Wet Weather in the Pyrenees--Eaux Chaudes out of Season, and in the Rain--Plucking the Indian Corn at the Auberge at Laruns--The Legend of the Wehrwolf, and the Baron who was changed into a Bear 156-166
The Solitary Big Hotel--The Knitters of the Pyrenees--The Weavers of the Pyrenees--Pigeon-catching in the Pyrenees--The Giant of the Pyrenean Dogs--Murray and _Commis Voyageurs_--The Eastern Pyrenees--The Legend of Orthon 167-186
Languedoc--The "Austere South"--Beziers and the Albigenses--The Fountain of the Greve--The Bishop and his Flock--The Canal du Midi--The Mistral--Rural Billiard-playing 187-199
Travelling by the Canal du Midi--Travelling French People--The Salt Harvest--Equestrian Thrashing Machines--Cette--The Mediterranean--The "Made" Wines--The Priest on Wines--_La Cuisine Française_ 200-218
The Olive-gathering--A Night with the Mosquitoes--Aigues-Mortes--The Fever in Aigues-Mortes--My _Cicerone_ in Aigues-Mortes--The Pickled Burgundians--Reboul's Poetry--The Lighthouse of Aigues-Mortes 219-235
Fen Landscape--Tavern Allegories--Roman Remains--Roman Architecture--Roman Theatricals--The Maison Carrée--Greek Architecture--Catholic and Protestant--The Weaver's _Cabane_--Protestant and Catholic 236-255
Backward French Agriculture--French Rural Society--The Small Property System--French "Encumbered Estates" 256-264
THE DILIGENCE--OLD GUIENNE AND THE ENGLISH IN FRANCE--BORDEAUX AND A SUBURBAN VINTAGING.
"_Voila la voila! La ville de Bordeaux!_"
The conductor's voice roused me from the dreamy state of dose in which I lay, luxuriously stretched back amid cloaks and old English railway-wrappers, in the roomy banquette of one of the biggest diligences which ever rumbled out of Caillard and Lafitte's yard.
"_Voila! la Voila!_" The bloused peasant who drove the six stout nags therewith stirred in his place; his long whip whistled and cracked; the horses flung up their heads as they broke into a canter, and their bells rang like a joy peal; while Niniche, the conductor's white poodle, which maintained a perilous footing in the leathern hood of the banquette, pattered and scratched above our heads, and barked in recognition of his master's voice.
I rubbed my eyes and looked. We were on the ridge of a wooded hill. Below us lay a flat green plain, carpetted with vines. Right across it ran the broad, white, chalky highway, powdering with dust the double avenue of chestnuts which lined it. Beyond the plain glittered a great river, crowded with shipping, and beyond the river rose stretching, apparently for miles, a magnificent façade of high white buildings, broken here and there by the foliage of public gardens, and the dark embouchures of streets; while, behind the range of quays, and golden in the sunrise, rose high into the clear morning air, a goodly array of towering Gothic steeples, fretted and pinnacled up to the glancing weather-cocks. It was, indeed, Bordeaux.