but points to it, and grunts for the equivalent in maize. The pig may
be a correct emblem of depravity, but its intelligence is certainly of
a superior order.




FROM THE ALZOU TO THE DORDOGNE.


Although the last days of May had come, the Alzou, usually dry at this
time, was running with swift, strong current through the vale of
Roc-Amadour. There had been so many thunderstorms that the channel was
not large enough for the torrent that raced madly over its yellow
pebbles. I lingered awhile in the meadow by the stream, looking at the
rock-clinging sanctuary before wandering in search of the unknown up
the narrow gorge.

In a garden terraced upon the lower flank of the rock, the labour of
generations having combined to raise a soil there deep enough to
support a few plum, almond, and other fruit trees, a figure all in
black is hard at work transplanting young lettuces. It is that of a
teaching Brother. He is a thin grizzled man of sixty, with an
expression of melancholy benevolence in his rugged face. I have
watched him sitting upon a bench with his arm round some little
village urchin by his side, while the children from the outlying
hamlets, sprawling upon a heap of stones in the sun, ate their mid-day
meal of bread and cheese or buckwheat pancakes that their mothers had
put into their baskets before they trudged off in the early morning. I
have noticed by many signs that he is full of sympathy for the young