Chapter 26

When I had done with the carcase of the great snake it was conveyed into the forest, as I expected it would attract the king of the vultures, as soon as time should have rendered it sufficiently savoury. In a few days it sent forth that odour which a carcase should, and about twenty of the common vultures came and perched on the neighbouring trees. The king of the vultures came too; and I observed that none of the common ones inclined to begin breakfast till his majesty had finished. When he had consumed as much snake as nature informed him would do him good, he retired to the top of a high mora-tree, and then all the common vultures fell to and made a hearty meal.

When canoeing down the noble river Essequibo I had an adventure with a cayman, which we caught with a shark hook baited with the flesh of the acouri. The cayman was ten and a half feet long. He had swallowed the bait in the night and was thus fast to the end of a rope. My people pulled him up from the depths and out he came--"_monstrum horrendum, informe_." I saw that he was in a state of fear and perturbation. I jumped on his back, immediately seized his forelegs, and by main force twisted them on his back; thus they served for a bridle.

The cayman now seemed to have recovered from his surprise and plunged furiously, and lashed the sand with his long tail. I was out of reach of the strokes of it, by being near his head. He continued to plunge and strike, and made my seat very uncomfortable. It must have been a fine sight for an unoccupied spectator. The people roared in triumph and pulled us above forty yards on the sand. It was the first time I was ever on a cayman's back. Should it be asked how I managed to keep my seat, I would answer that I hunted for some years with Lord Darlington's foxhounds.

After some further struggling the cayman gave in. I now managed to tie up his jaws. He was finally conveyed to the canoe and then to the place where we had suspended our hammocks. There I cut his throat and after breakfast commenced the dissection.

ARTHUR YOUNG

Travels in France

_I.--The First Journey, 1787_

Arthur Young was born September 11, 1741, at Whitehall; died April 20, 1820. Most of his life was spent on his patrimonial estate at Bradfield Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds, England. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. Arthur Young, rector of Bradfield, Prebendary of Canterbury Cathedral, and Chaplain to Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons. On his father's death he took to farming, but at the same time addicted himself to literature, becoming a parliamentary reporter. Arthur Young was indeed much more successful in literary pursuits than in the practice of husbandry. His book entitled "A Tour Through the Southern Counties of England" achieved great popularity. This he actively followed by writing other works describing agricultural conditions in various parts of England, and in Ireland. His vivid and interesting style secured for his treatises a very wide circulation. In 1784 he commenced the issue of an annual register entitled "The Annals of Agriculture" of which 45 volumes were published. Three years later an invitation from the Comte de la Rochefoucauld induced Young to visit France. He went a second and a third time, and created a sensation by the publication of an account of his experiences during the three consecutive years that immediately preceded the Revolution. Arthur Young travelled on horseback through many districts of France in the midst of the disturbances. So realistic is his account that it is regarded as the most reliable record ever written of the French rural conditions of that period. The French Directory ordered all Young's works to be translated into French, and they are as popular as ever to-day across the Channel.

There are two methods of writing travels; to register the journey itself, or the result of it. In the former case it is a diary; the latter usually falls into the shape of essays on distinct subjects. A journal form has the advantage of carrying with a greater degree of credibility; and, of course, more weight. A traveller who thus registers his observations is detected the moment he writes of things he has not seen. If he sees little, he must register little. The reader is saved from imposition. On the other hand a diary necessarily leads to repetitions on the same subjects and the same ideas.

In favour of composing essays there is the counterbalancing advantage that the matter comes with the full effect of force and completeness from the author. Another admirable circumstance is brevity, by the rejection of all useless details. After weighing the _pour_ and the _contre_, I think it not impracticable to retain in my case the benefit of both plans.

JOURNAL. May 15. The strait that separates England, fortunately for her, from the rest of the world, must be crossed many times before the traveller ceases to be surprised at the sudden and universal change that surrounds him on landing at Calais. The scene, the people, the language, every object is new. The noble improvement of a salt marsh by Mons. Mourons of this town, occasioned my acquaintance some time ago with that gentleman. I spent an agreeable and instructive evening at his house.

May 17. Nine hours rolling at anchor had so fatigued my mare, that I thought it necessary to rest her one day; but this morning I left Calais. For a few miles the country resembles parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. The aspect is the same on to Boulogne. Towards that town I was pleased to find many seats belonging to people who reside there. How often are false ideas conceived from reading and report. I imagined that nobody but farmers and labourers in France lived in the country; and the first ride I take in that kingdom shows me a score of country seats. The road is excellent.

May 18. Boulogne is not an ugly town, and from the ramparts of the upper part the view is beautiful. Many persons from England reside here, their misfortunes in trade or extravagance in living making their sojourn abroad more agreeable than at home.

