people believe that the happy man who succeeds in doing this will have assuredly preserved the household to which he belongs from misfortune for the year.

The presentation of a cock at the Pardon of St. Gildas is supposed to be especially efficacious against whooping-cough, and one man told me, in a resigned sort of way, that his wife had insisted on his investing a matter of thirty sous in the purchase of one with that idea. The resemblance of the noise made by a child suffering from whooping-cough to the crowing of a cock was given as a reason for the proceeding, and is as sensible as many of the directions in old herbals where we find such assertions as that a leaf which resembles the shape of an adder's tongue is a specific against the bite of that reptile.

I have never met anywhere with a precise definition of what a "Pardon " is, though the scenes that occur on the occasion are tolerably familiar to all through the pictures of Jules Breton and other French painters. Guide-books occasionally mention the fact of the Pardon at a particular place as being one of unusual interest, but always take for granted that the reader is informed on the subject of Pardons in general. I take it to have been at first the simple fête day of the saint to whom a church was dedicated, his intercession being regarded as likely to be particularly effectual in obtaining pardon for the sins of those worshippers who honoured his special day. In certain places the idea of absolution is connected with the practice of remaining in prayer for some definite period of time, as for instance while a long taper is burning, which is laid all round the cornice of the chancel. At the village of St. Bulac, not far from Callac, there is a Pardon to which the pilgrims go barefoot, and as scantily clothed as decency will permit-the men in shirt and drawers, and the women in chemise and petticoat, all carrying candles in their right hands, and their sabots and headgear in their left. At eight o'clock they march in procession to the church with their candles lighted, which must make an impressive spectacle, many of the poor people having walked barefoot long distances from their homes. The Pardon usually winds up with dancing and drinking, and is sometimes followed up the next day by a fair with more merrymaking.

It is

Phallic worship. A tradition in reference to these menhirs still survives, to the effect that a barren woman may be rendered fruitful by rubbing her bare bosom against the mystic stone, which she must visit at dead of night. Newly married couples also make pilgrimages to the menhir with a similar object. The one near Callac is at Duault, in the middle of a wood, or plantation of young trees, which is much the same thing in France. quite an out-of-the-way spot, though on high ground, and the tourist will find it necessary to engage a guide to conduct him there. The height of this menhir is about twentytwo feet, and there are two smaller ones within a quarter of a mile. Near Dol there is one thirty feet high, but the largest still remaining in situ is at Plouarzel, near Brest, and is said to exceed forty-two feet in height. A yet grander specimen of this class, more than sixty feet in length, is at Lokmariaker, but it lies prostrate and broken. When Brittany became converted to Christianity, the attempt was made in many cases to overturn and destroy these relics of paganism, but it was found no easy matter, and the more simple device has frequently been adopted of making these huge blocks of stone serve as pedestals for crosses.

Carhaix was our next stopping place; it is very interesting from the architectural point of view, which can hardly be said of Callac. In this old-world town the inhabitants are perhaps more primitive in their style than at any other point of our tour. Many of the buildings are extremely curious, their fronts being protected with slates, which

arc

arranged so as to project over the windows in such a way as to make it difficult to say where the roof ends and the wall begins. The black undressed sheepskin jackets of the men are here the rule, while at most places in the Côtes du Nord they are rapidly becoming the exception. The name of the principal inn is "La Tour d'Auvergne," the house having been the birthplace of that hero who has been dubbed the first grenadier of France. His memory is kept green by the singular practice of retaining his name on the roll-call of his regiment, his place never having been filled up. When his name is called over duly with the others, it is the business of the soldier next in rotation to reply for the absentee, "Dead on the field of honour." His statue, by Marochetti, adorns his native town, and on the pedestal are basreliefs representing incidents in his life. I recollect particularly the one in which he is seen offering himself as a substitute for a conscript who could ill be spared from his home it was after La Tour d'Auvergne had retired from the army, and the young man on whom the lot had fallen was the son of an old friend of his, and the sole support of his aged father.

