UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 209 



an opportunity this morning of asking my aunt 

 some questions about them. She told me, that 

 Auvergne has been very little known till lately ; 

 even the remarkable fact, that the whole district 

 is a collection of extinct volcanoes, has not been 

 very long discovered. It has been visited by 

 few travellers, and the people seem to have had 

 but little intercourse with their neighbours. 

 Bakewell's Travels were in the room, and she 

 gave me the following passages to read. 



" It was market day, and we met a long train 

 of carts with wood, each drawn by four oxen, 

 coming to Clermont. The dress and appearance 

 of the mountaineers who were conducting the 

 carts, were very striking ; with immense broad- 

 brimmed hats, long, lank hair, gaunt features, 

 and striped cloth cloaks, that reached nearly 

 to their feet, they bore no resemblance to 

 Frenchmen, and they spoke a diffferent lan- 

 guage. I believe they are the descendants 

 from the same race who resisted Caesar, for 

 whatever changes may have taken place in other 

 parts of France, none of the warlike hordes who 

 ravaged the more fertile parts of the country in 

 succeeding ages, would have wished to take pos- 

 session of the sterile mountains of Auvergne, or 

 to undertake the task of driving out the original 

 inhabitants. I was much surprised, on entering 

 some of the houses, to observe that the lamps, 

 waterpots, and other earthenware vessels, were 



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