'Peasant property or no, they manage these things better in France!'

'There is no want here,' our driver said, and the fact is self-evident.

As we approach Millau we meet streams of country folk disporting
themselves, some afoot, others in rustic vehicles--the men wearing
clean blue blouses over the Sunday broadcloth, the women neat black
gowns, kerchiefs, and spotless white coiffes. The fields are deserted.
Man and beast are resting from the labours of the week.

The landscape now changes altogether, and we are reminded that we have
quitted the Lozere for the Aveyron. The air has lost the matchless
purity and exhilarating briskness of Sauveterre and Montpellier-le-
Vieux. Alike sky, atmosphere, and vegetation recall the south. Pink and
white oleanders bloom before every door; the quince, the mulberry, the
peach, ripen in every garden. We long to get at our boxes and exchange
woollen travelling-dresses for cottons and muslins.

Pleasant and welcome as is this soft air, this warm heaven, this
bright, rich-coloured, flowery land, we strain our eyes to get a last
glimpse of the Causse Noir. To betake ourselves to cosmopolitan hotels,
cities and railways, after this sojourn in elfdom, was like closing the
pages of 'Don Quixote' or Lucian to read a debate in the House or
listen to a sermon.

And now that I am no longer held spellbound by wizardry and genii, good
or evil, and the first glow of enthusiasm is over, let me jot down a
few hard facts for the reader's edification--give in a few words the
geological and general history of the Causses, if nothing more--a bare
outline to serve the tourist on his way. The origin of the phenomenon