of unexpected nooks and corners of the villages, crucifixes are erected
to accommodate the devotionally inclined. Most of the streets of these
interior villages are paved with square stones which the wear and tear
of centuries have generally rendered too rough for the bicycle; but
occasionally one is ridable, and the astonishment of the inhabitants as
I wheel leisurely through, whistling the solemn strains of "Roll, Jordan,
roll," is really quite amusing. Every village of any size boasts a church
that, for fineness of architecture and apparent costliness of construction,
looks out of all proportion to the straggling street of shapeless
structures that it overtops. Everything here seems built as though
intended to last forever, it being no unusual sight to see a ridiculously
small piece of ground surrounded by a stone wall built as though to
resist a bombardment; an enclosure that must have cost more to erect
than fifty crops off the enclosed space could repay. The important town
of Mantes is reached early in the evening, and a good inn found for the
night.

The market-women are arraying their varied wares all along the main
street of Mantes as I wheel down toward the banks of the Seine this
morning. I stop to procure a draught of new milk, and, while drinking
it, point to sundry long rows of light, flaky-looking cakes strung on
strings, and motion that I am desirous of sampling a few at current
rates; but the good dame smiles and shakes her head vigorously, as well
enough she might, for I learn afterward that the cakes are nothing less
than dried yeast-cakes, a breakfast off which would probably have produced
spontaneous combustion. Getting on to the wrong road out of Mantes, I
find myself at the river's edge down among the Seine watermen. I am shown
the right way, but from Mantes to Paris they are not Normandy roads;
from Mantes southward they gradually deteriorate until they are little
or no better than the "sand-papered roads of Boston." Having determined