Chapter LXVII: Part VI: Miscellaneous Papers (7)

May 12. _Frontignan._ Some tolerably good plains in olives, vines, corn, St. foin, and lucerne. A great proportion of the hills are waste. There are some inclosures of stone, and some sheep. The first four years of madder are unproductive; the fifth and sixth yield the whole value of the land. Then it must be renewed. The sparsette is the common or true St. foin. It lasts about five years; in the best land it is cut twice, in May and September, and yields three thousand pounds of dry hay to the setterie, the first cutting, and five hundred pounds the second. The setterie is of seventy-five _dextres en tout sens_, supposed about two arpents. Lucerne is the best of all forage; it is sowed here in the broadcast, and lasts about twelve or fourteen years. It is cut four times a year, and yields six thousand pounds of dry hay at the four cuttings, to the setterie. The territory in which the vin muscat de Frontignan is made, is about a league of three thousand toises long, and one-fourth of a league broad. The soil is reddish and stony, often as much stone as soil. On the left, it is a plain, on the right, hills. There are made about one thousand pieces (of two hundred and fifty bottles each) annually, of which six hundred are of the first quality, made on the _coteaux_. Of these, Madame Soubeinan makes two hundred, Monsieur Reboulle, ninety. Monsieur Lambert, médicin de la faculté de Montpelier, sixty, Monsieur Thomas, notaire, fifty, Monsieur Argilliers, fifty, Monsieur Audibert, forty; equal to four hundred and ninety; and there are some small proprietors who make small quantities. The first quality is sold, _brut_, for one hundred and twenty livres the piece; but it is then thick, and must have a winter and the _fouet_ to render it potable and brilliant. The fouet is like a chocolate mill, the handle of iron, the brush of stiff hair. In bottles, this wine costs twenty-four sous, the bottles, &c., included. It is potable the April after it is made, is best that year, and after ten years begins to have a pitchy taste, resembling it to Malaga. It is not permitted to ferment more than half a day, because it would not be so liquorish. The best color, and its natural one, is the amber. By force of whipping, it is made white, but loses favor. There are but two or three pieces a year of red muscat made; there being but one vineyard of the red grape, which belongs to a baker called Pascal. This sells in bottles at thirty sous, the bottle included. Rondelle, negociant en vin, Porte St. Bernard, fauxbourg St. Germains, Paris, buys three hundred pieces of the first quality every year. The coteaux yield about half a piece to the setterie, the plains a whole piece. The inferior quality is not at all esteemed. It is bought by the merchants of Cette, as is also the wine of Bezieres, and sold by them for Frontignan of the first quality. They sell thirty thousand pieces a year under that name. The town of Frontignan marks its casks with a hot iron: an individual of that place having two casks emptied, was offered forty livres for the empty cask by a merchant of Cette. The town of Frontignan contains about two thousand inhabitants; it is almost on the level of the ocean. Transportation to Paris is fifteen livres the quintal, and takes fifteen days. The price of packages is about eight livres eight sous the one hundred bottles. A setterie of good vineyard sells for from three hundred and fifty to five hundred livres, and rents for fifty livres. A laboring man hires at one hundred and fifty livres the year, and is fed and lodged; a woman at half as much. Wheat sells at ten livres the settier, which weighs one hundred pounds, poids de table. They make some Indian corn here, which is eaten by the poor. The olives do not extend northward of this into the country, above twelve or fifteen leagues. In general, the olive country in Languedoc is about fifteen leagues broad. More of the waste lands between Frontignan and Mirval are capable of culture; but it is a marshy country, very subject to fever and ague, and generally unhealthy. Thence arises, as is said, a want of hands.

_Cette._ There are in this town about ten thousand inhabitants. Its principal commerce is wine; it furnishes great quantities of grape pomice for making verdigrise. They have a very growing commerce; but it is kept under by the privileges of Marseilles.

