harder, and the landscape, if bolder, certainly less beautiful, for a
climate which, if more sunny, is certainly more bare and burnt up, and
for skies which, if more blue, lack much of the poetry of cloud-land--we
will not stay to enquire; but admitting the fact that, for various
reasons, English people _will_ go abroad in the autumn, and that there
is a fashion, we might almost say a passion, for 'flying, flying south,'
which seems irresistible--we will endeavour in the following pages to
suggest a compromise, in the shape of a tour which shall include the
undoubted delight and charm of foreign travel, with scenery more like
England than any other in Europe, which shall be within an easy distance
from our shores, and within the limits of a short purse; and which
should have one special attraction for us, viz., that the country to be
seen and the people to be visited bear about them a certain English
charm--the men a manliness, and the women a beauty with which we may be
proud to claim kindred.

We speak of the north-west corner of France, divided from us (and
perhaps once not divided) by the British Channel--the district called
NORMANDY (_Neustria_), and sometimes, 'nautical France,' which
includes the Departments of _Calvados_, _Eure_, _Orne_, and part of _La
Manche_. It comprises, as is well known, but a small part of France, and
occupies an area of about one hundred and fifty miles by seventy-five,
but in this small compass is comprehended so much that is interesting
to English people that we shall find quite enough to see and to do
within its limits alone.

If the reader will turn to the little map on our title-page, he will see
at a glance the position of the principal towns in Normandy, which we
may take in the following order, making England (or London) our starting
point:--