Half an hour later I reached Murcens, only inhabited nowadays by a few peasants in two or three scattered hovels, which are nevertheless called farms.  I had no difficulty in finding the wall of the Gaulish town.  It is broken down completely in places, but the almost circular line is plainly marked.  The site of the oppidum is a little tableland raised above the surrounding soil by a natural embankment.

The circumvallation in its best preserved places is now from seven to ten feet high.  The materials used were such as Caesar mentions as having been employed by the Gauls in the fortification of their oppida, namely, timber and rough stone.  I looked for some traces of the wooden uprights, but although there is ample proof that they existed there down to our own time, my search was vain.  Many stones measuring several feet in length were set in a perpendicular position to give extra stability to the wall.  The ancient rampart is in places completely overgrown with juniper.  Within the wall is nothing but level field.  No trace remains of any buildings that stood there in the far-off days when the spot was the scene of all passions and vanities, the tragedy and comedy of human life, even as we know it now.  The peasant as he ploughs or digs turns up from time to time a bit of worked metal, such as a coin, or a ring, but the hands which held them may or may not be mingled with the soil that supports the buckwheat and enables the peasant to live.  The Gaulish city has no history.

I had some talk with a peasant who had been watching my movements wonderingly.  He spoke French with difficulty, but his boy—­a lad of about twelve, who had been to school—­could help him over the stiles.  I got the man to speak about the ancient wall, although it was evidently not a subject that interested him so deeply as his pigsty.  He told me that all the beams of wood had now rotted (they may have helped to warm him on winter evenings), but that nails a foot long were often found amongst the stones of the wall or in the soil round about it.  He had picked up several, but had taken no care of them.  When I observed that I should much like to see one, he said he thought there was one somewhere in his house, and, calling to his wife, he asked her in Languedocian to look for it.  While she was searching he drew my attention to a circular stone lying upon the top of his rough garden wall.  It was about a foot in diameter, and concave on one side.  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘A millstone,’ he replied.

True enough, it was one of the stones of an ancient handmill, such as was used in remote antiquity, chiefly by women, for grinding corn.  It must have been as nearly as possible after the pattern of the first implement invented by man for this purpose.  The peasant set no value upon it; I could have had it for a trifle—­even for nothing, had I been so minded; but whatever liking I may have for antiquities, it did not gird me up to the task of carrying a millstone