housewife came out, pleased to interchange a few words with us. The
sight of Recloses is not, however, its long line of little walled-in
farm-houses, but the curious rocky platform at the end of the village,
perforated with holes always full of water, and the stupendous view
thence obtained--an ocean of sombre green unrelieved by a single sail.

Already the vast panorama of forest shows signs of autumn, light touches
of yellow relieving the depths of solemn green. On such a day of varied
cloudland the perspective must be quite different, and perhaps even more
beautiful than under a burning cloudless sky, no soft gradations between
the greens and the blues. The little pools or perforations breaking the
surface of the broad platform, acres of rocks, are, I believe,
unexplained phenomena. In the driest season these openings contain
water, presumably forced upwards from hidden springs. The pools, just
now covered with green slime, curiously spot the grey surface of the
rocks.

If, leaving the world of forest to our right, we continue our journey in
the direction of Chapelle la Reine, we overlook a vast plain the
population of which is very different from that of the smiling fertile
prosperous valley of the Loing. This plain, extending to Etampes and
Pithiviers, might, I am told, possibly have suggested to Zola some
scenes and characters of "La Terre." A French friend of mine, well
acquainted with these parts, tells me that at any rate there, if
anywhere, the great novelist might have found suggestions for such a
work. The soil is arid, the cultivation is primitive in the extreme and
the people are rough and uncouth. The other day an English resident at
Marlotte, when cycling among these villages of the plain inquired his
way of a countryman.