Wanderings by Southern Waters, Eastern Aquitaine Part 11

The relics of the saint were destroyed or lost at the time of the Revolution; but high upon the side of a neighbouring hill a chapel has been raised to her, and it is a place of pilgrimage.

IN THE VALLEY OF THE LOT.

The rambler in the highlands of the North knows so well what the wretchedness of being shut up by bad weather in a mountain inn means, that he may have grown reconciled to it, and have learnt how to spend a day under such circ.u.mstances pleasantly. But to me, a sun-lover, to whom the charm of the South has been irresistible, such a trial is one that taxes to the utmost all the powers of endurance. Hence it is that, when I think of Sainte-Enimie, I can recall nothing but impressions of dismal wetness. This may seem shocking to those who have seen, under a different aspect, the little town on the Upper Tarn, named after the Merovingian saint. Be it remembered, however, that I was shut up hour after hour in an inn crowded with peasants in damp blouses, shouting _patois_ at each other, and clutching great cotton umbrellas, whose fragrance under the influence of moisture, was not idyllic; In that abominable little auberge, that styled itself a hotel, I decided to go no farther up the Tarn, but, as soon as the weather would set me free, to cross the _causse_ that separated me from the Lot, and to descend the valley of this river towards the warmer and dryer region of the plains.

Not until the afternoon were there any signs of improvement in the weather; and then, as soon as the clouds grew lighter, I started without waiting for the rain to stop. It was Sunday, and outside the old church was a crowd of men and boys, who had come for vespers. The women did not join them, but pa.s.sed through the door as they arrived.

Throughout rural France, wherever religion keeps a firm hold on the peasant, it is the custom of the men to gather for gossip in front of the church some time before the service, and, just as the bell stops; to make a rush at the doorway, and struggle through the opening like sheep into a fold when there is a dog at their heels. While looking at these men, I was again struck by the prevailing tendency of the peasants of the Lozere to develop long, sharp noses--a feature that often gives them a very weasel-like expression.

Having pa.s.sed the ruins of the monastery, whose high loopholed walls and strong tower showed that it had once been a fortress as well as a religious house, I was soon rising far above the valley of the Tarn.

The winding road led me up the flanks of stony hills, terraced everywhere for almond-trees; but after two or three hours of ascent the almonds dwindled away, and the country became an absolute desert of brashy hills, showing little asperity of outline, but mournful and solemn by their wastefulness and abandonment to a degree that makes the traveller ask himself if he is really in Europe, or has been transported by magic to the most arid steppes of Asia. But there is a plant that thrives in this desert, that loves it so much as to give to it a tinge of dusty blue as far as the eye can reach on every side.

Needless to say that this is the lavender. It was in all its flowering beauty as I crossed the treeless waste, and it gave to the breath of the desert what seemed to be the mystical fragrance of peace.

Leaving the highway to Mende, I took a rough road on the left, which, according to the map, led directly to Chanac by the Lot. I should recommend no one else to take it unless he have more hours of daylight before him than I had. Again I ran a near risk of pa.s.sing the night in the open air. The road became little better than a track; then it crossed others, and it was a very pretty puzzle to tell which was the one for me and which was not. It is true that I could have made straight towards the Lot by the compa.s.s, but the descent of the precipitous cliffs into the deep gorge, unless one knows the paths, is only a task to be undertaken at nightfall with a light heart by those who have had no experience of this savage district. When my perplexity was at its worst I saw a shepherd, whose form, wrapped in the long brown homespun cloak called a _limousine_, stood solemnly against the evening sky. I made towards him, thinking that he would help me out of my difficulty; but no: either he did not understand a word I said, or did not choose to give any information. Perhaps he thought me an escaped madman, or a dangerous tramp, with whom it was better to hold no conversation. The sun was setting when I reached a wood of scattered firs--a more melancholy spot at that hour than the bare _causse_. The weather had been fine for some hours, but now a storm that had been gathering broke. As the wind blew the rain in slanting lines, the level sun shone through the vapour and the streaming atmosphere. Looking above me, as I sheltered myself behind a wailing fir, I saw that the dreary world was spanned by two glorious rainbows.

