‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Why?’ replied he, with a sad smile, ’because in the happy times everybody drank wine at all hours of the day; but now, in these miserable times, nearly everybody drinks water.’

The new state of things would be still more satisfactory from a teetotal point of view if Nature were less niggardly of water in these parts.  In some localities it has to be strictly economized, and this is done in the case of streams by using it first for the exterior, and afterwards for the interior needs of man.  I, having still some English prejudices, would rather run all the risks incurred by drinking wine, than swallow any more than I am obliged of the rinsings of dirty linen.

Having crossed the Lot by a suspension bridge, a roadside inn enticed me with its little terrace, where there were many hanging plants and flowers, and a wild fig-tree that had climbed up from the rock below, so that it could look into people’s glasses and listen to their talk in that pleasant bower.  I might have lingered here too long had it not been for the wasps, which were even a greater nuisance than the flies.

To reach the village of Frontenac I took a little path leading through maize-fields by the river’s side.  The maize was ready for the harvest, and the long leaves had lost nearly all their greenness.  The lightest breath of air made each plant rustle like a paper scarecrow.  The river was fringed with low, triggy willows and a multitude of herbs, rich in seeds, but poor in flowers.  Among those still in bloom were the evening primrose, soapwort, and marjoram.  The river was as blue as the heaven, and on each side rose steep hills, wooded or vine-clad, with the yellow or reddish rock upon the ridges glowing against the hot sky.  As I was moving south-west I had the afternoon sun full in the face.  The lizards that darted across the path, raising little clouds of dust in their hurry, found this glare quite to their taste, but it was too much for me, and when at length I saw a leafy walnut tree I lay down in the shade until the fiery sun began to touch the high woods, the river, and the yellow maize-stalks with the milder tones of evening.

A narrow grassy lane between tall hedgerows sprinkled over with innumerable glistening blackberries led me to Frontenac, a village upon the rocky hillside.  Here is a little church partly raised upon the site of a Roman or Gallo-Roman temple.  A broken column left standing was included in the wall of the Romanesque apse, upon the lower masonry of which both pagan and Christian hands have worked.  The nave has been rebuilt in modern times, but in the open space before the entrance Roman coffins crop up above the rough paving, separated from each other only by a few feet.  There is a stone coffin lying right across the doorway, and the cure, whom I drew into conversation, confided to me, with a comical smile upon his pale dark face, that he had raised a fragment of the lid