his own—­with bare arms, sinewy and hairy like a gorilla’s, I was again in the open country; but instead of following donkey-paths and sheep-tracks I was upon the dusty highroad.  Well, even a, route nationale, however hot and dusty, so that it be not too straight, has its advantages, which are felt after you have been walking an uncertain number of miles over a very rough country, trusting to luck to lead you where you wished to go.  The feeling that you may at length step out freely and not worry yourself with a map and compass is a kind of pleasure which, like all others, is only so by the force of contrast and the charm of variety.  I knew that I could now tramp along this road without troubling myself about anything, and that I should reach Millau sooner or later.  It was really very hot—­ideal sunstroke weather, verging on 90o in the shade; but I had become hardened to it, and was as dry as a smoked herring.  For miles I saw no human being and heard no sound of life except the shrilling of grasshoppers and the more strident song of the cicadas in the trees.  By-and-by houses showed themselves, and I came to the village of St. Georges beside the bright little Cernon, but surrounded by wasteful, desolate hills, one of which, shaped like a cone, reared its yellow rocky summit far towards the blue solitude of the dazzling sky.  I passed by little gardens where great hollyhocks flamed in the afternoon sunshine, then I met the Tarn again and reached Millau, a weary and dusty wayfarer.

I stopped in Millau (sometimes spelt Milhau) more than a day, in order to rest and to ramble—­moderately.  Although the town, with its 16,000 inhabitants, is the most populous in the department of the Aveyron, it is so remote from all large centres and currents of human movement that very little French is spoken there.  And this French is about on a par with the English of the Sheffield grinders.  In the better-class families an effort now is made to keep patois out-of-doors for the sake of the children; but there is scarcely a middle-aged native to whom it is not the mother-tongue.  The common dialect is not quite the same throughout Guyenne and Languedoc; but the local variations are much less marked than one would expect, considering that the langue d’oc has been virtually abandoned as a literary vehicle for centuries.  The word oc (yes), which was once the most convenient sound to distinguish the dialect from that of the northern half of France, is not easy to recognise nowadays in the conversation of the people.  The c in the word is not pronounced—­perhaps it never was—­and the o is usually joined to be, which has the same meaning as bien in the French language.  Thus we have the forms obe, ope, and ape according to the district, and all equivalent to ‘yes.’  All these people can understand Spanish when spoken slowly.  Many can catch your meaning when you speak to them in French, but reply in patois.  I had grown accustomed, although not reconciled, to this manner of conversing with peasants; but I was surprised to find on entering a shop at Millau that neither the man nor his wife there could reply to me in French.