May 13. _Agde._ On the right of the Etang de Tau, are plains of some width, then hills, in olives, vines, mulberry, corn and pasture. On the left, a narrow sand bar separating the Etang from the sea, along which it is proposed to make a road from Cette to Agde. In this case, the post would lead from Montpelier, by Cette and Agde, to Bezieres, being leveller, and an hour, or an hour and a half nearer. Agde contains six or eight thousand inhabitants.

May 14. _Bezieres._ Rich plains in corn, St. foin and pasture; hills at a little distance to the right, in olives; the soil both of hill and plain is red, going from Agde to Bezieres. But at Bezieres the country becomes hilly, and is in olives, St. foin, pasture, some vines and mulberries.

May 15. _Bezieres._ _Argilies._ _Le Saumal._ From Argilies to Saumal are considerable plantations of vines. Those on the red hills to the right, are said to produce good wine. No wood, no inclosures. There are sheep and good cattle. The Pyrenees are covered with snow. I am told they are so in certain parts all the year. The canal of Languedoc, along which I now travel, is six toises wide at bottom, and ten toises at the surface of the water, which is one toise deep. The barks which navigate it are seventy and eighty feet long, and seventeen or eighteen feet wide. They are drawn by one horse, and worked by two hands, one of which is generally a woman. The locks are mostly kept by women, but the necessary operations are much too laborious for them. The encroachments by the men, on the offices proper for the women, is a great derangement in the order of things. Men are shoemakers, tailors, upholsterers, stay-makers, mantua-makers, cooks, housekeepers, house-cleaners, bed-makers, they _coeffe_ the ladies, and bring them to bed: the women, therefore, to live, are obliged to undertake the offices which they abandon. They become porters, carters, reapers, sailors, lock-keepers, smiters on the anvil, cultivators of the earth, &c. Can we wonder, if such of them as have a little beauty, prefer easier courses to get their livelihood, as long as that beauty lasts? Ladies who employ men in the offices which should be reserved for their sex, are they not bawds in effect? For every man whom they thus employ, some girl, whose place he has thus taken, is driven to whoredom. The passage of the eight locks at Bezieres, that is, from the opening of the first to the last gate, took one hour and thirty-three minutes. The bark in which I go, is about thirty-five feet long, drawn by one horse, and goes from two to three geographical miles an hour. The canal yields abundance of carp and eel. I see also small fish resembling our perch and chub. Some plants of white clover and some of yellow, on the banks of the canal near Capestan; santolina also, and a great deal of yellow iris. Met a raft of about three hundred and fifty beams, forty feet long, and twelve or thirteen inches in diameter, formed into fourteen rafts, tacked together. The extensive and numerous fields of St. foin in general bloom, are beautiful.

May 16th. _Le Saumal._ _Marseillette._ May 17th. _Marseillette._ _Carcassonne._ From Saumal to Carcassonne, we have always the river Aube close on our left. This river runs in the valley between the Cevennes and Pyrenees, serving as the common receptacle for both their waters. It is from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards wide, always rapid, rocky, and insusceptible of navigation. The canal passes in the side of hills made by that river, overlooks the river itself, and its plains, and has its prospect ultimately terminated, on one side, by mountains of rock overtopped by the Pyrenees, on the other, by small mountains, sometimes of rock, sometimes of soil, overtopped by the Cevennes. Marseillette is on a ridge, which separates the river Aube from the Etang de Marseillette. The canal, in its approach to this village, passes the ridge, and rides along the front, overlooking the Etang, and the plains on its border; and having passed the village, re-crosses the ridge, and resumes its general ground in front of the Aube. The land is in corn, St. foin, pasture, vines, mulberries, willows, and olives.

