Two Summers in Guyenne | Page 3

unfortunate. I
was advised to see a cobbler who was considered an authority on the
byways of the district. I found him sitting by the open window of his
little shop driving hob-nails into a pair of Sunday boots. When I told
him what I had made up my mind to do, he shook his head, and, laying
down his work, said:
'You will never do it. There are rocks, and rocks, and rocks. Even the
fishermen, who go where anybody can go, do not try to follow the
Dordogne very far. There are ravines--and ravines. _Bon Dieu!_ And
the forest! You will be lost! You will be devoured!'
To be devoured would be the climax of misfortune. I wished to know
what animals would be likely to stop my wayfaring in this effectual
manner.
'Are there wolves?'
'No; none have been seen for years.'
'Are there boars?'
'Yes, plenty of them.'
'But boars,' I said, 'are not likely to interfere with me.'
'That is true,' replied the local wiseacre, 'so long as you keep walking;
but if you fall down a rock--ah!'
'I would not care to have you for a companion, with all your local
knowledge,' I thought, as I thanked the cobbler and turned down a very
stony path towards the Dordogne. It is always prudent to follow the
advice of those who are better informed than yourself; but it is much
more amusing--for awhile--to go your own way. I had lunched, and was
prepared to battle with the desert for several hours. It was now past
mid-day, and notwithstanding the altitude, the heat was very great. But
for the discomfort that we endure from the sun's rays we are more than
amply compensated by the pleasure that the recollection brings us in
winter, when the north wind is moaning through the sunless woods and
the dreary fog hangs over the cities. When I again reached the

Dordogne there was no longer any road, but only a rough path through
high bracken, heather and broom. Snakes rustled as I passed, and hid
themselves among the stones. The cobbler had forgotten to include
these with the dangers to be encountered. To my mind they were much
more to be dreaded than the boars, for these stony solitudes swarm with
adders, of which the most venomous kind is the red viper, or aspic. Its
bite has often proved mortal.
The path entered the forest which covers the steep sides of the
ever-winding gorge of the Dordogne for many leagues, only broken
where the rocks are so nearly vertical that no soil has ever formed upon
them, except in the little crevices and upon the ledges, where the
hellebore, the sedum, the broom, and other unambitious plants which
love sterility flourish where the foot of man has never trod.
The rocks were now of gneiss and mica-schist, and the mica was so
abundant as to cause many a crag and heap of shale to glitter in the sun,
as though there had been a mighty shattering of mirrors here into little
particles which had fallen upon everything. There was, however, no
lack of contrast. To the shining rocks and the fierce sunshine, which
seemed to concentrate its fire wherever it fell in the open spaces of the
deep gorge, succeeded the ancient forest and its cool shade; but the
darkly-lying shadows were ever broken with patches of sunlit turf.
Pines and firs reached almost to the water's edge, and the great age of
some of them was a proof of the little value placed upon timber in a
spot so inaccessible. One fir had an enormous bole fantastically
branched like that of an English elm, and on its mossy bark was a spot
such as the hand might cover, fired by a wandering beam, that awoke
recollections of the dream-haunted woods before the illusion of their
endlessness was lost.
The afternoon was not far spent, when I began to feel a growing
confidence in the value of the cobbler's information, and a decreasing
belief in my own powers. It became more and more difficult, then quite
impossible, to keep along the bank of the stream. What is understood
by a bank disappeared, and in its stead were rocks, bare and glittering,
on which the lizards basked, or ran in safety, because they were at
home, but which I could only pass by a flank movement. To struggle
up a steep hill, over slipping shale-like stones, or through an
undergrowth of holly and brambles, then to scramble down and to

climb again, repeating the exercise every few hundred yards, may have
a hygienic charm for those who are tormented by the dread of obesity,
but to other mortals it is too suggestive of a holiday in purgatory.
Having gone on in this fashion