March 9. Chalons.  Sennecey.  Tournus.  St. Albin.  Macon. On the left are the fine plains of the Saone; on the right high lands, rather waving than hilly, sometimes sloping gently to the plains, sometimes dropping down in precipices, and occasionally broken into beautiful vallies[sp.] by the streams which run into the Saone.  The plains are a dark rich loam, in pasture and corn; the heights more or less red or reddish, always gritty, of middling quality only, their sides in vines, and their summits in corn.  The vineyards are enclosed with dry stone-walls, and there are some quick-hedges in the corn-grounds.  The cattle are few and indifferent.  There are some good oxen, however.  They draw by the head.  Few sheep, and small.  A good deal of wood-lands.

I passed three times the canal called Le Charollois, which they are opening from Chalons on the Saone to Dijon on the Loire.  It passes near Chagny, and will be twenty-three leagues long.  They have worked on it three years, and will finish it in four more.  It will reanimate the languishing commerce of Champagne and Burgundy, by furnishing a water transportation for their wines to Nantes, which also will receive new consequence by becoming the emporium of that commerce.  At some distance on the right are high mountains, which probably form the separation between the waters of the Saone and Loire.  Met a malefactor in the hands of one of the Marichausee; perhaps a dove in the talons of the hawk.  The people begin now to be in separate establishments, and not in villages.  Houses are mostly covered with tile.

BEAUJOLOIS.[Sp.] Maison Blanche.  St. George.  Chateau de Laye-Epinaye.  The face of the country is like that from Chalons to Macon.  The plains are a dark rich loam, the hills a red loam of middling quality, mixed generally with more or less coarse sand and grit, and a great deal of small stone.  Very little forest.  The vineyards are mostly enclosed with dry stone-wall.  A few small cattle and sheep.  Here, as in Burgundy, the cattle are all white.  This is the richest country I ever beheld.  It is about ten or twelve leagues in length, and three, four, or five in breadth; at least that part of it, which is under the eye of a traveller.  It extends from the top of a ridge of mountains, running parallel with the Saone, and sloping down to the plains of that river, scarce any where too steep for the plough.  The whole is thick set with farm-houses, chateaux, and the bastides of the inhabitants of Lyons.  The people live separately, and not in villages.  The hill-sides are in vine and corn:  the plains in corn and pasture.  The lands are farmed either for money, or on half-stocks.  The rents of the corn-lands, farmed for money, are about ten or twelve livres the arpent.  A farmer takes perhaps about one hundred and fifty arpents, for three, six, or nine years.  The first year they are in corn; the second in other small grain, with which he sows red clover.  The third is for