It was our last morning at Coutances, the air was still and clear, and the panorama was superb; on every side of us were beautiful hills, rich with orchards laden with fruit, and fields of corn; and beyond them, far away westward, the sea and coast line, and the channel islands with their dangerous shores.  The air was calm, and dreamy, but in the distance we could see white lines of foam—­the ‘wild horses’ of the Atlantic in full career; beneath our feet was the open ‘lantern dome,’ and the sound of voices came distinctly up the fluted columns; we could hear the great organ under the western towers, the voices of the congregation in the nave, and the chanting of the priests before the altar,—­

  ‘Casting down their golden crowns, beside the glassy sea.’

The town of GRANVILLE, built on a rock by the sea, with its dark granite houses, its harbour and fishing-boats, presents a scene of bustle and activity in great contrast to Coutances and St. Lo.  There is an upper and lower town—­a town on the rocks, with its old church with five gilt statues, built almost out at sea—­and another town, on the shore.  The streets of the old town are narrow and badly paved; but there is great commercial activity, and a general sign of prosperity amongst its sea-faring population.  The approach to the sea (on one side of the promontory, on which the town is built) is very striking; we emerge suddenly through a fissure in the cliffs on to the sea-shore, into the very heart and life of the place—­into the midst of a bustling community of fishermen and women.  There is fish everywhere, both in the sea and on the land, and the flavour of it is in the air; there are baskets, bales, and nets, and there is, it must be added, a familiar ring of Billingsgate in the loud voices that we hear around us.  Granville is the great western sea port of France, from which Paris is constantly supplied; and, in spite of the deficiency of railway communication, it keeps up constant trade with the capital—­a trade which is not an unmixed benefit to its inhabitants; for in the ‘Messager de Granville’ of August, 1869, we read that:—­

’L’extreme chaleur de la temperature n’empeche pas nos marchands d’expedier a Paris des quantites considerables de poisson, au moment meme ou il est hors de prix sur notre marche.  Nous ne comprenons rien a de semblables speculations, dont l’un des plus facheux resultats est d’ajouter—­une affreuse odeur aux desagrements de nos voitures publiques!’

All through the fruitful land that we have passed, we cannot help being struck with the evident inadequate means of transport for goods and provisions; at Coutances, for instance, and at Granville (the great centre of the oyster fisheries of the west) they have only just thought about railways, and we may see long lines of carts and waggons, laden with perishable commodities, being carried no faster than in the days of the first Napoleon.