But although the scene was so wildly beautiful, the spirit of desolation was upon me, and I felt like a homeless wanderer. I was roaming among the firs in the dusk, when I met a shepherd boy, who put me on a path that joined the main road to Chanac. Then began the descent into the valley of the Lot. It was very long; the winding road pa.s.sed through a black forest of firs, and the dark night fell when I was still far from the little town. The walk was gloomy, but in all gloom there is something that is grand and elevating--something that gives a sense of expansion to the soul. The cries of the unseen night-birds, the solemn mystery of the enigmatic trees wrapped in darkness, make us feel the supernatural that surrounds us, and is a part of us, more than the visible movement of life in the light of the sun.

At length the oil-lamps of Chanac flashed brightly in the hollow below, and not long afterwards I was sitting at a table in an upper room of a comfortable old inn, the lower part of which was filled with roisterers, for it was Sunday night. I dined with a Government functionary--an inland revenue _controleur_, who happened to be a Frenchman of the reserved and solemn sort that cultivates dignity. By dint of being looked up to by others he had acquired the fixed habit of looking up to himself. All the time that I was in his company I felt that, had he been an angel dining with a modern Tobias, he could scarcely have shown greater anxiety not to sit upon his wings. Moved by the genial spirit of the grape, or not wishing, perhaps, to crush me altogether with the weight of his official importance, his ice began to melt a little at about the second or third course. Forgetting discretion, he actually smiled. The meal, which had been prepared in antic.i.p.ation of his coming, was a much more splendid entertainment than would have been got up for me had I been alone. The cook's masterpiece was a very cunningly contrived pasty--a work of local genius that I was quite unprepared for. Even M. le controleur, had he not checked himself in time, would have beamed at this achievement; but he would never have forgiven himself such an admission of weakness common to mortals not in the service of the Government. Just before the dessert a superb trout that had been drawn out of the sparkling Lot was brought in, and it had been mercifully spared the disgrace of being sprinkled with chopped garlic.

While we were dining the wa.s.sailers in the great kitchen and general room downstairs became more and more uproarious. Dancing had commenced, and it was the _bourree_, the delightful _bourree_ of Auvergne (the Upper Lot here runs not very far from the Cantal) that was being danced. It is a measure that has no local colour unless it is accompanied by violent stamping. The _controleur_ looked very scandalized, and said it was abominable that the house should be given up to such tumult and disorder. I observed, however, that as the joyousness of the party downstairs increased my companion's face became animated by an expression that was not one of genuine anger, and as soon as he had drunk his coffee he remarked in a tone of indifference that, as the evening had to be spent somehow, it might be less disagreeable to see what was going on below than simply to hear it. I soon followed him, and found that he was enjoying himself thoroughly, although discreetly, in a quiet corner. The kitchen was filled with young fellows in blouses, some sitting at tables drinking and smoking, others standing; all were shouting, whistling or raising peals of laughter that might have brought the house about their ears had it been built by a modern contractor. In the centre of the room the bare-armed kitchenmaid, who had left the platters, and a young peasant in a blouse were dancing, their backs turned to each other, moving their arms up and down like puppets in a barrel-organ, and banging the floor with their sabots, with the full conviction that the greater the noise the greater the fun. And this was the opinion of all except the stout hostess, who looked on at the scene with a distressed countenance from behind a mighty pile of dirty plates. The musicians were spectators who whistled in a band the air of the _bourree_, which is enough to make the most sedate Canon who ever sat in a stall dance, or at least to remember with charity the promptings of his adolescence.

When the kitchenmaid went back to her plates--to the great relief of her mistress, who would have sternly condemned her tripping if thoughts of business had not beset her practical mind--two young men stood up and danced another _bourree_. With the exception of the scullion and household drudge there was no chance of getting a female partner. In these villages and small towns the girls are kept out of harm's way. They go to bed at eight or nine, and are hard at work either in the fields or in the house, or washing by the stream, all through the hours of daylight. The priests, wherever they have influence--and in the South they have a great deal--set their faces strongly against dancing by the two s.e.xes, except under very exceptional circ.u.mstances. They are right; they have peculiar facilities for knowing the variety of human nature with which they have to deal. Humanity is fundamentally the same everywhere, but what is fundamental is modified by race and climate. Temperament, fashioned by causes innate and local, exercises an immense influence upon practical morality.

