Normandy | Page 4

lodge of an English park where a right-of-way exists, and
yet accidents do not seem to happen.
The railways of Normandy are those of the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest,
and one soon becomes familiar with the very low platforms of the
stations that are raised scarcely above the rails. The porters wear blue
smocks and trousers of the same material, secured at the waist by a belt
of perpendicular red and black stripes. The railway carriages have
always two foot-boards, and the doors besides the usual handles have a
second one half-way down the panels presumably for additional
security. It is really in the nature of a bolt that turns on a pivot and falls
into a bracket. On the doors, the class of the carriages is always marked
in heavy Roman numerals. The third-class compartments have
windows only in the doors, are innocent of any form of cushions and
are generally only divided half-way up. The second and first-class
compartments are always much better and will bear comparison with
those of the best English railways, whereas the usual third-class
compartment is of that primitive type abandoned twenty or more years

ago, north of the Channel. The locomotives are usually dirty and black
with outside cylinders, and great drum-shaped steam-domes. They
seem to do the work that is required of them efficiently, although if one
is travelling in a third-class compartment the top speed seems
extraordinarily slow. The railway officials handle bicycles with
wonderful care, and this is perhaps remarkable when we realize that
French railways carry them any distance simply charging a penny for
registration.
The hotels of Normandy are not what they were twenty years ago.
Improvements in sanitation have brought about most welcome changes,
so that one can enter the courtyard of most hotels without being met by
the aggressive odours that formerly jostled one another for space. When
you realize the very large number of English folk who annually pass
from town to town in Normandy it may perhaps be wondered why the
proprietors of hotels do not take the trouble to prepare a room that will
answer to the drawing-room of an English hotel. After dinner in France,
a lady has absolutely no choice between a possible seat in the courtyard
and her bedroom, for the estaminet generally contains a group of noisy
Frenchmen, and even if it is vacant the room partakes too much of the
character of a bar-parlour to be suitable for ladies. Except in the large
hotels in Rouen I have only found one which boasts of any sort of room
besides the estaminet; it was the Hotel des Trois Marie at Argentan.
When this defect has been remedied, I can imagine that English people
will tour in Normandy more than they do even at the present time. The
small washing basin and jug that apologetically appears upon the
bedroom washstand has still an almost universal sway, and it is not
sufficiently odd to excuse itself on the score of picturesqueness. Under
that heading come the tiled floors in the bedrooms, the square and
mountainous eiderdowns that recline upon the beds, and the matches
that take several seconds to ignite and leave a sulphurous odour that
does not dissipate itself for several minutes.
CHAPTER II
By the Banks of the Seine

If you come to Normandy from Southampton, France is entered at the
mouth of the Seine and you are at once introduced to some of the
loveliest scenery that Normandy possesses. The headland outside Havre
is composed of ochreish rock which appears in patches where the grass
will not grow. The heights are occupied by no less than three
lighthouses only one of which is now in use. As the ship gets closer, a
great spire appears round the cliff in the silvery shimmer of the
morning haze and then a thousand roofs reflect the sunlight.
There are boats from Havre that take passengers up the winding river to
Rouen and in this way much of the beautiful scenery may be enjoyed.
By this means, however, the country appears as only a series of
changing pictures and to see anything of the detail of such charming
places as Caudebec, and Lillebonne, or the architectural features of
Tancarville Castle and the Abbey of Jumieges, the road must be
followed instead of the more leisurely river.
Havre with its great docks, its busy streets, and fast electric tramcars
that frighten away foot passengers with noisy motor horns does not
compel a very long stay, although one may chance to find much
interest among the shipping, when such vessels as Mr Vanderbilt's
magnificent steam yacht, without a mark on its spotless paint, is lying
in one of the inner basins. If you wander up and down some of the old
streets by the harbour