own powers. It became more and more difficult, then quite impossible,
to keep along the bank of the stream. What is understood by a bank
disappeared, and in its stead were rocks, bare and glittering, on which the
lizards basked, or ran in safety, because they were at home, but which I
could only pass by a flank movement. To struggle up a steep hill, over
slipping shale-like stones, or through an undergrowth of holly and
brambles, then to scramble down and to climb again, repeating the exercise
every few hundred yards, may have a hygienic charm for those who are
tormented by the dread of obesity, but to other mortals it is too
suggestive of a holiday in purgatory.

Having gone on in this fashion for some distance, I lay down, streaming
from every pore, and panting like a hunted hare beside a little rill that
slid singing between margins of moss, amid Circe's white flowers and purple
flashes of cranesbill. Here I examined my scratches and the state of things
generally. The result of my reflections was to admit that the cobbler
was right, that these ravines of the Upper Dordogne were practically
impassable, and that the only rational way of following the river would
be to keep sometimes on the hills and sometimes in the gorge, as the
unforeseen might determine. Hitherto, I had not troubled to inquire where I
should pass the night, and this consideration alone would have compelled
me to depart from my fantastic scheme. After La Bourboule there is not a
village or hamlet in the valley of the Dordogne for a distance of at least
thirty miles, allowing for the winding of the stream.

After a hard climb I reached the plateau, where I saw before me a wide moor
completely covered with bracken and broom. Here I looked at the map, and
decided to make towards a village called Messeix, lying to the east in a
fork formed by the Dordogne and its tributary the Chavannon. Going by the
compass at first, I presently struck a road leading across the moor in the