And so the revel went on. As the gla.s.ses were refilled the noise grew louder and the smoke denser. I soon had enough of it, and taking a candle I climbed to my bedroom, leaving the _controleur_ in his corner. Before going to bed I did a little sewing, having borrowed a threaded needle from the landlady with this object in view. The wayfarer should be ready to help himself as far as he can, and although sewing is not, perhaps, the most manly of accomplishments, no tourist should be incapable of sewing on a b.u.t.ton or closing up a rent that makes the village children laugh.

My walk across the _causse_ separating two rivers had tired me, but I might as well have remained downstairs for all the sleep that I enticed. As the hours wore on the uproar, instead of subsiding, became more terrific. These Southerners have voices of such rock-splitting power that, when twenty or thirty of them, inspired by Bacchus, or excited by discussion, shout together, one asks if it would be possible for devils on the rampage to raise a more hideous tumult. The house trembled as from a succession of thunderclaps. Midnight struck, and the uproar was unabated. At one it had entered upon the quarrelsome phase, and at two there was a fight. Chairs or tables were overthrown, there was a smashing of gla.s.s, a rapid scuffling of feet, and the screaming and howling as of a menagerie on fire. Above the fiendish din rang out the shrill voice of the hostess, who was evidently trying to separate the combatants, and who seemed to be successful, for the hurricane suddenly lulled.

This hostess was a woman of words, but the landlady of an inn near Rodez, which I entered one summer evening, showed herself under similar circ.u.mstances to be a woman of action. Two young men who were sitting at a table, after a very brief difference of opinion, stared fixedly and fiercely into each other's face, and then sprang at one another like a couple of tom-cats. Presently the stronger took the other up in his arms, carried him out through the door, and, having pitched him considerately upon the manure-heap in the yard, returned to his place with the expression of the victorious cat. But he reckoned without his hostess. She was not tall, but her cubic capacity took up more place in the world than that of two or three ordinary mortals. With her great bare arms folded across her ample person she waddled towards the triumphant young man, and there was a look in her eye that made him wriggle uneasily upon his chair. I think he was tempted to run away, but shame nailed him to his seat. As soon as the pair were at close quarters, one of the folded bolster-like arms made a sudden movement, and the back of the strong rough hand, hardened by forty years or more of toil, covered for an instant the youth's nose and mouth. That single movement of a female arm, the muscular development of which a pugilist might have envied, shed more blood than all the clawing, tugging, and b.u.t.ting of the male combatants had caused to flow. 'That is to teach you,' said the strong woman, 'not to fight in my house again!'

But I am forgetting that I am now at Chanac. When I went down into the kitchen at about seven o'clock, after two or three hours' sleep, the landlady and the other women of the inn looked very tired and sheepish. They were prepared to hear some strong criticism of the night's proceedings, such as they would be sure to get when the _controleur_ came down.

'You seem to have had some good amus.e.m.e.nt last night, and to have kept it up well,' said I.

'Oh, monsieur,' exclaimed the hostess, shaking her head dolefully, 'what a night it was!'

And she went on shaking her head, while the kitchen-maid--the one who danced the _bourree_, and was now listlessly rinsing gla.s.ses innumerable--giggled behind her mistress's back. She evidently thought that it was a good sort of night. In making up the bill I think that the regretful aubergiste, who felt, that the reputation of her house had received a cruel blow, and that all the mothers in the place were reviling her for encouraging their sons in dissipation, must have left the bed out of the reckoning, considering that she could not honestly charge me for a night's rest which I did not get. At any rate, the bill was ridiculously small.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CIGALA, THE s...o...b..ACK.]

Now, with the help of daylight, I can see what the little town is like. The houses--many of which have late Gothic doorways--are cl.u.s.tered about the sides of an isolated hill or mamelon in the valley of the Lot, beyond which rise the high cliffs covered with dark woods.

The town is still dominated by the tall rectangular tower that helped to protect it in the Middle Ages, and near to this is the church, which is both Romanesque and Gothic, and is rich in curious details.

The sanctuary is separated from the rest of the choir by the graceful arcade of numerous little arches supported by tall and slender columns, which is one of the most charming and characteristic features of the Auvergnat style. The carving of the capitals exhibits in a delightful manner the hardihood and florid fancy of this singularly interesting development of Byzantine-Romanesque taste. Upon one of the piers of the sanctuary are a pair of symbolical doves dipping their beaks into the chalice that separates them, and upon another are two grotesque and fantastic beasts facing one another with frightful jaws wide open.

