This is eminently true of Morlaix, for, in spite of the removal of many
an ancient landmark, it is still wonderfully interesting. In situation
it is singularly favoured and romantic, placed as it is on the sides of
three deep ravines. Hills rise on all sides, shutting in the houses;
hills fertile and well-wooded; in many places cultivated and laid out in
gardens, where flowers grow and flourish all the year round, and
orchards that in spring-time are one blaze, one wealth of blossoming
fruit trees.

We looked out upon all this that first morning. Not a wealth of
blossoming trees, for the blossoms were over. But before us stretched
the high hills, and surrounding us were all the houses of Morlaix, old
and new. The sun we have said shone upon all, and we needed all this
brightness to make up for the discomforts of the past night. H.C.
declared that his dreams had been of tread-mills, monastic penances, and
the rack; but he had survived the affliction, and this morning was eager
for action.

It was market-day, and the market-place lay just to the right of us. The
stalls were in full force; the butter and poultry women in strong
evidence, and all the other stalls indigenous to the ceremony. There was
already a fair gathering of people, many of them _paysans_, armed with
umbrellas as stout and clumsy as themselves. For the Bretons know and
mistrust their own climate, and are too well aware that the day of a
brilliant morning too often ends in weeping skies. Many wore costumes
which, though quaint, were not by any means beautiful. They were heavy
and ungraceful, like the people themselves: broad-brimmed hats and loose
trunk hose that hung about them like sacks, something after the fashion
of Turkish pantaloons; and the men wore their hair in huge manes,
hanging down their backs, ugly and untidy; habits, costumes and people