398 
A French Haras and Horse Fair. 
man Friday. Others I saw iu light drab homespun jackets, 
with capotes, and baggy " breeks," spare-living, active, and 
hardy men. Then I encountered real typical Celts — stage Irish- 
men, to the long-tail coat and old clouted breeches, only with 
sabots instead of shoes. The well-to-do yeomen from St.-Pol 
were pleasant to behold — tall, rich, burly men, and well nourished, 
in costumes of the best materials, blue sash, and expanse of 
white shirt in lieu of waistcoat, and wideawakes with great 
buckles and long strings ; all these, with many other quaint and 
showy garbs of old Brittany — together with the woman-kind, 
who are always nice in their great white Breton coiffures — we 
must carry with us in our eye when we get to the fair. These 
old-fashioned, virtuous, and loyal people are devout, a strange 
jumble of Paganism and Romanism, influenced to this day by 
the Druidic remains to be seen on every heath — -the Menhir, the 
Dolman, and the Galgal, the upright stone, the table-stone, and 
the barrow all over the place : how these huge stones got there, 
sometimes in thousands, no man can tell ; these Druidic remains 
are not more numerous than are the more modern pardons, and 
wakes, and Calvaries, and mystery plays. To this day in the 
Breton language they always reverently say that which is 
equivalent to Monsieur Dieu and Madame Marie. 
I go into these matters in some detail as I would interest 
and induce a practical study, not of the horses only, but also 
of the vegetable-farming for the English market. The English 
agricultural vegetable prospector might by chance be entertained 
as well at Morlaix with one of those mystery plays still common 
in the country — say, Saint Tryphine and King Arthur, in which 
Arthur, King of England, he of the Round Table, appears 
guarded by baggy and red-trousered soldiers of the 148""^ Regi- 
ment of the French line ; or the Englishman may accidentally 
find himself at a ball in the market-place, and see mettlesome 
jigs danced to the " skirl " of the bagpipes. 
Morlaix, the cradle of the Breton family of horses — la 
famille Bretonne — is picturesquely situated (?. cheval of the tidal 
river, which is lined with quays and curious quaint timbered 
and carved houses overhanging the narrow streets, behind which 
the hills and rocks rise steep and woody. Arthur Young de- 
scribed Morlaix as romantic and beautiful. It is market-da}-, 
and all sunshine ; the streets are so blocked by good-natured, 
but most loquacious, men and women in the aforesaid varied 
costumes, that it is tlifficult, with an endless procession of pranc- 
ing horses, to make our way up a steep hill to the ground on 
which the fair is held. Behold ! Rosa Bonheur's picture of a 
horse fair! — as a commercial man might say, Rosa Bonheur's 
picture as " a going concern."' Four large enclosures were 
