traveller who passes the night with them leave this record of himself for
inspection, but the formality is much more often omitted than observed. I
have not been able to overcome my English dislike of the practice, which
is annoying and useless, like much more that belongs to the French
administrative system.

By daylight I found Neuvic to be a cheerful, pleasant little town, with
a venerable-looking old church, apparently of the twelfth century. It is
entered by a cavernous portal under a very massive low tower, but the
interior shows little of interest. What struck me, however, as something
quite uncommon was a small altar in the centre of the nave just below the
sanctuary. Upon it was an image of the Virgin, which a boy told me had been
found in a neighbouring wood about a century ago.

On leaving Neuvic I noticed a woman carrying to the baker's a large dish
of edible _boleti_, known to the French as _cepes_. This excellent fungus
during the late summer and autumn is a very important article of food in
France wherever there are extensive chestnut-woods. The orange mushroom is
also much eaten in the same regions, for it likewise loves the chestnut
forest; but it may be mistaken by those who do not know the signs for
its relative, the crimson-capped fly-agaric, one of the most deadly of
cryptogams.

After seeing the dish of _cepes_, I was not surprised to find many
chestnut-trees along the road that I now took to St. Pantaleon. The country
was less barren than that which I had passed over the day before. Although
there was much heather, broom and furze, trees and pasture broke the
monotony of the moorland. Here was the better Limousin landscape--every
knoll and mamelon covered with heather and other moor-plants, woods and
meadows in the dells and dips. The numerous clumps of silver birches, and