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 competitors.  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 multitude of places have been named after her—­was a church with a broad tower and low broach spire.  I was struck by the noble 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