The country around improves. It is more inclosed. There are some fine meadows about Bonbrie, and several chateaux. I am not professedly on husbandry in this diary, but must just observe, that it is to the full as bad as the country is good; corn miserable and yellow with weeds, yet all summer fallowed with lost attention.

May 22. Poverty and poor crops at Amiens. Women are now ploughing with a pair of horses to sow barley. The difference of the customs of the two nations is in nothing more striking than in the labours of the sex; in England it is very little they will do in the fields except to glean and make hay; the first is a party of pilfering, and the second of pleasure; in France they plough and fill the dung-cart.

May 25. The environs of Clermont are picturesque. The hills about Liancourt are pretty and spread with a kind of cultivation I have never seen before, a mixture of vineyards (for here the vines first appear), gardens and corn. A piece of wheat, a scrap of lucorne, a patch of clover or vetches, a bit of vine with cherry and other fruit trees scattered among all, and the whole cultivated with the spade; it makes a pretty appearance, but must form a poor system of trifling.

The forest around Chantilly, belonging to the Prince of Condé, is immense, spreading far and wide. They say the capitainerie, or paramountship, is above 100 miles in circumference. That is to say, all the inhabitants for that extent are pestered with game, without permission to destroy it, for one man's diversion. Ought not these capitaineries to be extirpated?

May 27. At Versailles. After breakfasting with Count de la Rochefoucauld at his apartments in the palace, where he is grand master of the wardrobe, was introduced by him to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. As the duke is going to Luchon in the Pyrenees, I am to have the honour of being one of the party. The ceremony of the day was the king's investing the Duke of Berri with the _cordon bleu_. The queen's band was in the chapel during the function, but the musical effect was thin and weak. During the service the king was seated between his two brothers, and seemed by his carriage and inattention to wish himself a hunting. The queen is the most beautiful woman I saw to-day.

May 30. At Orleans. The country around is one universal flat, unenclosed, uninteresting, and even tedious, but the prospect from the steeple of the fine cathedral is commanding, extending over an unbounded plain, through which the magnificent Loire bends his stately way, in sight for 14 leagues.

May 31. On leaving Orleans, enter the miserable province of Sologne. The poor people who cultivate the soil here are métayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide seed and cattle, and he and his tenant divide the produce; a miserable system that perpetuates poverty and prevents instruction. The same wretched country continues to La Loge; the fields are scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are full of misery. Heaven grant me patience while I see a country thus neglected, and forgive me the oaths I swear at the absence and ignorance of the possessors.

June 11. See for the first time the Pyrenees, at the distance of 150 miles. Towards Cahors the country changes and has something of a savage aspect, yet houses are seen everywhere, and one-third of it under vines. The town is bad; its chief trade and resource are wines and brandies.

June 14. Reach Toulouse, which is a very large and very ancient city, but not peopled in proportion to its size. It has had a university since 1215 and has always prided itself on its taste for literature and art. The noble quay is of great length.

June 16. A ridge of hills on the other side of the Garonne, which began at Toulouse, became more and more regular yesterday; and is undoubtedly the most distant ramification of the Pyrenees, reaching into this vast vale quite to Toulouse, but no farther. Approach the mountains; the lower ones are all cultivated, but the higher ones seem covered with wood. Meet many wagons, each loaded with two casks of wine, quite backward in the carriage, and as the hind wheels are much higher than the lower ones, it shows that these mountaineers have more sense than John Bull.

The wheels of these wagons are all shod with wood instead of iron. Here for the first time, see rows of maples, with vines trained in festoons from tree to tree; they are conducted by a rope of bramble, vine cutting, or willow. They give many grapes, but bad wine. Pass St. Martino, and then a large village of well built houses, without a single glass window.

June 17. St. Gaudens is an improving town, with many new houses, something more than comfortable. An uncommon view of St. Bertrand. You break at once upon a vale sunk deep enough beneath the point of view to command every hedge and tree, with that town clustered round its large cathedral, on a rising ground. The mountains rise proudly around, and give their rough frame to this exquisite little picture. Immense quantities of poultry in all this country; most of it the people salt and keep in grease.

Quit the Garonne some leagues before Serpe, where the river Neste falls into it. The road to Bagnére is along this river, in a narrow valley, at one end of which is built the town of Luchon, the termination of our journey; which has to me been one of the most agreeable I ever undertook. Having now crossed the kingdom, and been in many French inns, I shall in general observe, that they are on an average better in two respects, and worse in all the rest, than those in England. We have lived better in point of eating and drinking beyond a question, than we should have done in going from London to the Highlands of Scotland, at double the expense.

