168 Scenery, §c. of some parts of France. 
Blois to Tours especially, the. ride is one of the sees 
that [kno The road runs upon the levée, an embankm 
made to bainarys elie low grounds from inundation. Out our 
right was a plain covered with corn, and bounded by a hill, 
which presented many a graceful curve and romantic preci- 
pice, and whose declivities were every where decorated with 
white houses, — and towns, cae among the grain 
and vines. On our left was the river with its beautiful 
bridges and aaboie: and the further bial which was pictur- 
esque and wild in some parts, and then again cultivated like 
that on the right, but still with difference enough for agreea- 
ble variety. In the hill near a many houses have been 
formed by excavation. Their windows and doors are in the 
perpendicular side of the dlealky eliff, the chimneys spring 
out of the green turf ah and over the roofs are gardens 
and fruit trees. 
Tours is a ie pretty town, inhabited by many English 
emigrants. It has a.very fine street, in which the houses are 
nearly alike. The pie are ef hewn stone, and were erect- 
ed by Louis XVI. at the expense of the nation, after a fire 
had destroyed a great part of the tee At this place we left 
the Loire, and: turned southward in our way to Bordeaux. 
There was little n the two plate to remark upon. 
rdeaux is one of the finest towns that | ever saw. 1 
know of none whose private houses seem to m ood. 
They are here built of hewn stone, of that eacaveous kind 
so abundant in France, At first it is almost as beautiful as 
marble, and even when turned brown by age, it has a grand 
appearance 
rom Hardesnx to Nismes, our road Jed through one of 
the richest.and most fertile on that [haveseen. Even 
the plain of Lombardy can hardly be more productive. It 
is cultivated more by the women than by men—I should 
think the proportion was certainly two, if not three, or four, 
toone. They get but twelve sous a day, and as our people 
express it, “find themselves.” The languages of Guienne 
and Languedoc are very different from the French: 1 think 
them much more harmonious. That of eae too, has 
much of the softness of the Italian. They were all incom- 
prehensible to me, and someof them are so tie Frenchman ; 
es generally the inn-keepers and their servants understood 
nough of French to converse with me 
