i 17 ] 
Cattle. —At L’Orient and on the sea coast of 
Brittany, they very particularly resemble those of our 
state in the hands of bad farmers. The cows are 
rather smaller than our Dutch cows, but in return 
their butter has a flavor, which is no where else to 
be met with. It is in such request as to be carried 
from Rennes to Paris for breakfasting butter. As 
you advance into the country, the cattle are much 
larger and finer, and equal to our best Connecticut 
cattle ; but are in general more compact and square. 
They are almost without exception either cream or 
dun colored, with black or dark mouse colored 
mussels. They were ail housed at night when I 
travelled through that country, and indeed are so 
all the year round. In the day they were led out 
to pasture, and always with their backs and loins 
covered, both cows and oxen, with a linen cloak—a 
woman or boy tended them, even though there was 
but a single cow ; but that the time might not be 
lost, they were employed in spinning with a distaff, 
and sat with as much ease and gaiety upon a wet 
bank in the month of December, as one of our 
country women would do upon a bank of violets in 
June. I could not find that this had any effect up¬ 
on their health. Rheumatic complaints are un¬ 
common here, and colds much less so than with 
us. May not this be owing to the habit of living 
in the open air, contracted by all classes of people 
from their infancy. I do not know whether the co¬ 
lor of the cattle is of any importance ; but it is cer¬ 
tain that our dairy maids insist that the milk of a 
