leaving the wood, the scene became more wild and craggy. The basalt, bare
and sombre, or sparsely flecked with sedums, their stalks and fleshy leaves
now very red, rose sheer from the middle of the narrow valley, down which
the stream sped like fleeing Arethusa, now turning to the right, now to the
left, foaming over rocks or sparkling like the facets of countless gems
between margins of living green.

Then I left the valley in order to pass through the village of St. Sauve
on the right-hand hill. There was little there worth seeing besides a very
ancient Romanesque archway, or, as some think, detached portico leading to
the church.

Many of the women of St. Sauve wore the black cap or bonnet of Mont-Dore,
which hangs to the shoulders. It is a hideous coiffure, but an interesting
relic of the past. The prototype of it was worn by the chatelaines of the
twelfth century. Then, however, it had a certain stateliness which it lacks
now. It is only to be seen in a very small district.

I consulted some of the people of St. Sauve respecting my plan of following
the Dordogne through its gorges. They did not laugh at me, but they looked
at me in a way which meant that if better brains had not been given to them
than to me their case would be indeed unfortunate. I was advised to see a
cobbler who was considered an authority on the byways of the district. I
found him sitting by the open window of his little shop driving hob-nails
into a pair of Sunday boots. When I told him what I had made up my mind to
do, he shook his head, and, laying down his work, said:

'You will never do it. There are rocks, and rocks, and rocks. Even the
fishermen, who go where anybody can go, do not try to follow the Dordogne
very far. There are ravines--and ravines. _Bon Dieu!_ And the forest! You