saw mules and asses loaded with rosemary and lavender bushes, to sell for firing.  The barbarous language of the common people of this province, is very convenient, as they understand French, and can make themselves understood thro’ a great part of Spain:  from which kingdom not a day passes but mules and carriages arrive, except when the heavy rains or snow obstruct the communication.—­The mules and asses of Spain, and this part of France, are not only very useful but valuable beasts:  the only way to get a valuable one of either sort from Spain, is, to fix upon the beast, and promise a round sum to one of the religious mendicants to smuggle it out of the kingdom, who covers the animal with bags, baskets, and a variety of trumpery, as if he was going into France to collect charity:  and passes either by not being suspected, or by being a Religieux if he is suspected.

As we took exactly the same route from Perpignan to this town as we went, except leaving Cette a few leagues on our left; I shall say nothing of our return, but that we relished our reception at the French inns, and the good cheer we found there, infinitely more than as we went:  and that we were benighted for some hours before we got into Montpellier, and caught in the most dreadful storm of rain, thunder and lightning I ever was exposed to.  I was obliged for two hours to hold my horse’s bridle on one side, as my man did on the other, and feel with sticks for the margin of the road, as it was elevated very high above the marshy lands, and if the heel had slipped over on either side, it must have overset the chaise into the lowlands:  besides which, the roaring of the water-streams was so great, that I very often thought we were upon the margin of some river or high bridge:  nor was my suffering quite over even after I got into the city:  I could not find my former auberge, nor meet with any body to direct me:  and the water-spouts which fell into the middle of those narrow streets almost deluged us.—­My poor horse, too, found the steep streets, slippery pavement, and tons of water which fell upon him, as much as he could well bear:  but, as the old song says,

    “Alas! by some degree of woe,
    We every bliss obtain;”

So we found a good fire and good cheer an ample recompence for our wet jackets.  It was so very dark, that though I led my horse by the head above a league, I could but seldom see him:  nor do I remember in my whole life to have met with any difficulty which so agitated my mind:—­no:  not even at the bar of the House of Lords, I did not dread the danger so much, as the idea of tumbling my family over a precipice, without the power to assist them; or, if they were gone, resolution enough to follow them.

END of the FIRST VOLUME.