Another fifteen miles by diligence takes us on to Le Huelgoet, which is in many respects the pleasantest place to stay at in the district. It has an hotel where the people have been taught something of English requirements. This is owing chiefly to the fact that it is capital head-quarters for those who are in search of sport, whether shooting or fishing. The trout streams in the neighbourhood are everywhere free to all, the only exception I heard of being the large lake close to the village which serves as the mill head. The trout run to a good size and are very abundant, from the obvious reason that they are little interfered with. In the spring half a dozen Englishmen will perhaps be the only anglers who will be fishing with anything like persistence, the native peasant occasionally indulging in the sport, but the French gentleman not at all. When passing through here in May I saw a fine fish, that the "patron" of the inn had taken, which must have weighed nearly four pounds. In the autumn there is partridge shooting to be obtained without much difficulty, and in the winter woodcock and snipe abound. The scenery is extremely varied; our two illustrations of the place which are so very dissimilar in character are not at any great distance from each other. There are many beautiful walks in the neighbourhood through shady woods or pretty country roads, with

occasional bursts of distant view that could hardly be surpassed in their way. Living cannot be regarded as expensive, the very moderate pension of five francs a day at Le Huelgoet not being however singular, but the usual thing in these country inns, the prices in the towns being always somewhat higher.

The weird character of the granite rocks at Le Huelgoet is perhaps intensified by the fact that such huge boulders are rarely seen away from high mountains, and the Montagnes Noires, as the district is called, are, to use an American expression, "only a little rising ground." The height above the level of the sea may be considerable, but, as at Dartmoor, the aspect of the country does not itself express the fact. The piled-up rocks seen in our illustration, with the children dancing, look as if they were part of an old moraine, the river which still winds among these grand rocks having at this point found a bed for itself far below, where, though unseen, its sullen roar rises fitfully to the ear like the sound of a great waterfall in the far distance. Here and there among the rocks are holes through which the seething and boiling water may be dimly descried, and one wonders at the temerity with which parents allow their children to play by themselves close to such terrible danger. But to our remarks on the subject of this obvious risk the mothers only reply that the children never do fall down the holes, and the flat rock in our sketch is worn white with their dancing. At one place a descent to the river may be made by those who are surefooted in slippery places, the cavern through which the stream here rushes being named "La Ménage de la Vierge." The curious hollows worn in the stone by the water are variously called the steps, the cradle, the cauldron, &c., but have nothing distinctive about them, their resemblance to the objects named being of the slightest.

There are other places in the valley besides Le Huelgoet, where, in a similar manner, the river loses itself for considerable distances amongst gigantic granite rocks. In one spot it disappears in a frightful chasm called Le Gouffre. The appearance that the rocks here present is certainly that of having been violently hurled to their present positions by some tremendous convulsion, and while looking at them it is difficult to quite accept the modern geological views without some slight mental reservation-indeed one can hardly help thinking of the fabled Titans, so like the doings of some gigantic race are these wildly-confused heaps of enormous boulders. It is on record that once, at least,

pieces of wood, bark, and any other dry vegetable matter that was available. In its greatest height it measured nearly three feet, and about half that where the ground was highest. The ants were a large black species with crimson thorax, and measured about a third of an inch. I noticed that any common ant which happened to meet one of these large black ones on the flat surface of the rock, retired precipitately, or was attacked and promptly killed.

The fact that the wolf has not altogether disappeared from the neighbourhood of Carhaix and Le Huelgoet seems consistent enough with the exceptionally weird character of the rocky gorges. When there I could not gather any very definite information about the wolves, except that the recent disappearance of several gentlemen's dogs was laid to their account. A book that I chanced to dip into when stopping at the "Tour d'Auvergne," called Wild Sport in Brittany, gave a very melodramatic description of a doctor's ride by night when chased by a troop of wolves which he managed to scare repeatedly by striking matches. The horse was the object of the wolves' attention on this occasion, and there seems to be no tradition of their attack

ing human beings. In Mr. Mountney Jephson's book (A Walking Tour in Brittany, published 1859) an account is given of a

agnes Noires, but farther west than the places we are referring to. When seeking information from the inhabitants on the subject of the wolf I learned that the wild boar was similarly regarded as not altogether extinct, though rapidly becoming so.

At Le Huelgoet I sketched the group of peasants harvesting their buckwheat, and through the rest of my tour I noticed that a large proportion of the arable land everywhere was devoted to its culture. As it was a somewhat novel sight to me, I venture to think that some description of it may interestothers. The buckwheat, sarrasin or blé noir, may perhaps be best described as a rather shabby-looking version of the meadow-sweet, and as unlike as possible to anything in the nature of our kinds of cereals, all of which are, I believe, cultivated varieties of the grass tribe. Its botanical name is Polygonum fagopyrum, and it is said to be a doubtful native of England. The stalk of the plant becomes of a fine red colour, inclining to crimson as the grain ripens, its clusters of small whitish flowers giving place to triangular seeds of a shiny black, in size abouthalf as large as the grain of common wheat.