Autumn Impressions of the Gironde

At Arcachon there is an old _Chapelle miraculeuse de Notre Dame_, adjoining the newer church, founded about 1520 by Thomas Illyricus. It contains many of the fishermen's votive...

"Mails first!" shouted the captain from the upper deck, as the steamer from Newhaven brought up alongside the landing stage at Dieppe, and the eager flow of the tide of passenge...

To me Rouen is like no other city. The effect it makes on one is immediate, indescribable, bewildering. It speaks to one out of its vast antiquity. It has a thousand mediæval vo...

Of course to-day it has gained many modern aids to commerce, notably among these the steam tram with its toy trumpet; and what it has gained in these aids it has lost in picture...

And below it is a map of old Rouen (1431) shewing that the _piloi_ was close to the spot where Joan of Arc was burnt, as was also the Church of St. Saviour (which has completely...

To go to Arcachon in autumn is to have spread before one's eyes, for almost the entire journey, a perfect feast of colour. I never in my life saw such a magnificent revel of tin...

As I said, I think, before, the country between Rouen and Dieppe is not striking. But yet it is, in its way, full of picturesqueness; of beautiful little miniatures; of delicate...

At St. Emilion, the past insists upon being recognised, and, more than that, on being a potent factor in the present. The modern buildings are in evidence, right enough, but som...

One cannot but regret that in most parts of France to-day, the picturesque costumes of the peasants are almost a thing of the past. In out-of-the-way districts, it is true, they...

Gujan-Mestras is the centre of the oyster fishery, and that of the royan, which is a species of sardine. Nearly all royans indeed are caught there. The _patois_ of the _parcheur...

Poitiers abounds in antiquities of one kind or another; and there is a great variety and originality in its old buildings. Old stone doorways and steep conical roofs are to be s...

One of the most spontaneous, infectious laughs that I have ever heard, was in the market place at Bordeaux, from a market woman keeping one of the stalls. It was like the trill...