The plough used upon these moors, on the causses of the Quercy, and in some other districts where the barrenness of the soil has kept the inhabitants for centuries imprisoned within the circle of their old routine, is one of the simplest that the world has known. It differs but slightly from the one figured in the most ancient of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and is really the same as that which was used in Gaul under the Romans. Indeed, it has not the improvements that the Romans introduced. Two poles forming an obtuse angle is the rough shape of it. The wedge-like share is a continuation of the pole that is held by the ploughman. Often on the causses, where loose stones are inseparably mixed with the soil, the entire plough is of wood.
[Illustration: PLOUGHING THE MOOR.]
We passed through the village of Marcillac, near the head of one of the valleys. The soil was much more fertile here, and a maize field was a sign that the climate was warmer. There were, moreover, pleasant gardens with fruit-trees and flowers. Oleanders were blooming outside some of the houses. But we had no sooner risen upon the plateau again than the moor returned, and for seven or eight miles it continued unbroken. The ground was slightly undulating, and amongst the gorse and heather were scattered innumerable juniper bushes.
On approaching La Roche Canillac the road descended into a very deep valley by so many turns and windings that I was thankful to be in the pedlar's cart, especially as the mid-day sun smote with torrid strength. But the scenery was of exquisite beauty, and this valley will remain in my memory as one of the most charming I have ever seen. Luxuriant woods, flashing water, savage rocks, emerald-green patches of meadow, little mills by the riverside-I should add nothing to the picture by saying more. Upon the rocky hillside was the burg of five hundred inhabitants. My companions took me to an old auberge whose exterior was not promising, but which was, nevertheless, well supplied with food, and had a good cellar. The meal served there was the best that had fallen to my lot for several days. The sun had lost all the ardour of mid-day when I took leave of the pedlar and the mayor's son. I went away thinking that I might travel far without finding two more kindly, honest fellows.
[Illustration: A GORGE IN THE CORRÈZE.]
I had hoped to reach Argentat by the Dordogne that night, but I had stayed too long at the inn for the plan to be practicable; so I set off down the gorge of the tributary with the intention of taking my luck at a village called St. Bazile. I was soon in the shade of the chestnut forest, where boars were said to be plentiful. As time went on, the scenery became more solemn and awe-inspiring. Pines that looked very gloomy in the late afternoon mingled with the chestnuts, while black rocks, faintly flushed with heather towards the sky, reared their jagged outlines above the sombre foliage. All the while the water in the gorge moaned or roared. It was growing very dusk when the walls on either hand rose like the sides of a pit.
I was beginning to ask myself in no cheerful mood whether the map had not deceived me as to the whereabouts of St. Bazile, when, to my relief, I heard a church bell ringing not very far down the stream. It was the angelus. How often has this clear, solemn, heart-touching, and consoling sound been to me what a familiar beacon is to the doubting mariner! Only wanderers in desolate places know the sentiment that it carries through the evening air. More welcome than ever before did it seem in this black gorge. I pushed on, and presently the gloomy walls widened out. Turning a bend of the torrent, I stood in a glow of ruddy light that streamed from the yawning mouth of an open-air oven that had recently been filled with dry broom and kindled for the night's baking. Here was a fresh delight, for there is nothing more cheering, more full of homely sentiment in the dusk, than the view of such a blazing oven.
This, then, was the village of St. Bazile de la Roche, to give its full name. It could scarcely have boasted a hundred houses. There was one miserable little inn, kept by a widow. There I had to pass the night, unless I preferred a cave or a mossy bed under a tree. The poor woman managed to find a piece of veal, which she cooked for me. It seemed to be my lot now to eat no meat but veal. As I sat down to this dish and a bottle of wine, two men at another table were eating boiled potatoes, without plates, and drinking water. The contrast made me uncomfortable. There is some reason in the selfishness that avoids the sights and sounds and all suggestions of other people's poverty and pain; but those who take such base care of themselves never know human life. I could not offer these men wine without running the risk of a refusal, but it was different with regard to a little hump-backed postman who came in to gossip. Half a litre of wine that, at my wish, was set before him made him exceedingly cheerful. He told me that he walked about twenty miles a day on the hillsides and in the ravines, and I suppose his pay was the same as that of other rural postmen in France-from £28 to £32 a year. The inhabitants of St. Bazile, he said, were all very poor, their chief food being potatoes and chestnuts. Before the vines a little further down the valley were destroyed by the phylloxera and mildew, the people were much better off. Then there was plenty of wine in the cellars, but now St. Bazile was a village of water-drinkers. He spoke of the neighbouring parish of Servières, where, at the annual pilgrimage, women go barefoot from one rock to the other on which the chapel stands.