May 18th. _Carcassonne._ _Castelnaudari._ Opposite to Carcassonne, the canal receives the river Fresquel, about thirty yards wide, which is its substantial supply of water from hence to Bezieres. From Bezieres to Agde, the river Orb furnishes it, and the Eraut, from Agde to the Etang de Thau. By means of _ecluse ronde_ at Agde, the waters of the Eraut can be thrown towards Bezieres, to aid those of the Orb, as far as the ecluse de Porcaraigne, nine geometrical miles. Where the Fresquel enters the canal, there is, on the opposite side, a waste, to let off the superfluous waters. The horseway is continued over this waste, by a bridge of stone of eighteen arches. I observe them fishing in the canal, with a skimming net of about fifteen feet diameter, with which they tell me they catch carp. Flax in blossom. Neither strawberries nor peas yet at Carcassonne. The Windsor bean just come to table. From the ecluse de la Lande we see the last olive trees near a metairée, or farm house, called la Lande. On a review of what I have seen and heard of this tree, the following seem to be its northern limits. Beginning on the Atlantic, at the Pyrenees, and along them to the meridian of la Lande, or of Carcassonne; up that meridian to the Cevennes, as they begin just there to raise themselves high enough to afford it shelter. Along the Cevennes, to the parallel of forty-five degrees of latitude, and along that parallel (crossing the Rhone near the mouth of the Isere) to the Alps; thence along the Alps and Apennines, to what parallel of latitude I know not. Yet here the tracing of the line becomes the most interesting. For from the Atlantic, so far, we see this production the effect of shelter and latitude combined. But where does it venture to launch forth unprotected by shelter, and by the mere force of latitude alone? Where for instance does its northern limits cross the Adriatic? I learn that the olive tree resists cold to eight degrees of Reaumur below the freezing point, which corresponds to fourteen above zero of Farenheit; and that the orange resists to four degrees below freezing of Reaumur, which is twenty-three degrees above zero of Farenheit.

May 19th. _Castelnaudari._ _St. Feriol._ _Escamaze._ _Lampy._ Some sheep and cattle; no inclosures. St. Feriol, Escamaze, and Lampy are in the _montagnes noires_. The country almost entirely waste. Some of it in shrubbery. The _voute_ d'Escamaze is of one hundred and thirty-five yards. Round about Castelnaudari, the country is hilly, as it has been constantly from Bezieres; it is very rich. Where it is plain, or nearly plain, the soil is black; in general, however, it is hilly and reddish, and in corn. They cultivate a great deal of Indian corn here, which they call millet; it is planted but not yet up.

May 20th. _Castelnaudari._ _Naurouze._ _Villefranche._ _Baziege._ At Naurouze, is the highest ground which the canal had to pass, between the two seas. It became necessary then to find water still higher to bring it here. The river Fresquel heading by its two principal branches in the montagnes noires, a considerable distance off to the eastward, the springs of the most western one were brought together, and conducted to Naurouze, where its waters are divided, part furnishing the canal towards the ocean, the rest towards the Mediterranean, as far as the ecluse de Fresquel, where, as has been before noted, the Lampy branch, and the Alzau, under the name of the Fresquel, enter.

May 20th. They have found that a lock of six pieds is best; however, eight pieds is well enough. Beyond this, it is bad. Monsieur Pin tells me of a lock of thirty pieds, made in Sweden, of which it is impossible to open the gates. They therefore divided it into four locks. The small gates of the locks of this canal, have six square pieds of surface. They tried the machinery of the jack for opening them. They were more easily opened, but very subject to be deranged, however strongly made. They returned therefore to the original wooden screw, which is excessively slow and laborious. I calculate that five minutes are lost at every basin by this screw, which, on the whole number of basis, is one eighth of the time necessary to navigate the canal; and of course, if a method of lifting the gate at one stroke could be found, it would reduce the passage from eight to seven days, and the freight equally. I suggested to Monsieur Pin and others, a quadrantal gate, turning on a pivot, and lifted by a lever like a pump handle, aided by a windlass and cord, if necessary. He will try it, and inform me of the success. The price of transportation from Cette to Bourdeaux, through the canal and Garonne is ---- the quintal; round by the straits of Gibraltar is ----. Two hundred and forty barks, the largest of twenty-two hundred quintals (or say, in general, of one hundred tons) suffice to perform the business of this canal, which is stationary, having neither increased nor diminished for many years. When pressed, they can pass and repass between Toulouse and Bezieres in fourteen days; but sixteen is the common period. The canal is navigated ten and a half months of the year; the other month and a half being necessary to lay it dry, cleanse it and repair the works. This is done in July and August, when there would, perhaps, be a want of water.

