Two Summers in Guyenne | Page 4

for some distance, I lay down,
streaming from every pore, and panting like a hunted hare beside a little
rill that slid singing between margins of moss, amid Circe's white
flowers and purple flashes of cranesbill. Here I examined my scratches
and the state of things generally. The result of my reflections was to
admit that the cobbler was right, that these ravines of the Upper
Dordogne were practically impassable, and that the only rational way
of following the river would be to keep sometimes on the hills and
sometimes in the gorge, as the unforeseen might determine. Hitherto, I
had not troubled to inquire where I should pass the night, and this
consideration alone would have compelled me to depart from my
fantastic scheme. After La Bourboule there is not a village or hamlet in
the valley of the Dordogne for a distance of at least thirty miles,
allowing for the winding of the stream.
After a hard climb I reached the plateau, where I saw before me a wide
moor completely covered with bracken and broom. Here I looked at the
map, and decided to make towards a village called Messeix, lying to
the east in a fork formed by the Dordogne and its tributary the
Chavannon. Going by the compass at first, I presently struck a road
leading across the moor in the right direction. I passed through two
wretched hamlets, in neither of which was there an auberge where I
could relieve my thirst. At the second one a cottage was pointed out to
me where I was told a woman sold wine. When, after sinking deep in
mud, I found her amidst a group of hovels, and the preliminary
salutation was given, the following conversation passed between us:
'They tell me you sell wine.'
'They tell you wrong--I don't.'
'Do you sell milk, then?'
'No; I have no beasts.'
As I was going away she kindly explained that she only kept enough
wine for herself. I had evidently not impressed her favourably.
Although I think water a dangerous drink in France, except where it can
be received directly from the hand of Nature, far from human dwellings,
I was obliged to beg some in this place, and run the risk of carrying

away unfriendly microbes.
Having left the hovels behind me, the country became less barren or
more cultivated. There were fields of rye, buckwheat, and potatoes, but
always near them lay the undulating moor, gilded over with the flowers
of a dwarf broom. It was evening when I descended into a wide valley
from which came the chime of cattle-bells, mingled with the barking of
dogs and the voices of children, who were driving the animals slowly
homeward. There were green meadows below me, over which was a
yellow gleam from the fading afterglow of sunset, and in the air was
that odour which, rising from grassy valleys at the close of day, even in
regions burnt by the southern summer, makes the wandering
Englishman fancy that some wayfaring wind has come laden with the
breath of his native land. Suddenly turning a corner, I so startled a little
peasant girl sitting on a bank in the early twilight with a flock of goats
about her, that she opened her mouth and stared at me as though
Croquemitaine had really shown himself at last. The goats stopped
eating, and fixed upon me their eyes like glass marbles; they, too,
thought that I could be no good.
I hoped that the village of Messeix was in this valley; but no, I had to
cross it and climb the opposite hill. On the other side I found the place
that I had fixed upon for my night quarters.
Very small and very poor, it lies in a region where the land generally is
so barren that but a small part of it has been ever broken by the plough;
where the summers are hot and dry, and the winters long and cruel.
Although in the watershed of the Gironde, it touches Auvergne, and its
altitude makes it partake very much of the Auvergnat climate, which,
with the exception of the favoured Limagne Valley, is harsh, to an
extent that has caused many a visitor to flee from Mont-Dore in the
month of August. In the deep gorges of the Dordogne and its tributaries,
the snow rarely lies more than a few days upon the ground, whereas
upon the wind-swept plateau above the scanty population have to
contend with the rigours of that French Siberia which may be said to
commence here on the west, and to extend eastward over the whole
mass of metamorphic and igneous rocks, which is termed the great
central plateau of France, although it lies far south of the true centre of
the