was once inhabited by women who ate children, and that a certain mother, whose baby they had kidnapped and eaten, cursed them so heartily and to such purpose that the gouffre was formed, and their convent, or the greater part of it, was supernaturally carried down the hill and plunged into the bottomless water.  The legend also says that those who stand by the pool on St. John’s Eve will hear the convent bell ringing.  It not being St. John’s Eve when I was there I was unable to test the truth of this part of the legend.  What I did hear was a raven croaking from the ruin, and the sound harmonized well with the air of mystery and gloom hanging over the spot.

There is some historic reason for believing that the convent at Lantouy was founded by Charlemagne.  Very near this spot are the remains of some ancient fortified works, and the locality is known as ‘La domaine de Waiffier.’  This name is evidently the same as Waifre.  There is reason to believe that the last of the sovereign Dukes of Aquitaine made a stand here when pursued by his implacable enemy Pepin le Bref.  The people pronounce the word ‘Waiffier’ as though it commenced with a ‘G.’

Towards evening I recrossed the Lot and entered Cajarc.  Passing through the little town, which is not in itself very interesting, I took a path winding up the side of the hill, at the base of which lies the burg.  I wished to see a cascade that has a local reputation for beauty.  I reached the foot of a high, fantastic rock, from the ledges of which masses of ivy hung woven together like a veritable tapestry of nature.  A small stream descended from the uppermost ridge upon a rock covered with moss showing every hue of green, and then into a dark pool below.  The hillside above the cascade has been extensively tunnelled for phosphate.  An Englishman discovered the value of the site, and dug a fortune out of it.  There are several phosphate-mines in this district, all more or less connected with British enterprise.  Phosphate inspires respect for Englishmen here, for it has been the means of giving a great deal of employment and rendering petty proprietors, who could barely get a living out of their thankless soil, comparatively rich.  The inhabitants, therefore, consider English speculators in the light of public benefactors, and such they have really proved, although the motive that brought them here was scarcely a philanthropic one.  Neither the French nor the British public has any conception of the extent to which the mineral resources of France are worked by the English.

Cajarc, although it looks like a village to-day, was once a fortified town of considerable importance in the Quercy.  Its inhabitants offered an obstinate resistance to the English on several occasions.  In 1290 they refused to swear fealty to the King of England until their lord, the Bishop of Cahors, gave them the order to do so in the name of the King of France.  Subsequently in the same and the following century, when the Ouercynois were again in arms against the English, various attempts to take the town by surprise failed through the vigilance and courage of the burghers.  To punish them, the English, in 1368, destroyed their bridge across the Lot, of which some remnants may still be seen.