Before placing myself between the canvas-like sheets, I opened the lattice window of my meagrely-furnished room. The only distinguishable voice of the night was that of the stream quarrelling with its rocky bed just below. Before me was the high black wall of hill and forest, above the ragged line of which flashed the swarming stars.
The angelus sounded again at four in the morning. Before seven I was out in the open air. I saw the curé go up into the tower of his small church, and ring the bell for his own mass. He was probably too poor to pay a sacristan. A little later he was in the pulpit catechising the children, and preaching to the older parishioners between whiles. A boy and then a girl would stand up, and in answer to questions put to them would recite in an unintelligible gabble the catechism they had learnt. If one of them lost the thread and suddenly lapsed into a speechless confusion of ideas, the curé pointed the finger of reprobation at the unfortunate little wretch, and made him or her-especially him-feel the enormity of having a bad memory. While waving his arm in a moment of rhetorical excitement, he let his book fall upon an old woman's head. 'Voilà ce que c'est de faire des gestes!' said he with a smile that was almost a discreet grin. The children were delighted, and everybody laughed, including the poor old soul, who had seated herself under the pulpit so that she might hear well.
It was evident that the people of St. Bazile quite understood their curé, and that he was just the one for them. He was a strong man, over sixty years of age, and he spoke with a rich southern accent. Under his sacerdotal earnestness there was a sense of humour ever ready to take a little revenge for a life of sacrifice. There are many such priests in France.
I had no sooner walked out of this village, on my way to Argentat, than I became aware that the Girondin climate was beginning to make itself felt. The influence of the plains was overcoming that of the highlands. The warm rocky slopes on each side of the valley were covered with vines-alas! dead or dying. There was no hope for them. On the level of the river were fields of maize, now ripening, and irrigated meadows intensely green. There were beehives, fifteen or twenty together on the sunny slopes, and as I went on, the signs of human industry and ease increasing, I saw petunias climbing over cottage doors. There was a steep descent to Argentat. The town lay in a wide valley by the Dordogne, in the midst of maize and buckwheat fields and green meadows, the surrounding hillsides being covered here with chestnut woods, and there with vines. I met a woman returning from market with melons in her basket. Truly I had come into a different climate. At the small town, made pretty by the number of its vine trellises, I lunched. The inn where I stopped is not worth describing; but it gave me a dish of gudgeons caught in the Dordogne that deserved to be remembered.
I did not remain long at Argentat, for I was determined to reach Beaulieu that night. A little out of the town some girls whom I passed on the road looked very suspiciously at me out of the corners of their eyes, and reminded me that another whom I had met that morning higher up the valley took to her heels at the sight of me. An old woman who had lived long enough to overcome such timidity, asked me if I was a marchand, by which she meant pedlar-the old question to which I have grown weary of replying. About a mile from the town I found the Dordogne again. It had grown to quite a fine river since I last saw it in the ravines below Bort. Many an eager affluent had rushed into it, both on the Corrèze and the Cantal side. Here most of the grass was dried up, and the freshness of the highlands was gone. Still the valley was shut in by steep cliffs. Brambles climbed about the rocks, where the broom also flourished, although tangled with its parasite, the dodder. Looking up the crags, I recognised a wild fig-tree-the first I had seen on this southward journey.
The valley became again so narrow that the road was cut into the escarped side of the cliff, for the river ran close under it. A...