May 21st. _Baziege._ _Toulouse._ The country continues hilly, but very rich. It is in mulberries, willows, some vines, corn, maize, pasture, beans, flax. A great number of chateaux and good houses, in the neighborhood of the canal. The people partly in farm houses, partly in villages. I suspect the farm houses are occupied by the farmers, while the laborers (who are mostly by the day) reside in the villages. Neither strawberries nor peas yet at Baziege or Toulouse. Near the latter, are some fields of yellow clover.

At Toulouse the canal ends. It has four communications with the Mediterranean. 1. Through the ponds of Thau, Frontignan, Palavas, Maguelone, and Manjo, the canal de la Radela Aiguesmortes, le canal des Salines de Pecair, and the arm of the Rhone called Bras de fer, which ends at Fourgues, opposite to Arles, and thence down the Rhone. 2. At Cette, by a canal of a few hundred toises, leading out of the Etang de Thau into the sea. The vessels pass the Etang, through a length of nine thousand toises, with sails. 3. At Agde, by the river Eraut, twenty-five hundred toises. It has but five or six pieds of water at its mouth. It is joined to the canal at the upper part of this communication, by a branch of a canal two hundred and seventy toises long. 4. At Narbonne, by a canal they are now opening, which leads from the great canal near the aqueduct of the river Cesse, twenty-six hundred toises, into the Aude. This new canal will have five lock-basins of about twelve pieds fall, each. Then you are to cross the Aude very obliquely, and descend a branch of it six thousand toises, through four lock-basins to Narbonne, and from Narbonne down the same branch, twelve hundred toises into the Etang de Sigen, across that Etang four thousand toises, issuing at an inlet, called Grau de la nouvelle, into the Gulph of Lyons. But only vessels of thirty or forty tons can enter this inlet. Of these four communications, that of Cette only, leads to a deep sea-port, because the exit is there by a canal, and not a river. Those by the Rhone, Eraut, and Aude, are blocked up by bars at the mouths of those rivers. It is remarkable, that all the rivers running into the Mediterranean, are obstructed at their entrance by bars and shallows, which often change their position. This is the case with the Nile, Tyber, the Po, the Lez, le Lyoron, the Orbe, the Gly, the Tech, the Tet, &c. Indeed, the formation of these bars seems not confined to the mouths of the rivers, though it takes place at them, more certainly. Along almost the whole of the coast, from Marseilles towards the Pyrenees, banks of sand are thrown up, parallel with the coast, which have insulated portions of the sea, that is, formed them into etangs, ponds, or sounds, through which here and there, narrow and shallow inlets only, are preserved by the currents of the rivers. These sounds fill up in time, with the mud and sand deposited in them by the rivers. Thus the Etang de Vendres, navigated formerly by vessels of sixty tons, is now nearly filled up by the mud and sand of the Aude. The Vistre and Vidourle which formerly emptied themselves into the Gulf of Lyons, are now received by the Etangs de Manjo and Aiguesmortes, that is to say, the part of the Gulf of Lyons which formerly received, and still receives those rivers, is now cut off from the sea by a bar of sand, which has been thrown up in it, and has formed it into sounds. Other proofs that the land gains there on the sea, are, that the towns of St. Gilles and Notre dame d'asposts, formerly sea ports, are now far from the sea, and that Aiguesmortes, where are still to be seen the iron rings to which vessels were formerly moored, and where St. Louis embarked for Palestine, has now in its vicinities, only ponds which cannot be navigated, and communicates with the sea by an inlet, called Grau du roy, through which only fishing barks can pass. It is pretty well established, that all the Delta of Egypt has been formed by the depositions of the Nile, and the alluvions of the sea, and it is probable that that operation is still going on. Has this peculiarity of the Mediterranean any connection with the scantiness of its tides, which even at the equinoxes, are of two or three feet only?

