the wandering Englishman fancy that some wayfaring wind has come laden with
the breath of his native land. Suddenly turning a corner, I so startled a
little peasant girl sitting on a bank in the early twilight with a flock
of goats about her, that she opened her mouth and stared at me as though
Croquemitaine had really shown himself at last. The goats stopped eating,
and fixed upon me their eyes like glass marbles; they, too, thought that I
could be no good.

I hoped that the village of Messeix was in this valley; but no, I had to
cross it and climb the opposite hill. On the other side I found the place
that I had fixed upon for my night quarters.

Very small and very poor, it lies in a region where the land generally is
so barren that but a small part of it has been ever broken by the plough;
where the summers are hot and dry, and the winters long and cruel. Although
in the watershed of the Gironde, it touches Auvergne, and its altitude
makes it partake very much of the Auvergnat climate, which, with the
exception of the favoured Limagne Valley, is harsh, to an extent that has
caused many a visitor to flee from Mont-Dore in the month of August. In the
deep gorges of the Dordogne and its tributaries, the snow rarely lies more
than a few days upon the ground, whereas upon the wind-swept plateau above
the scanty population have to contend with the rigours of that French
Siberia which may be said to commence here on the west, and to extend
eastward over the whole mass of metamorphic and igneous rocks, which is
termed the great central plateau of France, although it lies far south of
the true centre of the country.

At the first auberge where I applied for a night's lodging, an elderly
woman with a mournful face declined to take me in, and gave no reason. When
I had left, she came after me and said, with her eyes full of tears: