Vic-sur-Cere, half an hour distant from Aurillac, is an earthly
paradise, a primitive Eden, as yet unspoiled by fashion and
utilitarianism. The large 'Etablissement des Bains,' described in
French and English guide-books, has long ceased to exist; bells,
carpets, curtains, and other luxuries are unknown; but the unfastidious
traveller, who prefers homeliness and honesty to elegance and
extortion, may here drink waters rivalling those of Spa without being
exposed to the exorbitant prices and insolence of the Spa hotel-
keepers. Rustic inns, or rather pensions, may be had at Vic-sur-Cere,
in which the tourist is wholesomely lodged and handsomely 'tabled' at a
cost that would enrapture Mr. Joseph Pennell. Two or three hundred
visitors, chiefly from the neighbouring towns, spend the summer
holidays here, one and all disappearing about the middle of September.

When we arrived, we had the entire place to ourselves--inn, river-side
walks, and dazzlingly green hills. No palm island in mid-Pacific could
offer a sweeter, more pastoral halting-place. It is indeed a perfect
little corner of earth, beauty of the quiet kind here reaching its
acme; and neither indoors nor abroad is there any drawback to mar the
traveller's enjoyment.

From the windows of our hotel, close to the station, we enjoy a
prospect absolutely flawless--Nature in one of her daintiest moods is
here left to herself. The inn stands amid its large vegetable, fruit
and flower gardens; looking beyond these, we see the prettiest little
town imaginable nestled in a beautiful valley, around it rising
romantic crags, wooded heights, and gentle slopes, fresh and verdant as
if the month were May. Through the smooth meadows between the
encompassing hills winds the musically-named stream, the Iraliot, and
from end to end the broad expanse of green is scented with newly-mown