As I write, other impressions come to mind of this ancient town on the edge of the great plain of Languedoc.  A little garden in the outskirts became familiar to me by daily use, and I see it still with its almond and pear trees, its trellised vines, the blue stars of its borage, and the pure whiteness of its lilies.  A bird seizes a noisy cicada from a sunny leaf, and as it flies away the captive draws out one long scream of despair.  Then comes the golden evening, and its light stays long upon the trailing vines, while the great lilies gleam whiter and their breath floods the air with unearthly fragrance.  A murmur from across the plain is growing louder and louder as the trees lose their edges in the dusk, for those noisy revellers of the midsummer night, the jocund frogs, have roused themselves, and they welcome the darkness with no less joy than the swallows some hours later will greet the breaking dawn.

I left Albi to ascend the valley of the Tarn in the last week of June.  I started when the sun was only a little above the plain; but the line of white rocks towards the north, from which Albi is supposed to take its name, had caught the rays and were already burning.  The straight road, bordered with plane-trees, on which I was walking would have had no charm but for certain wayside flowers.  There was a strange-looking plant with large heart-shaped leaves and curved yellow blossoms ending in a long upper lip that puzzled me much, and it was afterwards that I found its name to be aristolochia clematitis.  It grows abundantly on the banks of the Tarn.  Another plant that I now noticed for the first time was a galium with crimson flowers.  I soon came to the cornfields for which the Albigeois plain is noted.  Here the poppy showed its scarlet in the midst of the stalks of wheat still green, and along the borders were purple patches of that sun-loving campanula, Venus’s looking-glass.

Countrywomen passed me with baskets on their heads, all going into Albi to sell their vegetables.  Those who were young wore white caps with frills, which, when there is nothing on the head to keep them down, rise and fall like the crest of a cockatoo; but the old women were steadfast in their attachment to the bag-like, close-fitting cap, crossed with bands of black velvet, and having a lace front that covers most of the forehead.  When upon this coif is placed a great straw hat with drooping brim, we have all that remains now of an Albigeois costume.  As these women passed me, I looked into their baskets.  Some carried strawberries, some cherries, others mushrooms (boleti), or broad beans.  The last-named vegetable is much cultivated throughout this region, where it is largely used for making soup.  When very young, the beans are frequently eaten raw with salt.  Almost every taste is a matter of education.