The communication from the western end of the canal to the ocean is by the river Garonne. This is navigated by flat boats of eight hundred quintals, when the water is well; but when it is scanty, these boats carry only two hundred quintals till they get to the mouth of the Tarn. It has been proposed to open a canal that far, from Toulouse, along the right side of the river.

May 22d. _Toulouse._ 23d. _Agen._ 24th. _Castres._ _Bourdeaux._ The Garonne and rivers emptying into it, make extensive and rich plains, which are in mulberries, willows, corn, maize, pasture, beans and flax. The hills are in corn, maize, beans, and a considerable proportion of vines. There seems to be as much maize as corn in this country. Of the latter, there is more rye than wheat. The maize is now up, and about three inches high. It is sowed in rows two feet, or two and a half feet apart, and is pretty thick in the row. Doubtless they mean to thin it. There is a great deal of forage they call farouche. It is a species of red trefoil, with few leaves, a very coarse stalk, and a cylindrical blossom of two inches in length, and three quarters of an inch in diameter, consisting of floscules, exactly as does that of the red clover. It seems to be a coarse food, but very plentiful. They say it is for their oxen. These are very fine, large, and cream-colored. The services of the farm, and of transportation, are performed chiefly by them. There are a few horses and asses, but no mules. Even in the city of Bourdeaux, we see scarcely any beasts of draught but oxen. When we cross the Garonne at Langon, we find the plains entirely of sand and gravel, and they continue so to Bourdeaux. Where they are capable of anything, they are in vines, which are in rows, four, five, or six feet apart, and sometimes more. Near Langon is Sauterne, where the best white wines of Bourdeaux are made. The waste lands are in fern, furze, shrubbery, and dwarf trees. The farmers live on their farms. At Agen, Castres, Bourdeaux, strawberries and peas are now brought to table, so that the country on the canal of Languedoc seems to have later seasons than that east and west of it. What can be the cause? To the eastward, the protection of the Cevennes makes the warm season advance sooner. Does the neighborhood of the Mediterranean co-operate? And does that of the ocean mollify and advance the season to the westward? There are ortolans at Agen, but none at Bourdeaux. The buildings on the canal and the Garonne are mostly of brick, the size of the bricks the same with that of the ancient Roman brick, as seen in the remains of their buildings in this country. In those of a circus at Bourdeaux, considerable portions of which are standing, I measured the bricks, and found them nineteen or twenty inches long, eleven or twelve inches wide, and from one and a half to two inches thick; their texture as fine, compact, and solid as that of porcelain. The bricks now made, though of the same dimensions, are not so fine. They are burnt in a kind of furnace, and make excellent work. The elm tree shows itself at Bourdeaux, peculiarly proper for being spread flat for arbors. Many are done in, this way on the quay des Charterons. Strawberries, peas, and cherries at Bourdeaux.

