buron, of the cheese-maker. Here, with his dog, and sometimes a
shepherd, he spends the summer months, descending to the valleys before
the first snow falls. The dairyman, or fromager, is generally a hired
workman, specially trained for the work. He is paid at the rate of L25
or L30 a year, besides board and lodging. As soon as the snows melt and
the cows can be driven afield, he betakes himself to his buron on the
alp, if married, leaving his wife in the valley below.

Have the fromager of the Cantal hills and the Caussenard of the
Lozerien steppe their legends, folklore, songs? Have their love-stories
been chronicled by some French Auerbach, their ballads found a
translator in a French Hebel? Without doubt this sequestered life of
shepherd and mountain has its vein of poetry and romance as well as any
other. To reach one of these cheese-makers' huts is quite an
expedition, and on foot is only practicable to hardy pedestrians. It is
a beautiful drive from the valley of the Cere to the open pasture-
ground, dotted with burons, behind its steep green hills on the
southern side. As the road winds upwards, we see the crags and slopes
clothed with the delicate greenery of young fir and pine. These are
seedlings planted by the State; here, as in other departments, some
strenuous efforts being made to replant the ancient forests. Goats are
no longer permitted to browse on the mountain-sides promiscuously, as
in former days, and thus slowly, but surely, not only the soil, but the
climate and products of these re-wooded districts, will undergo
complete transformation. And who can tell? Perhaps the Causse itself
will, generations hence, cease to exist, and the Roof of France become
a vast flowery garden. The country people here all speak a patois, and
the fromager is not communicative. It is always well to be accompanied
by a blue-bloused native on these visits. The dogs, too, that keep
guard over the buron, like the cows, are very suspicious of strangers.