and well calculated to catch the eye and attract the interest of the stranger. A well-organised system of tramcars connects all quarters of the city. Along the bigger canals small steamboats ply, and along all, big or small, canal boats. Streams of animated pedestrians pass along the streets, well-dressed ladies who have long since discarded all national peculiarities of dress as unfashionable; men intent on business; trim, white-capped, bare-armed servant-maids; here and there a typical peasant, with his broad, baggy trousers, or a Friesland woman, with her glittering gold skull-cap. Everywhere are signs of comfort and prosperity. The shining windows, the dazzlingly clean brass door-plates, and the spotless steps all please the eye. RICHARD LOVETT.-Pictures of Holland. Religious Tract Society. By permission of the Religious Tract Society. In the Fruit-growing Districts of Normandy The journey from Caen to Vire, at the southern extremity of the department of Calvados, leads the traveller through the most beautiful sylvan scenery of the province; through verdant mountain sides, rich pastures, orchards, and dense timber forests, alternating with cornfields, gardens, cottages, châteaux, and churches. The road we entered upon would lead to Falaise, and a royal road it appeared-70 feet wide, and kept in most perfect and serviceable condition. Before 6.30 we met a waggon heavily laden with wheat carried out of a plot of ground, of which it would be difficult to say whether it was an orchard sown with wheat, or a wheatfield planted with apple-trees. The next orchard was sown with sainfoin, and the crop was ready to cut. I soon perceived the frequency of thickets, verdant with the foliage of many trees, oak and elm chiefly, to which this line of country owes the name of the bocages. These contributed not that beauty to the landscape which it derived from deeply shaded glens, continually darkening the region intermediate between the road and the hill country on our THE FRUIT-GROWING DISTRICTS OF NORMANDY 213 left. In some of the villages I noticed on the fronts of several cottages abundant crops of the finest ripe apricots and pears. It was surprising to observe in the midst of four or five acres of barley a number of pear-trees so heavily laden as to require several poles to sustain the bending branches, the grain, nevertheless, full in the ear, and apparently unimpoverished by the concomitant growth of the tree. The village clock had not yet struck seven; yet, in front of many a cottage door were seated women and girls busily at work on the lace pillows. The well-trimmed quick-set hedges skirted the roads for several miles, enclosing fields in which tobacco, flax, coleseed, hemp, beetroot, and buckwheat gave a foreign aspect to the cultivation. The general features of the country at two hours' distance from Caen resembled very forcibly the richest districts of Gloucestershire and Hereford. Apple growth seems to be a paramount consideration in every part of central Normandy. Thousands of orchards came within view to-day, the greater part of which bore white grain crops at bottom, and fruit at top, as the Kentish phrase is. As we advanced the scenery began to be very like Devonshire. Even the red earth was not wanting; and the double-blossoming furze mingling with the purple heather on the round projecting masses of granite in the quarry region strengthened the resemblance. By 9.30 we reached the summit of a long steep hill, from which in the night time the lighthouse of Havre is visible at a distance of 60 miles. Another wild region of granite, fern, heath, and furze succeeded, which was almost as speedily replaced by a beautifully undulating surface of wood and orchard, cornfields and meadows, beyond which in the far distance rose the summits of faintish blue hills on the frontiers of Calvados. G. M. MUSGRAVE.-A Ramble through Normandy. Bogue. A good description of the orchard and meadow scenery between Vire and Falaise is given ibid. pp. 385-398. "Normandy is full of interest. It is remarkable for varied outline of swelling hills waving with corn, for beautiful valleys, abounding in orchards, and in rich pasturages, on which large herds of cattle are reared, and traversed by winding rivers; for richness and careful cultivation; and above all for remains of medieval antiquity; venerable cities, noble cathedrals, abbeys, and churches, not confined merely to the larger towns, but scattered over the country, so that every village, in some parts, possesses a fine specimen of architecture. Parts of the upper country are certainly a flat monotonous table-land; but in the joyous sunny slopes and winding dales of Lower Normandy, in its hedgerows, orchards, thatched cottages with gardens, frequent village spires and chalk cliffs, an Englishman recognises with pleasure the features of his own country."