106 A Corner of Brittany. 
drawers are beds in which sleep the three generations of two families 
which live in this house. 
A small box covered with a lid in which holes are pierced, is the 
cradle from which ominous cries have already issuea indicative of 
the contents. It was time for the afternoon meal wnen we visited 
Kersaliou, and we were invited to share their repast with the hos- 
pitable family. The house-wife had already placed fourteen rough, 
earthen bowls on the table, and was breaking in each fragments of 
bread. The soup was boiling over the fire, and in a few minutes 
the dinner was ready. Each bowl received its share of liquid 
poured over the bread, and the family began their simple meal. 
Above the table hung a frame on which were placed wooden spoons 
and each one took his spoon from the common source. There was 
no need of knives or forks. The kind-hearted inhabitants of Ker- 
saliou were true Bretons, conservative, religious, hospitable and in- 
dustrious. Two grandmothers, two mothers, their husbands and a 
host of children, of whom only one little girl spoke French. All con- 
verse in the antique language of Gaul, a Celtic tongue allied to the 
Gaelic of Wales. We do not have to travel far from Roscoff to lose 
the soft, melodious French and then hear on all sides the old Bre- 
ton, which is not a patois, but the original Celtic language that 
dates into the remote past, and which no effort can eradicate from 
the country. 
The old language is the common language of the country. 
French is an innovation which makes its way slowly but surely. 
The preaching in the cathedrals and churches is in Breton ; the 
common people use no other language, and all localities bear names 
which will probably recall this tongue even when unspoken by the 
descendants of those who now inhabit the land. 
Brittany is full of those curious stone structures antedating historic 
times, and called cromlechs and dolmens. Everywhere we find 
* these druid monuments, at one time formed by circles of stones 
simply stuck up in the ground, by lines of huge rocks as at Carnac, 
or simple slabs placed on uprights. Roscoff has one of these mon- 
uments in its immediate vicinity. On the road to St. Pol near the 
latter place, we turn off from the main road into a field of cabbage, 
and not far off we find the dolmens of Roscoff, high upright rocks, 
upon which is placed a horizontal slab. Unfortunately one of these 
horizontal slabs has fallen, for a hunter for buried treasure has dug 
under the foundation and undermined it, but one can still study the 
