to do the work that is required of them efficiently, although if one is
travelling in a third-class compartment the top speed seems extraordinarily
slow. The railway officials handle bicycles with wonderful care, and this
is perhaps remarkable when we realize that French railways carry them any
distance simply charging a penny for registration.

The hotels of Normandy are not what they were twenty years ago.
Improvements in sanitation have brought about most welcome changes, so that
one can enter the courtyard of most hotels without being met by the
aggressive odours that formerly jostled one another for space. When you
realize the very large number of English folk who annually pass from town
to town in Normandy it may perhaps be wondered why the proprietors of
hotels do not take the trouble to prepare a room that will answer to the
drawing-room of an English hotel. After dinner in France, a lady has
absolutely no choice between a possible seat in the courtyard and her
bedroom, for the estaminet generally contains a group of noisy Frenchmen,
and even if it is vacant the room partakes too much of the character of a
bar-parlour to be suitable for ladies. Except in the large hotels in Rouen
I have only found one which boasts of any sort of room besides the
estaminet; it was the Hotel des Trois Marie at Argentan. When this defect
has been remedied, I can imagine that English people will tour in Normandy
more than they do even at the present time. The small washing basin and jug
that apologetically appears upon the bedroom washstand has still an almost
universal sway, and it is not sufficiently odd to excuse itself on the
score of picturesqueness. Under that heading come the tiled floors in the
bedrooms, the square and mountainous eiderdowns that recline upon the beds,
and the matches that take several seconds to ignite and leave a sulphurous
odour that does not dissipate itself for several minutes.