and a bazaar man arrived in a caravan of his own.  Then followed the crowd of genuine pilgrims, nearly all of them peasants, humbly clad, but with money in their pockets which they were determined not to spend foolishly upon meat, drink, and lodging, for the good of their souls was uppermost in their minds, and the length of their stay would depend upon their success in making the money last.  By far the greater number were women, and the many bent backs and withered faces among them were a pretty safe sign that they had not all come to implore the aid of the Virgin in that special form of domestic trouble from which so many thousands have sought relief century after century in her sanctuary of Roc-Amadour.

The plain white linen coif—­very ugly, but delightfully primitive—­worn by a large proportion of these peasants showed that they had crossed the Dordogne from the Bas-Limousin.  Many had come all the way on foot, taking a couple of days or more for the journey, and a few had trudged over the hot roads and stony causses[*] barefoot, just like pilgrims of the Middle Ages.

  [*] This Languedocian word, which has come to be generally used in
     describing the limestone uplands, as distinguished from the
     valleys and gorges of a very extensive district of Southern
     France, is said to be a corruption of calx.

Indeed, these people were essentially the same in all social and mental characteristics as their predecessors of five or seven centuries ago; their faith was the same, their daily habits were the same, their language was the same, and their mode of dress, as far as the women were concerned, had scarcely changed.  They came down the narrow street and under the old crumbling gateways in a continuous stream, holding their rosaries in their hands, together with their baskets and bundles, and praying aloud, even before they reached the foot of the steps.  Arriving there, they dropped down upon their knees, and commenced the arduous ascent, interrupted by two hundred genuflexions, during which they repeated an Ave Maria and a special invocation to Notre Dame de Roc-Amadour.  Although the stranger belonging to the outer world—­so different in every way from that of these simple people—­with his mind coloured by particular prejudices, habits of thought, religious or philosophical reasoning, may feel out of sympathy with such pilgrims, he cannot but recognise their sincerity and the serene fulness of their faith.

Above all the pious murmuring rise the harsh voices of those who have come to sell, and who, putting no restraint upon their eagerness to get money, thrust their rosaries and medals almost in the pilgrims’ faces.  Beggars squatting or lying against the wall on either side of the steps exhibit the bare stump of a leg that wofully needs washing, a withered arm, or the ravages of some incurable and gnawing disease.  Yet are they all terribly energetic, wailing forth