ourselves, on this side the river.  Yet Landerneau is a flourishing place of some ten thousand inhabitants, with extensive manufactories, saw mills, and large timber yards.  Vessels come up the river and load and unload; and, on bright days when the sunshine pours upon the flashing water, and warms the wood lying about in huge stacks, and a delicious pine-scent goes forth upon the air, it is a very pleasant scene, and a very fitting spot for a short sojourn.

It also deals extensively in strawberries, exporting to England many thousand boxes of the delicious fruit that grows so largely in the neighbourhood.  The hotel this morning seemed full of them, and we had but to ask, and to receive in abundance.  The place was full of their fragrance:  a fragrance that seemed so allied to the smell of the pine wood in the timber yards.

The town is of great antiquity, and appears to have succeeded a Roman Settlement.  It is said to owe its name to St. Ernec, a Breton prince, the son, says tradition, of Judicael, King of the Domnomee.  This prince, about the year 669, turned monk, and built himself a cell on the banks of the Elorn, a river which divided in those days the sees of Leon and Cornouaille.  Where the cell was is now the village of St. Ernec, and a chapel which preceded the church of the Recollets.

In time Landerneau became the chief town of the Vicomte of Leon; and was raised to a Principality in 1572 in favour of Henri, Vicomte de Rohan and his brother Rene, Lord of Soubise, who founded the dukedom of Rohan-Chabot.  It remained in possession of Lords of Landerneau until the Revolution.  Fontenelle pillaged the town in 1592, and in the seventeenth century its famous castle was destroyed.

[Illustration:  CALVARY, GUIMILIAU.]

“There will be noise in Landerneau,” has become a Breton proverb, employed whenever any social event is stirring up the populace.  It owes its origin to a bygone custom of the town, of serenading widows on the evening of their second marriage, with drums, trumpets, kettles, and every kind of unmusical instrument that could be pressed into the service of the uproarious ceremony.

Of this we had no evidence.  The town was quiet to the verge of deadly dulness; if there were widows rash enough to contemplate a second marriage, we knew nothing about it; they were discreet, and kept their secret to themselves.

There are many monasteries and nunneries in the neighbourhood.  Some are in ruins; some have become destined to other purposes; and if their walls could speak, probably would cry aloud:  “To such base uses do we come!” Sitting on the banks of the river, you watch its calm flowing waters, and a vessel moored to the side, where a Breton woman is hanging out clothes to dry, and a man on deck is lazily smoking his pipe.  Behind you is a timber yard, sending forth its strawberry-pine perfume.  There is always some attractions in a timber yard.  Whether you will or not it fascinates you; you enter for a moment, and stroll about through the little alleys between the stacks, as numerous and complicated as the twistings and turnings of a maze.  You imagine yourself once more a boy playing at hide-and-seek, and revel in the hot sunshine that is pouring down upon you and bringing out the perfume of the wood.