lie on either side. [Footnote: The same remark might be made by a
Frenchman of the lanes near Hastings!] No one takes any notice. As
Mende has without doubt an important future before it, let us hope that
these drawbacks will not afflict travellers in years to come. The
little capital of the Lozere must by virtue of position become a
tourist centre; surely the townsfolk will at last wake up to the
importance of making their streets clean and wholesome.

To obtain the prettiest view of this charming, albeit tatterdemalion,
little city, we follow a walk bordered with venerable willows to the
railway station. Here is seen a belt of beautifully kept vegetable
gardens and orchards, all fresh and green as if just washed by April
showers. These are the property of peasant-owners, who dispose of their
crops here and at Langogne. As yet the good townsfolk are hardly alive
to the benefits of a railway. One of our drivers complained that it
ruined the trades alike of carriage proprietor, conductor, and carter;
another averred that the local manufacture of woollen goods, formerly
of considerable account, was at a standstill owing to the importations
of cheaper cloths. These grumblers will doubtless erelong take a
different tone, as the glorious scenery of the Lozere becomes more
widely known and Mende is made the tourists' headquarters. Our hotel,
situated in the middle of the town, offers good beds, good food, dirty
floors, charges low enough to please Mr. Joseph Pennell, and a total
absence of anything in the shape of modern ideas. The people are
charming, and the house is a mousy, ratty, ramshackle place hundreds of
years old.

It may be as well to mention that folk assured me I was the first
English-speaking lady ever seen at Mende. A short time before no little
excitement had been created by the appearance of six young Englishmen