78 EAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



getables, whose abundance affords ample testimony 

 of the richness of the soil. Communication between 

 the different parts of the island is maintained by 

 means of roads traversing each other in all directions, 

 and whose proportions are strictly calculated to 

 meet the wants of a locality, in which not a cart or 

 horse is to be seen. Very few of these paths admit 

 of more than two men walking abreast, and the 

 broadest of all, extending from one end of the island 

 to the other, which may be regarded as a sort of first- 

 class line, scarcely allows of two cows passing each 

 other. All these roads, however, are carefully 

 marked along the fields which they cross, and tended 

 and trimmed like garden walks, — a circumstance 

 which contributes in a great degree to give the 

 country a general air of order and plenty, very 

 different from the misery and want of cleanliness 

 which have usually been regarded as the inseparable 

 companions of the peasantry of Lower Brittany. 



This rich and smiling district is interspersed here 

 and there with small groups of habitations, dis- 

 tinguished by the title of villages, and all bearing 

 names in which the concurrence of the sounds ker 

 and ec produce words which seem rather inharmo- 

 nious to French ears. The chief of these settlements 

 is known as the Bourg ; and here stand the town- 

 house and the church, — buildings in which the most 

 momentous events of human life are transacted, alike 

 in the humblest village and the proudest city. There 

 are moreover two schools in the place, kept by pious 

 brothers and sisters of the Church. Three or four 

 taverns in great request on Sundays, and a reading 



