from time to time, and thus help themselves to imagine that they are eating
grass. Beyond the reach of meadow, almost at the foot of high wooded hills
which mark the boundary of the valley on that side, is a modern chateau;
but the architect found his model for it in the past, when castles were
more picturesque than comfortable. When the amber-tinted towers are seen
through the haze of a summer morning against the background of wooded hill,
one thinks that in just such a castle as this Tasso or Spenser would have
put an enchantress, whose wiles, combined with the indolent influence of
the valley, few pilgrim knights taking the eastward way to Roc-Amadour
would have been able to resist.

I found the valley so hot in the steady blaze of summer that, having
reached Beynac, I felt no inclination to go any farther. I thought I would
stop there until cooler weather came, and live meanwhile principally in the
Dordogne. Several families from different parts of Perigord had already
come here to spend a mildly exciting and not too costly river season; and
there they were, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, splashing in the
blue tepid water, with their clothes laid carefully in little heaps upon
the pebbly beach or upon the brown grass by the osiers. Despising the
shelter which in more fashionable watering-places is thought indispensable,
they lazily undressed and dressed in the open air with an appreciation of
sunshine and regardlessness of apparel that was almost lizard-like in its
freedom from conventional restraint.

I was charmed by the spectacle as I meditated upon the opposite bank. The
more I meditated the better I liked the idea of tarrying in a spot where
Arcadian simplicity of life was so unaffectedly cultivated. I resolved that
I, too, would take a house at Beynac if there was one to be had, and that I
would have what I figuratively termed my 'caravan' brought up here. At the
auberge--the only one in the place--I learnt that there was but a single