stumps, and the graceful wagtails, were for some miles my only river
companions--excepting, of course, the fish, with which a treacherous
current or a sunken rock might have placed me at any moment on terms of
still closer intimacy.

But time flew like the boat, and I soon came in sight of a charming little
village whose houses with peaked roofs seemed to have been piled one
upon another. Here upon stones in the water I recognised the human form
supported by two bare legs, and in the posture as of a person about to take
a dive, which is not perhaps very graceful, but is one that certainly lends
character to the riverside scenery of France. Two or three women were
rinsing their linen.

On nearing St. Cyprien the current became swifter and the turmoil of the
rapids so great that I prepared my mind here to being swamped by the waves.
The question whether I would abandon or try to rescue my knapsack after the
wreck was distressing. The risk being over, it was with a sigh of relief
that I beached the boat, now half full of water, at the nearest spot to the
small town. Having moored it and given the sculls in charge of a man whose
house was close by, I was soon walking in the warm glow of the September
afternoon by cottage gardens where the last flowers of summer were
blooming.

The small burg of less than three thousand inhabitants which bears the name
of the African saint was probably, like many others, much more important in
the Middle Ages than it is now. In accordance with the building spirit
of the past, so strongly pronounced throughout Aquitaine, and obviously
inspired by a defensive motive, the houses are closely packed together on a
steep hillside. A few ancient dwellings, notably one with a long exterior
gallery, show themselves very picturesquely here and there. The town grew