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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photo from Mrs Fairchild 

 THE PROUD PURCHASER OF A PAIR OF WOODEN SHOES 



water front, dating from the fifteenth 

 century. I never failed to find a group 

 of women knitting about the doors. 

 From the ceiling near the altar is sus- 

 pended a large model of a full-rigged 

 vessel presented by a fisherman to satisfy 

 a vow when saved from shipwreck, and 

 on nails and posts about the altar hang 

 several score of china arms, hands, and 

 legs, about half natural size, presented 

 by fishermen and others in gratitude for 

 recovery from disease of those parts. 



Near by is a large cross, or "calvaire," 

 which is likewise a great place for loiter- 

 ing, knitting, and gossiping. When the 

 excavation for the foundations of this 

 cross was being made, in 1883, twenty 

 skeletons of men of large size were 

 found, and it was generally believed that 



they represented English soldiers who 

 had died in one of the numerous attacks 

 on the old closed town. 



Market-houses are rarely found in the 

 towns and villages, and the business that 

 is usually done in such places is in Brit- 

 tany conducted in the open air. Isolated 

 .vendors may be seen with their wares in 

 the streets at almost any time ; but there 

 are certain days when the farmers' wives 

 come in from the country and are joined 

 by the merchants' wives from the town, 

 and their goods of all descriptions are 

 displayed on the ground, rarely in booths, 

 in a plaza, park, or street set apart for 

 the purpose. 



I was awakened in Concarneau early 

 one Saturday morning by a great babel 

 of voices and clatter of wooden shoes 



