“Passing St. Etienne, 2:15 P.M.  On a distant ridge inland, a tall openwork structure commandingly situated, with a statue of the Virgin standing on it.  A devout country.  All down this river, wherever there is a crag there is a statue of the Virgin on it.  I believe I have seen a hundred of them.  And yet, in many respects, the peasantry seem to be mere pagans, and destitute of any considerable degree of civilization.

" . . . .  We reached a not very promising looking village about 4 o’clock, and I concluded to tie up for the day; munching fruit and fogging the hood with pipe-smoke had grown monotonous; I could not have the hood furled, because the floods of rain fell unceasingly.  The tavern was on the river bank, as is the custom.  It was dull there, and melancholy—­nothing to do but look out of the window into the drenching rain, and shiver; one could do that, for it was bleak and cold and windy, and country France furnishes no fire.  Winter overcoats did not help me much; they had to be supplemented with rugs.  The raindrops were so large and struck the river with such force that they knocked up the water like pebble-splashes.

“With the exception of a very occasional woodenshod peasant, nobody was abroad in this bitter weather—­I mean nobody of our sex.  But all weathers are alike to the women in these continental countries.  To them and the other animals, life is serious; nothing interrupts their slavery.  Three of them were washing clothes in the river under the window when I arrived, and they continued at it as long as there was light to work by.  One was apparently thirty; another—­the mother!—­above fifty; the third—­grandmother!—­so old and worn and gray she could have passed for eighty; I took her to be that old.  They had no waterproofs nor rubbers, of course; over their shoulders they wore gunnysacks—­simply conductors for rivers of water; some of the volume reached the ground; the rest soaked in on the way.

“At last a vigorous fellow of thirty-five arrived, dry and comfortable, smoking his pipe under his big umbrella in an open donkey-cart-husband, son, and grandson of those women!  He stood up in the cart, sheltering himself, and began to superintend, issuing his orders in a masterly tone of command, and showing temper when they were not obeyed swiftly enough.

“Without complaint or murmur the drowned women patiently carried out the orders, lifting the immense baskets of soggy, wrung-out clothing into the cart and stowing them to the man’s satisfaction.  There were six of the great baskets, and a man of mere ordinary strength could not have lifted any one of them.  The cart being full now, the Frenchman descended, still sheltered by his umbrella, entered the tavern, and the women went drooping homeward, trudging in the wake of the cart, and soon were blended with the deluge and lost to sight.