The walk from Chanac down the valley through the rest of the department of the Lozere I did not do fairly. The sun was so hot and the way so tedious that I at length yielded to the temptation of the railway that I met here, and rode some fifteen or twenty miles. It was not until the next morning at St. Laurent d'Olt that I braced myself up to the task of faring on foot by the river through the department of the Aveyron. Here in the upper country the stream retains its ancient name, the Olt, which is merely an abbreviation of Oltis, unless it be the Celtic origin of the Latin word. It is easy to see how in rapid speech L'Olt became changed to Lot. The _t_ is still p.r.o.nounced.

The valley down which I now took my way from St. Laurent was broad and green, but the high rocky cliffs which shut it off from the outer world drew nearer as I went on. An old tramp who had a bag slung over his back stopped me and said that he was 'dans la misere.' Doubtless he guessed that I was not quite so deep in it as himself, and that I might be able to spare him something. As I always look upon the tramp with a fraternal interest, however disreputable he may appear, because my own wayfaring has helped to teach me contempt for appearances, I stopped to talk with the aged wanderer while hunting for some stray sous. His matted gray beard and sunken cheeks gave him the air of a Job of the studios; but no such luck had probably ever befallen him as to be asked to pose for thirty sous the hour. Such a sum would be more than he could gather in a day, even after selling the surplus of his begged crusts. He talked to me of 'the picturesque,' which proved that he had not grown gray and half doubled up without learning something of the world's wisdom. I learnt from him that between the spot where we met and St. Geniez there was only a hamlet, but that I should be able to find a house there where I could get a meal.

The old man went hobbling away, wondering, perhaps, when he would meet another foreign imbecile on the tramp, and I was soon alone upon the margin of the river's broad bed of sand, strewn with pebbles like the seash.o.r.e. The stream was still fresh from the mountains, and it had the joyousness and bounding movements of young life. It was very narrow now, and many plants had grown up since the spring upon its far-shelving banks of mica-glittering sand and many-coloured pebbles; but often its swollen waters had rolled through this smiling valley, a raging and uncontrollable force, spreading terror and destruction.

The cliffs drew nearer and rose higher, and then the river ran through a gorge nearly impa.s.sable, and abandoned to all the wildness of nature. The partial loop here formed by the Lot is hidden and defended by a forbidding wilderness of rocks and forest, as if it were one of the last retreats of the fluvial deities, where they can defy the curiosity of man. The adventurous spirit prompted me to explore it, but the lazy one said, 'Leave it.' I took the advice of the latter, and went on by the road, which now left the river, and ascended towards the plateau under cliffs of red sandstone. The thirsty sun had by this time drained almost every flower-cup of its dew; but the freshness of the morning still lingered in the hollows of the rocks, and in the shade of the chestnut, the walnut, and elm. As the earth warmed, it became quieter. All creatures seemed to grow drowsy, except the sociable little quails that kept calling to one another, 'How are you?' and the flies of wicked purpose, which become more and more enterprising as the temperature rises.

It was long since I had seen a human being, when I heard the click-clack of loose _sabots_ coming nearer. Presently a couple of young bulls showed their grim visages round a corner, and after them came a very small girl with a very long stick. She looked about six years old, and she had great trouble to keep her little brown feet inside the wooden shoes, which were many sizes too large for her. How was it that those big, and perhaps bad-tempered, animals allowed themselves to be driven and beaten by that child, whereas they would have turned upon a dog double her size, and done their best to toss him over the chestnut trees? What is it that the brutes see below the surface of the human being to inspire them with such respect and fear of this biped, even when he or she has just crawled out of the cradle?

These bulls, by-the-bye, stopped and looked at me in a way that was anything but respectful, and I delayed the study of the metaphysical question until I could watch them from the rear.

