century) at Montfort; we shall have seen the chief objects of interest,
in what Murray laconically describes as, 'a prettily situated town of
5400 inhabitants, famed for its tanneries.'


_Early morning at Pont Audemer._

That there is 'nothing new under the sun,' may perhaps be true of its
rising; nevertheless, a new sensation awaits most of us, if we choose
to see it under various phases. The early morning at Pont Audemer is the
same early morning that breaks upon the unconscious inhabitants of a
London street; but the conditions are more delightful and very much more
picturesque; and we might be excused for presenting the picture on the
simple ground that it treats of certain hours of of the twenty-four, of
which most of us know nothing, and in which (such are the exigencies of
modern civilization) most of us do nothing.

[Illustration: OLD HOUSES, PONT AUDEMER.]

A storm passed over the town one night in August, which shook the great
rafters of the old houses, and made the timbers strain; the water flowed
from them as from the sides of a ship--one minute they were illuminated,
the next, they were in blackest gloom. In two or three hours it has all
passed away, and as we go out into the silent town, and cross the street
where it forms a bridge over the Rille (the spot from which the next
sketch was taken), a faint gleam of light appears upon the water, and
upon the wet beams of one or two projecting gables. The darkness and the
'dead' silence are soon to be disturbed--one or two birds fly out from
the black eaves, a rat crosses the street, some distant chimes come upon
the wind, and a faint clatter of sabots on the wet stones; the town