waters it seems that the Ark made fast there for the night, just before laying a course for Ararat; and the monkey and his wife -- desperately bored by their long cooping-up among so many uncongenial animals -- took advantage of their opportunity to pry a couple of tiles off the roof and get away. The tradition hints that Noah had been drinking; at any rate, their absence was not noticed, and the Ark went on without them the next day. By the time that the Deluge fairly was ended, and the Rhone reopened to normal navigation, a large monkey family was established on the Maraniousques; and the monkeys thenceforward illogically revenged themselves upon Noah's descendants by stoning everybody who came along.