Two Summers in Guyenne: A Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside

A few minutes later we were again on our voyage. Not far below was another mill-dam of sticks and stones, and when this was passed the river widened so that it flowed round a li...

Sometimes the Otter made nocturnal expeditions far up the channels of the little streams that fall into the Dordogne. Then he was after crayfish. The ordinary method of catching...

I was invited with much kindness and courtesy to stay until after the eleven o'clock meal; but, grateful as I felt to the Trappists for their bread and cheese and home-brewed be...

We clinked glasses, and talked with greater freedom, although the postulant still spoke under his breath--it was a habit that he had fallen into. We were interrupted by a scuffl...

Although the principal gallery is barely a mile in length, there are so many ramifications that one may walk for hours without making a complete exploration of the daedalian cor...

A visit to this sepulchral cavern gives an appetite for lunch at the good inn which is hard by, and at whose threshold sits or did sit a very fat, broad-faced landlord, seemingl...

The poor fellow had been brought within a hair's-breadth of death, and the long months during which he could do nothing but lie down or sit in a heap after his accident had, he...

With the help of a local pork-butcher, who kept the key, I was able to enter the towers of this gateway. In each was a guard-room of considerable size, and the men-at-arms while...

I returned to the inn. The baker had come back, and was preparing to heat his oven with dry broom. I learned that he had not only to bake the bread that he sold, but also the co...

But those to whom he appealed were women, who preferred to let him manage his own business, and who, moreover, were too much amused to interfere. When he had calmed down a littl...

True enough, the beads of perspiration glistened upon his forehead like black pearls. What is the use, I thought, of being an African if one cannot keep dry in a temperature of...

Before leaving Villefranche, a low, square tower enticed me to the parish church. The building was originally Romanesque, but the pointed style must have been grafted upon the o...

I spoke to him and calmed him; but although he was satisfied that I was human, he evidently could not make me out. Nor was this surprising, for the village--St. Victor by name--...

Poor wretches! their high spirits were not going to last long. They would soon have to undergo the cramming process, which a goose detests, for, unlike a pig, it will never of i...

As I watched the old man, prematurely bent by labour, eating his hard crust, cheerful and contented, after giving to others the fruit of his many years of toil, I thought, 'If m...

The abbey where the French archers were surprised and slain must have been near this spot, but it was down in the valley by the Lidoire where Talbot fell. There is no trace of a...

Now I will speak of my own hermitage, my ideal nook for writing, reading, and doing nothing, which, after much wandering and vain searching, I found at length here. Yes, I found...

The next morning I made friends with the pedlar, who was about to start upon my road, and who offered to give me a lift in his trap as far as La Roche Canillac. Meanwhile, he ha...

This road was so tedious, so hot and dusty, that, after walking a few miles upon it, I lost patience altogether with what seemed to be its unreasonable windings, and again made...

The detached dovecot is seen in almost every old manorial garden. Although pigeons are seldom kept in it, the structure has been preserved because of its usefulness for various...

But at this hour of eight in the morning, with a sun so bright and a sky so blue, only the broad and serene beauty of the water makes itself felt. As the river goes curving over...

Of the four summers which the writer of this 'Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside' spent by Aquitanian rivers, the greater part of two provided the impressions that were used...

In a side valley close to Le Moustier is a line of high vertical or overleaning rocks. A ledge accessible from the ground runs along the face, and nearly in the centre, and at t...

My bedroom that night had much the character of an outhouse or fowlhouse. It was on the ground-floor, and the rafters overhead sloped rapidly towards the exterior wall. A small...