Beg de Rieux 47 



lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert. To 

 Montadier, over a rough mountain covered with box and 

 lavender; it is a beggarly village, with an auberge that made 

 me almost shrink. Some cut-throat figures were eating black 

 bread, whose visages had so much of the galleys that I thought 

 I heard their chains rattle. I looked at their legs and could not 

 but imagine they had no business to be free. There is a species 

 of countenance here so horridly bad that it is impossible to be 

 mistaken in one's reading. I was quite alone and absolutely 

 without arms. Till this moment I had not dreamt of carrying 

 pistols: I should now have been better satisfied if I had had 

 them. The master of the auberge, who seemed first cousin to 

 his guests, procured for me some wretched bread with difficulty, 

 but it was not black. — No meat, no eggs, no legumes, and 

 execrable wine; no corn for my mule, no hay, no straw, no 

 grass; the loaf fortunately was large; I took a piece, and 

 sliced the rest for my four-footed Spanish friend, who ate it 

 thankfully, but the aubergiste growled. — Descend by a winding 

 and excellent road to Maudieres, where a vast arch is thrown 

 across the torrent. Pass St. Maurice, and cross a ruined forest 

 amongst fragments of trees. Descend three hours by a most 

 noble road hewn out of the mountain side to Lodeve, a dirty, 

 ugly, ill-built town with crooked close streets, but populous, 

 and very industrious. — Here I drank excellent light and pleasing 

 white wine at 5 sous a bottle. — 36 miles. 



315/. Cross a mountain by a miserable road, and reach 

 Beg de Rieux, which shares with Carcassonne, the fabric of 

 Londrins, for the Levant trade. — Cross much waste to Beziers. — 

 I met to-day with an instance of ignorance in a well dressed 

 French merchant that surprised me. He had plagued me 

 with abundance of tiresome foolish questions, and then asked 

 for the third or fourth time what country i was of. I told him 

 I was a Chinese. How far off is that country? — I replied 200 

 leagues. Deux cents liens ! Di'able ! c'est un grand chemtn ! 

 The other day a Frenchman asked me, after telling him I was 

 an Englishman, if we had trees in England. — I replied that we 

 had a few. Had we any rivers? — Oh, none at all. Ah mafoi 

 cest bien trieste I This incredible ignorance, when compared 

 with the knowledge so universally disseminated in England, is to 

 be attributed, like everything else, to government. — 40 miles. 



August i. Leave Beziers, in order to go to Capestan by 

 the pierced mountain. Cross the canal of Languedoc several 

 times; and over many wastes to Pleraville. The Pyrenees now 



