Aft Etcher's 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 

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



