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Payrac 25 



trived for driving in at one end, and out at the other, without 

 the abominable operation, common in England, of beating 

 horses till they leap iato them; the price is as great a cbfitrast 

 as the excellence; we paid for an English whisYy, a'French 

 cabriolet, one saddle-horse, and six persons, no more than 

 50 sous (2s. id.). I have paid half-a-crown a wheel in England 

 for execrable ferries, passed over at the hazard of the horses' 

 limbs. — This river runs in a very deep valley between two 

 ridges of high hills: extensive views, all scattered with villages 

 and single houses; an appearance of great population. Chest-/ 6>i,^ 

 nuts on a calcareous soil, contrary to the Limosin maxim. ^ )f 



Pass PajTac, and meet many beggars, which we had not done 

 before. All the country, girls and women, are without shoes 

 or stockings; and the ploughmen at their work have neither 

 sabots nor feet to their stockings. This is a poverty that 

 strikes at the root of national prosperity; a large consumption 

 among the poor being of more consequence than among the rich: 

 the wealth of a nation lies in its circulation and consumption; 

 and the case of poor people abstaining from the use of manu- 1 

 factures of leather and wool ought to be considered as an evil | 

 of the first magnitude. It reminded me of the misery of Ireland. J 

 Pass Pont-de-Rodez, and come to high land, whence we enjoyed 

 an immense and singular prospect of ridges, hills, vales, and 

 gentle sloi^es, rising one beyond another in every direction, with 

 few masses of wood, but many scattered trees. At least forty 

 miles are tolerably distinct to the eye, and without a level acre; 

 the sun, on the point of being set, illumined part of it, and dis- 

 played a yast number of villages and scattered farms. The 

 mountains of Auvergne, at the distance of 100 miles, added to 

 the view. Pass by several cottages, exceedingly well built 

 of stone and slate or tiles, yet without any glass to the windows; 

 can a country be likely to thrive where the great object is to 

 spare manufactures? Women picking weeds into their apirons 

 for their cows, another sign of poverty I observed, during the 

 whole way from Calais. — 30 miles. 



11/^. See for the first time the Pyrenees, at the distance of 

 150 miles. — To me, who had never seen an object farther than 

 sixty or seventy, I mean the Wicklow mountains, as I was going 

 out of Holyhead, this was interesting. \\Tierever the eye 

 wandered in search of new objects it was sure to rest there. 

 Their magnitude, their snowy height, the line of separation 

 between two great kingdoms, and the end of oui travels altogether 

 account for this effect. Towards Cahors the country changes 



