SECRETARY'S REPORT. 245 



especially as a part of it stands on elevated ground, commanding 

 a wide prospect. It has been called the Liverpool of France. 



It was not long before we were seated in the cars, and off 

 through an undulating country, and the smiling fields of Nor- 

 mandy. A constant succession of vine-clad slopes, richly culti- 

 vated fields of grain, sainfoin, lucerne and potatoes met the 

 eye, while many fine hedges along the railway and around the 

 cottages gave a pleasing variety. No division fences appear in 

 this part of France, the lines being indicated either by stone 

 posts, or by the different crops. 



We stopped some time at Rouen, and I afterwards spent the 

 night there, and examined at greater leisure the many objects 

 of interest. This was once the capital of Normandy. It is a 

 genuine old French city, of over ninety thousand inhabitants ; 

 much of it a good deal in decay, but still possessing many fine 

 specimens of old Gothic architecture, many of them doubtless 

 more than a thousand years old. Some old pointed arch, some 

 old, mutilated, saint-like statue, or some Gothic fountain, will 

 meet the traveller at every turn. The wood work on most of the 

 buildings is checkered over with ornaments of rich carving of 

 grotesque heads, flowers and other fanciful creations of art, and 

 you will see the door posts, the window frames, the beam ends all 

 covered over with some strange device. 



The old cathedral is very striking as a monument of the past, 

 and stands preeminent among all others, while the Palais de 

 Justice seems to be almost equally old, and covered with curious 

 carving. Many other public edifices are full of interest to the 

 stranger. The statue of Joan of Arc adorns a fine large foun- 

 tain in the Place de la Pucelle, on the spot where she was 

 cruelly burned to death by the English. Every thing here 

 carries the mind back to the distant past, to a state of society 

 and to manners and customs different from our own. 



Perhaps nothing will better illustrate the peculiarities of the 

 people than a novel mode of washing, which appeared to be 

 very common on the continent. Coming across a stream of 

 running water, we found a large number of women engaged in 

 this interesting occupation, under the following circumstances. 

 A man owns or has control of, say a hundred feet of the stream, 

 and lets it out to as many women as can occupy it for washing. 

 The cleaner clothes are washed above, the dirtier ones lower 



