An Etchers Voyage of Discovery. 297 



cent groups of rocks. Wherever a plough could be 

 driven, even on the very summit, the land was culti- 

 vated, and the cottages of the peasantry were scattered 

 amongst the rocks in the little fields. The hill has an 

 industry of its own, that of sabot-making, due to the 

 neighborhood of the forest. I and my companions called 

 at a cottage which was a workshop of sabotiers, and were 

 very kindly received. As I was very thirsty, I begged 

 the sabotiers to give me a drink of water, which one of 

 them immediately did, in a perfectly clean but most 

 extraordinary cup, a new sabot. I had some rum in 

 a flask, and offered a drink to all present ; on which 

 the four workmen and three visitors provided them- 

 selves with sabots, and, having half filled them with 

 water, passed the flask to flavor it. A little incident 

 occurred then, which amused and delighted me by its 

 quaintness and originality. It was proposed to trinquer, 

 to klink,* and the seven sabots were solemnly struck 

 against each other in token of good-fellowship. They 

 were not the most elegant of cups, and they did not 

 ring very musically when struck ; but, after drinking 

 out of glasses all one's life, it may be an agreeable nov- 

 elty, for once, to drink out of a wooden shoe.f 



* The old Shakspearian word. 



t What added to the fun was, that, in addition to the schoolmaster 

 and boy, a friend of mine accompanied me, who is a dignitary of Autun 

 (not mentioned in the text for that reason), and it was highly comic to 

 see his dignity condescend to such a drinking-vessel. Some time after- 

 wards, an old gentleman who had heard of this incident, but did not 

 know the name of my companion, told the story, with the remark that 

 1 no eccentricity could astonish one in an Englishman, but the wonder 



