and looks at least a thousand years old; while at many cross-roads among the fields, and in all manner of unexpected nooks and corners of the villages, crucifixes are erected to accommodate the devotionally inclined.  Most of the streets of these interior villages are paved with square stones which the wear and tear of centuries have generally rendered too rough for the bicycle; but occasionally one is ridable, and the astonishment of the inhabitants as I wheel leisurely through, whistling the solemn strains of “Roll, Jordan, roll,” is really quite amusing.  Every village of any size boasts a church that, for fineness of architecture and apparent costliness of construction, looks out of all proportion to the straggling street of shapeless structures that it overtops.  Everything here seems built as though intended to last forever, it being no unusual sight to see a ridiculously small piece of ground surrounded by a stone wall built as though to resist a bombardment; an enclosure that must have cost more to erect than fifty crops off the enclosed space could repay.  The important town of Mantes is reached early in the evening, and a good inn found for the night.

The market-women are arraying their varied wares all along the main street of Mantes as I wheel down toward the banks of the Seine this morning.  I stop to procure a draught of new milk, and, while drinking it, point to sundry long rows of light, flaky-looking cakes strung on strings, and motion that I am desirous of sampling a few at current rates; but the good dame smiles and shakes her head vigorously, as well enough she might, for I learn afterward that the cakes are nothing less than dried yeast-cakes, a breakfast off which would probably have produced spontaneous combustion.  Getting on to the wrong road out of Mantes, I find myself at the river’s edge down among the Seine watermen.  I am shown the right way, but from Mantes to Paris they are not Normandy roads; from Mantes southward they gradually deteriorate until they are little or no better than the “sand-papered roads of Boston.”  Having determined to taboo vin ordinaire altogether I astonish the restaurateur of a village where I take lunch by motioning away the bottle of red wine and calling for " de I’eau,” and the glances cast in my direction by the other customers indicate plainly enough that they consider the proceeding as something quite extraordinary.  Rolling through Saint Germain, Chalon Pavey, and Nanterre, the magnificent Arc de Triomphe looms up in the distance ahead, and at about two o’clock, Wednesday, May 13th, I wheel into the gay capital through the Porte Maillott.  Asphalt pavement now takes the place of macadam, and but a short distance inside the city limits I notice the ’cycle depot of Renard Ferres.  Knowing instinctively that the fraternal feelings engendered by the magic wheel reaches to wherever a wheelman lives, I hesitate not to dismount and present my card.  Yes, Jean Glinka, apparently an employe there, comprehends Anglais;