I found on the top of the hill the village or hamlet that the old tramp had mentioned; but there was no sign of an inn--indeed, there was no sign of anybody being alive in the place. I threaded the steep little lanes between the houses and hovels, up to the ankles in dirty straw that had been turned out of the animals' sheds, but saw nothing moving except fowls. I knocked at various doors, and obtained no response. It was clear that all the people, including the children, were away in the fields, and had left the village to take care of itself. Hungry and thirsty, I was resigning myself with a heavy heart to trudge on, when I observed a column of blue smoke rise suddenly from a chimney, and I was not long in finding the house to which it belonged. It was a dilapidated building, very wretched now, but with an air of bygone superiority. This was chiefly shown in the Renaissance doorway, a rather elaborate piece of work, over which was the date 1602. I ascended the steps with a little misgiving, for I thought that perhaps some cantankerous person whose family had seen better times might be living there, and that my questions as to food and drink might meet with surly answers. I knocked, nevertheless, with my stick upon the old door studded with nail-heads. It was opened, and before me stood a woman who looked old, but who was probably middle-aged; she was very poorly clad, very imperfectly washed, but on her tired and toil-worn face there was no forbidding expression. I told her that I was looking for an auberge, and she said that hers was one _au besoin_. It was the only one that answered at all to the name thereabouts. So the smoke had led me to the right place. I followed the heiress of the dilapidated house--she was a descendant of the original owner--through the dingy kitchen, where upon the hearth the fire of sticks that she had just lighted was blazing cheerfully, into a back room, where there were two beds without linen, and with nothing but patchwork quilts over big bundles of dry maize leaves. It is thus that many of the peasants of the Aveyron sleep. This is not a part of France where the study of cleanliness and comfort is carried to excess. If the floor of the room that I now entered had ever been washed, the boards must have forgotten the scrubbing sensation a century or more ago. The appearance of everything indicated that I was in a fleas' paradise; but as it was by no means the first of the kind of which I had had experience, I merely took the precaution of keeping my feet off the ground, so as to offer as few travelling facilities as possible to the enemy. The room, although it was dirty, was cheerful; for the sunshine streamed in through the open window, and the view of the green valley beneath and the woods beyond soon drove the fleas out of mind. Upon the sill were plums laid out on wooden trays to dry in the sun and become what English people call prunes.

The excellent woman, who installed me before a little table on which she laid a cloth, said that she had little to offer me; but that all she had was at my service. She first fished out of the wood-ashes in which it was preserved one of those dry, stringy sausages with which everyone who knows this part of France must be familiar. Then she brought in some white bread which a presentiment of my coming had perhaps caused her to buy a month before, for it was green with mildew. She thought that I should prefer this to the very dark bread of her own making. The choice was perplexing. My meal was chiefly made upon a dish of firm cream like that of Devonshire, with plums and fresh cob-nuts for dessert. Then my hostess made me some coffee, a luxury rarely used in the house; and when she had set it on the table, I induced her to stay and talk awhile. The conversation was made easier because, notwithstanding her poverty, she spoke French with much more facility than most of the people in these rural districts.

She told me that her husband and children had not yet returned from the fields, and that she was at home because she was so tired after threshing buckwheat all yesterday in the sun.

'In winter,' I said, 'you have an easier time?' 'Oh no! In winter we are always working at something or another. We then make our linen from the hemp, patch up the clothes, prepare the walnuts for pressing, and blanch the chestnuts.[*] We have always something on hand.'

[*] _Blanchir les chataignes_. In Guyenne, after the first sale of chestnuts in their natural state, the peasants prepare a large quant.i.ty of those that remain in a special manner, which consists of removing the first and second skins, and artificially drying the nuts until they become quite hard. They will then keep an indefinite period, and can be boiled for food when required. In the winter evenings, while the women work at their distaffs, the men frequently skin chestnuts either for drying or for food the next day.

But while there was any work to be done out-of-doors, there they were busy from sunrise until dusk. Supper over, the beasts were looked after. 'Then,' she added, 'we say our prayers and go to bed.' She volunteered no statements respecting her ancestry, but when I questioned her concerning the house, she said that her family had been living in it for nearly 300 years. At one time they were the princ.i.p.al people in the district. It was true that they had come down in the world, but she felt thankful for the blessings that had been given her, and was satisfied. The family were all in good health, and that was the main thing. Her mother was still living with her--eighty-seven years of age, and had never been ill in her life.

Here was a simple but eloquent story of human vicissitude and uncertainty that was told without a word of regret or repining, and as though it were a tale of no interest to anybody. This poor, humble woman before me, whose back was still aching from the movement of bending and lifting the flail hour after hour, was, by right of birth, what we call in England a 'gentlewoman.' But she was poor, and ignorant of all books except the one that contained her prayers. She was not less a peasant than any of the women around her, nor did she wish to be thought anything better. That her ancestors were gentlemen, that, they may have borne a forgotten t.i.tle (many that were borne in France have been forgotten by the descendants), was as nothing to her.

