288 CHAPTER XXXIX. 



the days of guns, it may not have been easy fora man, 

 without his neighbour's help, to hold his own against 

 the wolves. Even now they sometimes scrape at the 

 doors of the houses when the Winter is severe. 



But what great and manifold injury does this 

 custom inflict upon the peasantry ! In the over- 

 crowded village cleanliness becomes impossible ; the 

 very sense of smell is lost. Moreover, a man cannot 

 live near the ground he tills. After his long day's 

 work the peasant must trudge home, perhaps from 

 the farthest confines of the district. A tired child 

 clings to his back, and the wife follows, balancing on 

 her head the baby in its wooden cradle, which has 

 been lying all day under the shade of a chestnut or a 

 cherry tree. 



The French occupation has done a great deal to 

 improve the condition of these people, but it will re- 

 quire more than one generation to educate the villages 

 of the Maritime Alps, and bring them level with those 

 west of the Var. We wish these people greater clean- 

 liness, and some small share of knowledge and 

 enlightenment. But they possess one thing which we 

 might envy them. Theirs is that natural and simple 

 life, in which alone is found whatever happiness this 

 world admits. 



Long may these kindly mountaineers preserve 

 their arcadian simplicity, uncontaminated by the so- 

 called civilization which is now beginning to invade 

 their sequestered valley. 



