308 TRAVELS THROUGH 



rye, buck-wheat, and millet, which payg 

 them much better than fallow, wheat, or oats, 

 which is in fo many parts of France the 

 common fyftem ; yet the people are all 

 poor, and have in no refpedt the hearty 

 warm looks of the peafantry in England 3 

 and, what is the mifchief of the fmall cul- 

 ture, the farmers (metayers) are as poor 

 almoft, and as miferable as their labourers. 



To Papoul the country continues much 

 the fame 5 that town is on the canal of Lan- 

 guedoc. It would be ufelefs to defcribe 

 what is fo well known in books, and the 

 more, as we have in England feveral navi- 

 gations, which, in magnitude and contri- 

 vance, much exceed it. If Lewis XlVth's 

 defign in making it was to join the ocean to 

 the Mediterranean, in fuch a manner as to 

 convey his men of war from one to the 

 other, as is the common account, the exe- 

 cution was very bad j for it never had any 

 appearance of being made capable of it. 



The 4th, I arrived at Mirepoix, and, 

 waiting on M. Reaumur, I was, as a man 

 always is in France, well received. Upon 

 my making enquiries into the hufbandry of 

 the neighbourhood, I was informed that 



there 



