We sallied forth, and whatever we thought of Morlaix last night, we
thought no less of it to-day.

It is a strange mixture of ancient and modern, as we were prepared to
find it. On all sides rose the steep hills, within the shelter of which
the town reposes. The situation is exceedingly striking. Stretching
across one end of the town with most imposing effect is the enormous
viaduct, over which the train rolls towards the station. It possesses
also a footway for pedestrians, from which point the whole town lies
mapped at your feet, and you may trace the faraway windings of the
river. The viaduct is nearly two hundred feet high, and nearly four
hundred yards long, and from its position it looks even more gigantic
than it is. It divides the town into two portions, as it were, the outer
portion consisting of the port and harbour: and from this footway far
down you may see the picturesque shipping at repose: a very modest
amount to-day moored to the river side, consisting of a few barges, a
vessel or two laden with coal or wood, and a steamer in which you might
take passage for Hâvre, or perhaps some nearer port on the Brittany
Coast.

It is a charming picture, especially if the skies overhead are blue and
the sun is shining. Then the town is lying in alternate light and shade;
the pavements are chequered with gabled outlines, long drawn out or
foreshortened according to their position. The canal bordering the old
market-place is lined with a long row of women, alternately beating
linen upon boards and rinsing it in the water. We know that they are
laughing and chattering, though we cannot hear them; for a group of even
sober Breton women could not be together and keep silence. They take
life very seriously and earnestly; with them it is not all froth and
evaporation; but this is their individual view of existence;