sinuous track which requires the fibres of a goat to clamber. There are
often long lines of these sculptured houses piled in successive tiers
above each other; sometimes with a view to architectural regularity,
but in almost all cases they are equally hazardous to the unpractised
foot of a stranger.

"Stroll down the spacious quay of Saumur in the dusk of the evening,
when the flickering tapers of the temperate town are going out one by
one. Roars of merriment greet you as you approach the cavernous city of
the suburb. There the entertainments of the inhabitants are only about
to begin. You see moving lights in the distance twinkling along the
grey surface of the rock, and flitting amongst the trees that lie
between its base and the margin of the river. Some bacchanalian orgie
is going forward." [Footnote: Bell (R.), "Wayside Pictures," Lond.
1850, pp. 292-3.]

[Illustration: CAVE DWELLERS AT DUCLAIR. These are typical of countless
others on the Seine, the Loir, the Loire, and its tributaries, as also
on the Dronne and Dordogne.]

There was a curious statement made in a work by E. Bosc and L. Bonnemere
in 1882, [Footnote: _Hist. des Gaulois sous Vercingetorix_. Paris,
1882.] reproduced by M. Louis Bousrez in 1894, [Footnote: _Les monu-
ments Megalithiques de la Touraine_. Tours, 1894.] which, if true,
would show that a lingering paganism is to be found among these people.
It is to this effect: "What is unknown to most is that at the present
day there exist adepts of the worship (of the Celts) as practised before
the Roman invasion, with the sole exception of human sacrifices, which
they have been forcibly obliged to renounce. They are to be found on the
two banks of the Loire, on the confines of the departments of Allier and