or even two hours. I passed a team of bullocks descending from the moor
with loads of dry broom for the bakers, headed by a little old man in a
great felt hat, with a long goad in his hand, with which he tickled up the
yoked beasts occasionally, not because they needed it, but from force of
habit. This goad, by-the-bye, is a slender stick about six feet long, with
a short nail at one end, so fastened that the point is turned outwards.
A bullock is not goaded from behind, but from the front between the
shoulder-blades, and it generally suffices for the animal to see a man in
front of him with a stick. Instead of drawing back, as might be supposed,
he steps forward at his best pace. Cows and bulls are harnessed, to the
wain and plough as well as oxen; they have all to work for their living.
English cattle are allowed to grow fat in idleness, and their troubles do
not begin until the time comes for them to be eaten. It is otherwise in
France.

On the banks were fragrant, mauve-coloured pinks, with ragged petals; but
at the foot of the _Orgues_ was a rocky waste, where little grew besides
the sombre holly and fetid hellebore.

The view from the top of the cliff made me fully realize the wildness, the
sterility, the desolation of nature in this region. Beyond the valley far
beneath me where the Dordogne lay, a glittering thread, was the department
of the Cantal. The whole southern and eastern prospect was broken up by
innumerable savage, heath-covered or rocky hills, with little green valleys
or dense woods filling the hollows, the southern horizon being closed by
the wavy blue line of the Cantal mountains. To the north-east the sky-line
was marked by the Mont-Dore range, with the highest peak of Auvergne, the
Puy de Sancy, clearly visible against the lighter blue of the cloudless
air. The feeling that prevailed throughout this wide expanse of country was
solemn sternness.