The common cookery of the French gives great advantage. It is true they roast everything to a chip if they are not cautioned, but they give such a number and variety of dishes, that if you do not like some, there are others to please your palate. The dessert at a French inn has no rival at an English one. But you have no parlour to eat in; only a room with two, three, or four beds. Apartments badly fitted up; the walls whitewashed; or paper of different sorts in the same room; or tapestry so old as to be a fit _nidus_ for moths and spiders; and the furniture such, that an English innkeeper would light his fire with it.

For a table you have everywhere a board laid on cross bars, which are so conveniently contrived as to leave room for your legs only at the end. Oak chairs with rush bottoms, and the back universally perpendicular, defying all idea of rest after fatigue. Doors give music as well as entrance; the wind whistles through their chinks; and hinges grate discord. Windows admit rain as well as light; when shut they are not easy to open; and when open not easy to shut.

Mops, brooms, and scrubbing brushes are not in the catalogue of the necessaries of a French inn. Bells there are none; the _fille_ must always be bawled for; and when she appears, is neither neat, well dressed, nor handsome. The kitchen is black with smoke; the master commonly the cook, and the less you see of the cooking the more likely you are to have a stomach to your dinner. The mistress rarely classes civility or attention to her guests among the requisites of her trade. We are so unaccustomed in England to live in our bed-chambers that it is at first awkward in France to find that people live nowhere else. Here I find that everybody, let his rank be what it may, lives in his bed-chamber.

_II.--Second Journey, 1788_

August 27. Cherbourg. Not a place for a residence longer than is necessary. I was here fleeced more infamously than at any other town in France.

Sept. 5. To Montauban. The poor people seem poor indeed; the children terribly ragged, if possible worse clad than if with no clothes at all; as to shoes and stockings, they are luxuries. A beautiful girl of six or seven playing with a stick, and smiling under such a bundle of rags as made my heart ache to see her. One-third of this province seems uncultivated, and nearly all of it in misery. What have kings, and ministers, and parliaments, and states, to answer for their prejudices, seeing millions of hands that would be industrious, idle and starving through the execrable maxims of despotism, or the equally detestable prejudices of a feudal nobility. Sleep at the "Lion d'Or," at Montauban, an abominable hole.

The 8th. Enter Bas Bretagne. One recognises at once another people, meeting numbers who know no French. Enter Guingamp by gateways, towers, and battlements, apparently the oldest military architecture; every part denoting antiquity, and in the best preservation. The habitations of the poor are miserable heaps of dirt; no glass, and scarcely any light; but they have earth chimneys.

Sept. 21. Came to an improvement in the midst of sombre country. Four good houses of stone and slate, and a few acres run to wretched grass, which have been tilled, but all savage, and become almost as rough as the rest. I was afterwards informed that this improvement, as it is called, was wrought by Englishmen, at the expense of a gentleman they ruined as well as themselves. I demanded how it had been done? Pare and burn, and sow wheat, then rye, and then oats. Thus it is for ever and ever! The same follies, blundering, and ignorance; and then all the fools in the country said as they do now, that these wastes are good for nothing. To my amazement I find that they reach within three miles of the great commercial city of Nantes.

The 22nd. At Nantes, a town which has that sign of prosperity of new buildings that never deceives. The quarter of the Comédie is magnificent, all the streets at right angles and of white stone. Messrs. Epivent had the goodness to attend me in a water expedition, to view the establishment of Mr. Wilkinson, for boring cannon, in an island on the Loire, below Nantes. Until that well-known English manufacturer arrived, the French knew nothing of the art of casting cannon solid, and then boring them.

Nantes is as _enflammé_ in the cause of liberty as any town in France can be. The conversations I have witnessed here prove how great a change is effected in the mind of the French, nor do I believe it will be possible for the present government to last half a century longer. The American revolution has laid the foundation of another in France, if government does not take care of itself. On the 23rd one of the twelve prisoners from the Bastille arrived here--he was the most violent of them all--and his imprisonment has not silenced him.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE.--It wanted no great spirit of prophecy to foretell this revolution; but later events have shown that I was very wide of the mark when I talked of fifty years. The twelve gentlemen of Bretagne deputed to Versailles, mentioned above, were sent with a denunciation of the ministers for their suspension of provincial parliaments. They were at once sent to the Bastille. It was this war of the king and the parliaments that brought about the assembly of the States General, the step being decided on by the assembly of Grenoble, July 21, 1788.]

_III.--Third Journey, 1789_

June 5. Passage to Calais; 14 hours for reflection in a vehicle that does not allow one power to reflect.

The 8th. At Paris, which is at present in such a ferment about the States General, now holding at Versailles, that conversation is absolutely absorbed by them. The nobility and clergy demand one thing, the commons another. The king, court, nobility, clergy, army, and parliament are nearly in the same situation. All these consider, with equal dread, the ideas of liberty, now afloat; except the king, who, for reasons obvious to those who know his character, troubles himself little, even with circumstances that concern his character the most intimately.

The 9th. The business going forward at present in the pamphlet shops of Paris is incredible. Every hour produces something new. This spirit of reading political tracts spreads into the provinces, so that all presses of France are equally employed. Nineteen-twentieths of these productions are in favour of liberty, and commonly violent against the clergy and nobility. Is it not wonderful, that while the press teems with the most levelling and seditious principles, that if put into execution would overturn the monarchy, nothing in reply appears, and not the least step is taken by the court to restrain this extreme licentiousness of publication? It is easy to conceive the spirit that must thus be raised among the people.

The 10th. Everything conspires to render the present period in France critical. The want of bread is terrible, and accounts arrive every moment from the provinces of riots and disturbances, and calling in the military, to preserve the peace of the markets. It appears that there would have been no real scarcity if M. Necker would have let the corn trade alone.

The 15th. This has been a rich day, and such an one as ten years ago none could believe would ever arrive in France. Went to the Hall of States at Versailles, a very important debate being expected on the condition of the nation. M. l'Abbé Sieyès opened it. He is a violent republican, absolutely opposed to the present government, which he thinks too bad to be regulated, and wishes to see overturned. He speaks ungracefully and uneloquently, but logically.

M. le Comte de Mirabeau replied, speaking without notes for near an hour in most eloquent style. He opposed with great force the reasoning of the Abbé, and was loudly applauded.

The 20th. News! News! Everyone stares at what everyone might have expected. A message from the king to the presidents of the three orders, that he should meet them on Monday; and, under pretence of preparing the hall for the occasion, the French guards were placed with bayonets to prevent any of the deputies entering the room. The circumstances of doing this ill-judged act of violence have been as ill-advised as the act itself.

The 24th. The ferment at Paris is beyond conception. All this day 10,000 people have been in the Palais Royal. M. Necker's plans of finance are severely criticised, even by his friends.

The 26th. Every hour that passes seems to give the people fresh spirit. The meetings at the palais are more numerous and more violent. Nothing less than a revolution in the government and a free constitution is talked of by all ranks of people; but the supine stupidity of the court is without example. The king's offers of negotiation have been rejected. He changes his mind from day to day.

The 30th. At Nangis, having come from Paris. Entertained at the château of the Marquis de Guerchy. The perruquier in the town that dressed me this morning tells me that everybody is determined to pay no taxes; that the soldiers will never fire on the people; but if they should, it is better to be shot, than starved. He gave me a frightful account of the misery of the people. In the market I saw the wheat sold out under the regulation of the magistrates, that no person should buy more than two bushels of wheat at a market, to prevent monopolising. A party of dragoons had been drawn up before the market-cross to prevent violence.

The 15th. At Nancy. Letters from Paris announce that all is confusion. The ministry has been removed and M. Necker ordered to quit France quietly. All to whom I spoke agreed that it was fatal news and that it would occasion great commotion. I am told on every hand that everything is to be feared from the people, because bread is so dear, they are half starved, and consequently ready for commotion. But they are waiting on Paris, which shows the importance of great cities in the life of a nation. Without Paris, I question whether the present revolution, which is fast working in France, could have had an origin.

The 20th. To Strasburg, through one of the richest scenes of cultivation in France, though Flanders exceeds it. I arrived there at a critical moment, for a detachment of troops had brought interesting news of the revolt in Paris--the Gardes Françoises joining the people; the little dependence on the rest of the troops; the storming of the Bastille; in a word, of the absolute overthrow of the old government.

The 21st. I have been witness to scenes curious to a foreigner, but dreadful to Frenchmen who are considerate. Passing through the square of the Hotel de Ville, the mob was breaking the windows with stones, notwithstanding an officer and detachment of horse were there. Perceiving that the troops would not attack them, except in words and menaces, the rioters grew more violent, broke the windows of the Hotel de Ville with stones, attempted to beat in the door with iron bars, and placed ladders to the windows.

In about a quarter of an hour, which gave time for the assembled magistrates to escape by a back door, they burst all open, and entered like a torrent with a universal shout of spectators. From that minute a shower of casements, sashes, shutters, chairs, tables, sofas, books, papers, pictures, etc., rained incessantly from all the windows of the house, which is eighty feet long, and next followed tiles, skirting boards, banisters, frame-work, and everything that could be detached from the building. The troops, both horse and foot, were quiet spectators.