She clung only to what, in her simple but grand philosophy, was really to be valued--the blessings of life and health, opportunities of labour, independence, and faith in G.o.d.

This woman would only take the equivalent of a shilling for her wine, her coffee, and her food; then she made me drink some of her _eau de noix_ (spirit prepared with the juice of green walnuts), and as I left she pressed more nuts and plums upon me.

The old woman who had never been ill was waiting for me under a tree.

She could not speak a word of French, but she said a great deal in _patois_, of which all that I could make out was that she was afraid the _calour_ (heat) would hurt me if I left so early in the afternoon.

A little beyond the village I pa.s.sed a party of threshers, men and women--two rows of them facing each other like dancers; the figures bending and straightening in unison, and all the. flails whirling together in the air. They had spread a large cloth upon the ground, and were thrashing out the grain upon it.

A block of granite cropping out of the sandstone indicated a change in the formation, and this came, for the rocks gradually pa.s.sed into gneiss and schist, frequently covered with moss and ferns, golden-rod in bloom, and purple heather. St. Geniez by the Lot was reached long before sundown; but although I had the time, I was not tempted to walk any farther that day.

The little town is picturesquely situated on the river-bank, and it has some old houses with turrets, and other interesting details. There is a late Gothic church that was formerly attached to an Augustinian monastery, of which part of the cloisters remains. Inside the edifice every flagstone covers a tomb, and in several instances masons'

hammers and other tools are carved upon them.

It fell out that several commercial travellers and superior pedlars came into St. Geniez on the same day as myself, but in more genteel fashion, for they had their traps, and would not for all the world have risked their reputation for respectability, and rendered themselves despicable in the eyes of customers, by entering on foot.

Nevertheless, their first impression (as I afterwards learnt), when I sat down with them to dinner at the comfortable inn, which, thanks to their patronage, had found the courage to style itself a hotel, was that I might be a new rival in the field. But the difficulty was to guess the particular field that I had marked out for my own distinction and the confusion of compet.i.tors. Was I in the grocery line, or the oil and colour line? Was I _dans les spiritueux_ or _dans les articles d'eglise_? Then they had a suspicion that I was, perhaps, a German traveller trying to open up a fresh market for potato spirit, or those scientific syrups which are said to change any alcohol into 'old cognac' or the most venerable Jamaica rum. This may have accounted for the somewhat chilly reserve that fell upon my table companions as I took my seat among them. But, as this was unpleasant for everybody, I soon found an opportunity of dispelling the mystery that hung over me. Then they threw off all restraint, and showed themselves to be the jolly, rollicking, good-natured beings that these men almost invariably are. They were much more polite to me than Englishmen generally are to strangers, who are felt to be something like intruders--recognising me as a guest, and insisting upon my helping myself first to every dish that was brought on the table. It is customary for tourists to speak of the French commercial traveller as a very ridiculous or vulgarly offensive person. I have found these so-called 'bagmen' to be among the most pleasant-mannered, agreeable, and intelligent people whom I have met while roaming in provincial France. I have been disturbed at night by their uproariousness, for they are convivial to a fault; but in my immediate relations with them I have always found them frank, kindly, and courteous.

Before eight o'clock the next morning I had left St. Geniez behind me in the light mist, and was again on the banks of the Lot. At a waterside village called Sainte-Eulalie--a saint so much venerated by the French in the Middle Ages that a mult.i.tude of places have been named after her--was a church with a broad tower and low broach spire.

I was struck by the n.o.ble simplicity and elegance of the Romanesque apse, which was much in the Auvergnat style. The village was very picturesque, partly on account of its position by the sunny, babbling water, and partly because of its numerous old houses, some with projecting stories, and others with exterior staircases communicating with an open gallery covered by the prolonged eaves of the roof.

Outside of the doors mushrooms (_boleti_) after being cut in slices, were spread in the sun to dry. As I continued my way down the valley I met several women and girls returning from the chestnut woods on the hillsides carrying baskets of these _cepes_ on their heads. Although I hoped to sleep that night at Espalion, I soon left the direct road and struck off across country to the south-west in order to take in the village of Bozouls, a place that some soldier whom I had met told me was like Constantine in Algeria. I therefore left the valley of the Lot, and proceeded to cross the hills and tablelands which separated me from the gorge of its tributary, the Dourdou.