-MURRAY'S Handbook to France. Stanford. For the sights, as distinguished from the scenery of Normandy, one of the best books is Mrs. MACQUOID's Through Normandy. Isbister. In the Manufacturing District of Normandy Two steep hills, another smiling valley, a considerable extent of orchards, were the only features interspersed in a dead level of well-farmed arable land, and through this lay our road to Elbeuf. We came upon the town quite on a sudden, after climbing a steep acclivity, and at once confronted the drying-grounds of this Leeds of Normandy. The hills in the immediate vicinity of the factories are hung with thousands of yards of cloth, stretched on frames and strong posts to dry. Elbeuf stands on either side of the Seine, and bears all the appearances of a prosperous community. The most remarkable feature in this locality is the range of chalk cliffs, to the left, on leaving the town, the Orival rocks, the strata of which are separated by layers of enormous masses of flint, mostly horizontal, but occasionally jutting upward. At one part these natural steeples attain an altitude of 200 feet. The most singular effect was the presence of the river Seine on the right hand, and on the left during the remainder of our journey to Rouen. It was not visible till we emerged from the forest of Londe, when we saw it on either side of us. The fact is, that the whole tract of land between Elbeuf and Rouen is a peninsula, formed by one of the frequent windings of the Seine between THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT OF NORMANDY 215 Paris and Havre, and we were now travelling through it in a direct line. The grassy sides and wood-crowned cliffs make this river exceedingly beautiful. The frequently recurring islands, on which grow the loftiest of poplars, that characterise its course, presented themselves at intervals on the skirts of the forest of Rouvray, producing the most lovely effect. The railway runs along the right, or eastern side of this peninsula, crossing the river and giving a station to Pont de l'Arche, with its bridge of twenty-two arches, on the bank opposite that town, 30 miles from Rouen. At length we came in sight of that city. The groups of high chimneys appeared to have increased twenty-fold since my first visit, indicating a vast increase of manufacturing labour and prosperous trade in this Manchester of France. Approach the town from whatever quarter you will, its aspect is eminently beautiful and attractive. The quays are superb. The custom-house, with the principal suspension bridge, a magnificent structure, as the foreground, the numerous towers and steeples of the city on the left, and the white cliffs crested with the most brilliant verdure, with Notre Dame de Bon Secours and its elegant spire overlooking the largest panorama in Normandy, constitute a tout ensemble to which France hardly affords a parallel. As a mercantile city Rouen will eventually become one of the most highly embellished in the country. G. M. MUSGRAVE.-A Ramble through Normandy. Bogue. "It is quite possible to enter Rouen and to remain for several hours blind to its wonderfully picturesque beauty. The approach to the city from the Rue Verte station down the Rue Jeanne d'Arc, in spite of occasional glimpses of towers and spires is so intensely modern that it is hard to believe that the Rouen extolled by so many travellers is still in existence. Much of the ancient city has been removed to make room for the large modern streets which run northwards from the Seine, and for others which intersect these, traversing the city from east to west. But the traveller who starts from the Gare d'Amiens will find enough to take him back centuries and to enable him to picture Rouen to himself, much as she must have appeared in the Middle Ages."-K. S. MACQUOID. This charming volume, with its illustrations, gives a complete and picturesque account of the city (pp. 18-99). The view from the heights on the opposite bank, the city with its towering spires, set between a semicircle of boulevards, and the river with its forests of masts and funnels, the green plains beyond bounded by the forests of Rouvray and La Londe, are well described (pp. 92-95). "It strikes one as a strange contrast to the past history of Rouen, and to the feudal and chivalric associations that cling round the columns of its churches and the gables of its houses, that its boast now is that it rivals Manchester, and its aim is to be considered the first cotton-spinning town in Europe. Church spires, towers, and religious houses have been swept away, tall chimneys with their clouding smoke have multiplied, till every distant view of the city is marred by some of these unsightly erections."—Ibid. The Prehistoric Monuments of Brittany1 As I drove to Carnac, amid glowing gorse, purpling fern, and mellow woods, I said to myself, "This is the time to see Brittany!" The wild gorge at the beginning of the Carnac road reminds me of Haslemere, in Sussex, and all through my Breton journey I find myself saying, "How like Wales! how like Sussex! how like Cornwall!" So greatly does La Petite Bretagne resemble La Grande! Wild sweeps of heath, with low-lying pastures, herds of little black and white Breton cows, magpies, jays, and crows, flying about the hedges, quaint stone windmills, low thatched, one-storied cottages, pine woods, pools, and marshes, and lastly the sea. Such is the scenery of the 9 miles' drive from Auray to Carnac. The stones of Carnac, like the pyramids of Egypt, are indescribable, and like the pyramids superhumanly grand, monotonous, and imposing. What giant precursors of the human race raised these obelisks of unknown stone, these stupendous altars, untouched by hammer or chisel, these gloomy temples, rude and stupendous as the cyclopean walls of Mycena. "There is nothing in history and hardly anything in tradition that throws any light on the mystery," writes one author, and another concludes his 1 French, Bretagne. |
