of this river.  In some places, the railway
runs within a stone's throw of the stream,
which remains invisible; because the ugly
levée screens it completely, rising before you
like a tall green wall. The strip of land
between the levée and the rising ground is as
utterly marshy a patch of ground, as if it
were a little bit cut out of Holland, considerably
below high-water mark, and subject to
the chronic inconveniences of infiltration and
stagnant waters. All cultivation is obliged
to be carried on by means of high narrow
ridges, to serve as Mounts Ararat when the
waters of the deluge are subsided a little, and
deep furrows to act as drains. In spite of
every precaution, the cabbages in the
Touraine are scorched to death by last winter's
frost, like our own at home, showing that
that severe schoolmaster, Mr. Zero, has
nipped and pinched his pupils as sharply in
central France as in England. Nowhere
have I seen vines growing on so moist a soil.
The very vine-props, when done with at the
end of the summer —to prevent their rotting,
are obliged to be mounted high in the air, in
little bundles, on four or five other props
cleverly placed crosswise, and stuck in the
ground. The vine-stools about Blois look
like wretched snakes writhing to rid
themselves of the shaggy coat of parasitic moss
that annoys them by sticking to them
pertinaciously. The moss is owing to the mists
which rise from the bosom of the Loire
itself, as well as from the constant vapours
given out during great part of the year by
the leakage of the river, which will ooze in,
in spite of all the care bestowed on the levée.
The vines themselves are cultivated in rows.
In autumn, the earth is raised up in ridges;
in spring, manure or fresh mould, when
either are to be had, are laid in the hollow
between the rows, and the earth is hoed
back again over it. The vines of the Touraine
(Tours may fairly be taken as the centre
of this district), must receive a much greater
supply of moisture from the atmosphere than
those of Burgundy possibly can; and yet the
former are by no means watery, or deficient
in strength. To taste them you would not
suppose them to have been baptised, either
naturally or artificially. I suppose it is the
sun who works all that chemistry. But, be
assured, it will not do to trifle with Touraine
wines because they happen to look white and
limpid; for I have known even cider-drinkers
attacked with serious delirium tremens.
Though people may call them petits vins,
when they once get fairly home, they will
prove that they do not want for energy.

Before reaching Blois, you pass Meung,
where Madame de Pompadour once opened
a new bridge, by driving over it in her coach
and six. People said that it must be strong,
since it had borne the heaviest burden of
France. Leaving Blois (where you cannot
drive out of your head the horribly-treacherous
murder of the Duc de Guise, with his
sovereign's consent and knowledge), you get
a fine view on the left of the castle of
Amboise,where Abd-el-Kader spent five years
of captivity. During his present visit to
Paris, he and another illustrious personage
can indulge in pleasant chat, touching their
prison experiences. Soon afterwards, you skip
over the Loire, and you find yourself at that
particularly genteel English colony, Tours,
on which I will not bestow another word
except to say that Bourgeuil and St. Ibertin
are good red wines, and that the city itself is
a species of Frenchified Cheltenham. Your
reception there will be measured by your
connections; your own merits will have
nothing to do with it. This (I am speaking
of the English residents, you observe) shows
a noble national spirit, and promises well for
the future prosperity of our beloved country.

So good-bye to the paté-shops and
circulating libraries of Tours. Although I never
paid eighteenpence in the pound in England,
and do not live abroad on the income I have
settled on my wife, still my father was a cobbler,
and my respected mother a
charwoman. With that drawback, my large
fortune might help me to a little civil
consideration; but my good looks, my talents, and
my engaging manners, to none at all. What
can't be cured must be endured. Hup!
fiery locomotive steed, gallop away!
Organised meteor, flaring phenomenon, gallop
away! Carry us as fast as you can to
Châtellerault.

On the river Cher, which falls into the
Loire, you have the same levées and inundations,
past, present, and to come. At Saint
Maur, you have vines trained bowerwise.
And then you enter the town of assassins.
From time immemorial, the women and girls
of Châtellerault have exercised the right of
demanding the traveller's money, knife in
hand, or if that failed, of attacking him
fiercely with carving-fork and scissors. In
the diligence days, it sufficed to have
traversed a single street, to remember all the
rest of your life that the place was famous
for cutlery. While the horses were changing,
these armed females climbed up the coach-
wheels, and made their invasion by the
window, forcing a hailstorm of poinards and
penknives down your throat. If you entered
a room to take refreshment, it was instantly
swarm-full of cutlers' wives and daughters,
each with her box, insisting, as the law of
the place and their municipal right, that buy
you must. There they were, young and old,
ugly and pretty, but equally loquacious and
equally impudent in demanding for every
article of steel four or five times as much as
it was worth. The railway has effected no
great reform; for the she-brigands find their
way to the platform of the station. I
could not drink a glass of wine-and-water at
the buvette without a young woman's sticking
into into me a dozen white-handled dinner-
knives.