In taking by-paths to reach the _causse_, I pa.s.sed over hillocks of chocolate-coloured marl mixed with broken schist and flints: here the broom and juniper, the heather and bracken, flourished. At length I felt the fresh breeze and drank the invigorating air of the limestone plateau. Descending the hill beyond, on the road to Rodez, I pa.s.sed a very strange-looking spot where huge flat blocks of bare gneiss, laid together as though giants of the t.i.tanic age had here been trying to pave the world, sloped with extraordinary regularity towards the highway. And these prodigious slabs of gneiss now lay amidst schistous marl and calcareous rock.

Farther down in the valley was a small village of which the houses were dwarfed by a gloomy strong hold, apparently of the fifteenth century, whose four high and ma.s.sive towers, occupying the angles of a small quadrilateral, gave it the appearance of a vast _donjon_. At a small inn kept by a blacksmith I was able to get a meal and the rest that was now needed. The blacksmith's wife, a pleasant young woman; who seemed much amused at the sight of a being from the outer and, to her, half-fabulous world, drew part of a duck out of the grease in which it had been preserved, and gave me this with rice for my lunch.

During the repast I was not a little worried by the questions of the blacksmith and some other village worthies who were drinking coffee in the small room that had to do for everybody, and who had so placed themselves that they could watch me at their ease. Such a strange bird as myself did not drop into their midst every day. They were not unfriendly, but their curiosity was troublesome, and I perceived that nothing that I might have said would have removed the impression from their minds that I was a mysterious character.

The country beyond this village was not unpleasant to the eye, with its vineyards on the slopes and its green pasturage in the valleys, but the hours went by drearily as I tramped upon the long road. I felt solitary, and was not in the mood to be interested easily; nevertheless, I lingered on the wayside awhile before a remarkable relic of the past: a rectangular machicolated tower of great height and strength rising out of a dark grove of trees. The afternoon was drawing towards evening, when I descended suddenly into a deep and narrow ravine where the sunshine was lost, and the twilight dwelt with greenness and dampness. At the bottom the Dourdou ran swiftly over its pebbly bed. After following it a little distance I found myself between towering walls of Jura.s.sic rock, vertical towards the summit, capped on each side by a long row of houses. There was also a church, likewise on the edge of the precipice. This was Bozouls--a place scarcely known beyond a small district of the Aveyron, but one of the most curious in France. The traveller, when he reaches the gorge, after crossing a somewhat monotonous country, is quite unprepared for such a startling revelation of the sentiment of human fellowship in the midst of the savagery of nature. Why did men build houses in rows on the brink of these frightful precipices? It appears to have been all done for the sake of the artist and the lover of the picturesque.

And yet Bozouls grew to be a village in an age when men of work and action only knew two kinds of enthusiasm--war and religion. Either a castle or a religious foundation must have been the beginning of this community. There are no remains of a fortress, but the church is very old, and its elaborate architecture suggests that it was at one time attached to a monastic establishment. After crossing the stream I climbed to this church by a path that wound about the rocks, and found it an exceedingly interesting example of the Southern Romanesque. The portal opens into a narthex, where there is a very primitive font like a low square trough. The nave entrance has two columns on each side supporting archivolts, and upon the capitals of these columns are carved figures of the quaintest Romanesque character, ill.u.s.trating Biblical subjects. The nave has an aisle on each side scarcely four feet wide, and most of the separating columns are out of the perpendicular. The capitals here are wrought with acanthus-leaves or little figures. The sanctuary and apse are in the style of Auvergne, with this peculiarity, that the capitals of the slender columns are singularly ma.s.sive, and bear only the mere outline of the acanthus-leaf for ornament.

The long street of the village, white and sunbaked, running within a few yards of the precipice, was almost as deserted as the church. But for a Sister who stood by the convent gate like a statue of Eternal Silence, and a man who was killing a wretched calf in the middle of the road, I might have asked myself if this fantastic Bozouls was not some spectral village, reproducing the past in all except the living beings who had gone down into their graves. When I recrossed the Dourdou, the light was several tones lower than it was when I first descended to the bottom of the ravine, and the vegetation was of a deeper and sadder green. And the stream rushed onward with a low wail, and a distressful cry, as of a soul pa.s.sing down the Dark Valley and not yet free from the panic of death.