612 



FRANCE. 



English Macadamized roads. They seem almost deserted, and even the great avenues thai 

 lead from Paris have little of the traveling, that fills the roads for miles about London. The 

 roads, generally, are in a wretched state, and the practicable ones not more than one-third of 

 the extent of those of England. The cross roads are few and neglected. Where there is 

 little internal circulation or traveling, the inns must be of a humble class, and those of France 

 are distinguished for the general want of accommodations. In England, there is scarcely a 

 village so remote, that an excellent inn is not supported by travelers, social parties, and civic 

 feasts ; but there are in France many considerable towns without an inn that would be deemed 



tolerable in an English village, and in the 

 hamlets the traveler will fare still worse. 



In the province of Landes,* in Gascony, 

 there is a singular mode of traveling ; as the 

 district is very sandy, the shepherds and 

 country people walk on stilts, by which they 

 are elevated from 3 to 5 feet. This is a 

 strange sight, when a man is so distant, that a 

 spectator cannot see the stilts, as it seems 

 that he is walking in the air. The people go 

 in this way, 8 or 10 miles an hour, without 

 much fatigue. The stilts are long poles, with 

 a projection for the foot to rest on ; they are 

 strapped at the knee and at the ancle. By 

 means of a pole, which they always carry, the 

 walkers can let themselves down, take any- 

 thing from the ground, and recover their 

 standing position. 



20. Character, Manners, &c. An Amer- 

 ican in France who has previously known the 

 French only from descriptions by the Eng- 

 lish, is forcibly struck with its unfairness ; 

 the description in many points has not the 

 resemblance even of a caricature. It seems 

 to be the instinct of the English to hate the 

 French, and this accounts sufficiently for the 

 calumny. Goldsmith hit not only upon the 

 English feeling, but he exemplified the na- 

 tional fairness, in making one of his charac- 

 ters say, " I hate the French, because they 

 are slaves, and wear wooden shoes." 



Julius Cesar described the ancestors of the 



move with perfect freedom and astonishing rapidity ; and 

 they have their balance so completely, that they run, jump, 

 stoop, and even dance with ease and safety. We made them 

 run races for a piece of money putonastone on the ground, 

 to which they pounced down with surprising quickness. 

 They cannot stand quite still without the aid of along staff, 

 which they always carry in their hands. This guards 

 them against any accidental trip, and when they wish to 

 be at rest, forms a third leg, and keeps them steady. The 

 habit of using the stilts is acquired early, and it appeared, 

 that the smaller the boy was, the longer it was necessary 

 to have his stilts. By means of these odd additions to the 

 natural leg, the feet are kept out of the water, which lies 

 deep, during winter, on the sands, and from the heated 

 sand during the summer; in addition to which, the sphere 

 of vision, over so perfect a flat, is materially increased by 

 the elevation, and the shepherd can see his sheep much 

 further on stilts, than he could on the ground. Once, 

 when Napoleon was on a journey through the south of 

 France, he traveled faster than his guard, which these 

 shepherds observing, 200 of them assembling about his car- 

 riage, formed a guard of honor, and kept pace with it on 

 their stilts, at the rate of 7 miles an hour for 2 hours to* 

 gcther. 



Walking on Stilts. 



* The Landes, or desert in the south of France, is a 

 tract of country between the mouths of the Adour and Gi- 

 ronde, along the seacoast, and, according to tradition., was 

 once the bed of the sea itself, which flowed in as far as Dax. 

 It is a bed of sand, flat, in the strictest sense of the word, and 

 abounding with extensive pine woods. These woods af- 

 ford turpentine, resin, and charcoal for trade, as well as a 

 sort of candles, used bv the peasantry, made of yarn dipped 

 into the turpentine. The road is through the sand, unal- 

 tered by art, except where it is so loose and deep as to re- 

 quire the trunks of fir-trees to be laid across to give it firm- 

 ness. The villages and hamlets stand on spots of fertile 

 ground, scattered like islands among the sands. The ap- 

 pearance of a corn-field on each side of the road, fenced by 

 green hedges, a clump of trees at a little distance, and the 

 spire of a rustic church tapering from among them, gives 

 notice of the approach to an inhabited spot. 



The shepherds are mounted on stilts, and stride like 

 storks along the flats. Tliese stilts raise them from three 

 to five feet ; the foot rests on a surface adapted to its sole, 

 carved out of the solid wood ; a flat part clasped to the out- 

 side of the leg, and reaching to below the bend of the 

 knee, is strapped round the calf and ancle. The foot is 

 covered by a piece of raw sheep's hide. In these stilts they 