May 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th. _Bourdeaux._ The cantons in which the most celebrated wines of Bourdeaux are made, are Medoc down the river, Grave adjoining the city, and the parishes next above; all on the same side of the river. In the first is made red wine principally, in the two last, white. In Medoc, they plant the vines in cross rows of three and a half pieds. They keep them so low, that poles extended along the rows one way, horizontally, about fifteen or eighteen inches above the ground, serve to tie the vines to, and leave the cross row open to the plough. In Grave, they set the plants in quincunx, _i. e._ in equilateral triangles of three and a half pieds every side; and they stick a pole of six or eight feet high to every vine, separately. The vine stock is sometimes three or four feet high. They find these two methods equal in culture, duration, quantity and quality. The former, however, admits the alternative of tending by hand or with the plough. The grafting of the vine, though a critical operation, is practised with success. When the graft has taken, they bend it into the earth, and let it take root above the scar. They begin to yield an indifferent wine at three years old, but not a good one till twenty-five years, nor after eighty, when they begin to yield less, and worse, and must be renewed. They give three or four workings in the year, each worth seventy, or seventy-five livres the _journal_, which is of eight hundred and forty square toises, and contains about three thousand plants. They dung a little in Medoc and Grave, because of the poverty of the soil; but very little, as more would effect the wine. The journal yields, _communibus annis_, about three pieces (of two hundred and forty or two hundred and fifty bottles each). The vineyards of first quality are all worked by their proprietors. Those of the second rent for three hundred livres the journal, those of the third at two hundred livres. They employ a kind of overseer at four or five hundred livres the year, finding him lodging and drink; but he feeds himself. He superintends and directs, though he is expected to work but little. If the proprietor has a garden, the overseer tends that. They never hire laborers by the year. The day wages for a man are thirty sous, a woman's fifteen sous, feeding themselves. The women make the bundles of sarment, weed, pull off the snails, tie the vines, and gather the grapes. During the vintage, they are paid high and fed well.

Of red wines, there are four vineyards of the first quality, viz., 1. Château Margau, belonging to the Marquis d'Agincourt, who makes about one hundred and fifty tons, of one thousand bottles each. He has engaged to Jernon, a merchant. 2. La Tour de Segur, en Saint Lambert, belonging to Monsieur Miresmenil, who makes one hundred and twenty-five tons. 3. Hautbrion, belonging two thirds to M. le Comte de Femelle, who has engaged to Barton, a merchant; the other third to the Comte de Toulouse, at Toulouse. The whole is seventy-five tons. 4. Château de la Fite, belonging to the President Pichard, at Bourdeaux, who makes one hundred and seventy-five tons. The wines of the three first are not in perfection till four years old; those of De la Fite, being somewhat lighter, are good at three years, that is, the crop of 1786 is good in the spring of 1789. These growths of the year 1783 sell now at two thousand livres the ton; those of 1784, on account of the superior quality of that vintage, sell at twenty-four hundred livres; those of 1785, at eighteen hundred livres; those of 1786, at eighteen hundred livres, though they had sold at first for only fifteen hundred livres. Red wines of the second quality, are Rozan, Dabbadie or Lionville, la Rose, Quirouen, Durfort; in all eight hundred tons, which sell at one thousand livres, new. The third class are, Calons, Mouton, Gassie, Arboete, Pontette, de Ferme, Candale; in all two thousand tons, at eight or nine hundred livres. After these, they are reckoned common wines, and sell from five hundred livres down to one hundred and twenty livres the ton. All red wines decline after a certain age, losing color, flavor and body. Those of Bourdeaux begin to decline at about seven years old.

Of white wines, those made in the canton of Grave are most esteemed at Bourdeaux. The best crops are, 1. Pontac, which formerly belonged to M. de Pontac, but now to M. de Lamont. He makes forty tons, which sell at four hundred livres, new. 2. St. Brise, belonging to M. de Pontac; thirty tons, at three hundred and fifty livres. 3. De Carbonius, belonging to the Benedictine monks, who make fifty tons, and never selling till three or four years old, get eight hundred livres the ton. Those made in the three parishes next above Grave, and more esteemed at Paris, are, 1. Sauterne. The best crop belonging to M. Diquem at Bourdeaux, or to M. de Salus, his son-in-law; one hundred and fifty tons, at three hundred livres, new, and six hundred livres, old. The next best crop is M. de Filotte's; one hundred tons, sold at the same price. 2. Prignac. The best is the President du Roy's, at Bourdeaux. He makes one hundred and seventy-five tons, which sell at three hundred livres, new, and six hundred livres, old. Those of 1784, for their extraordinary quality, sell at eight hundred livres. 3. Barsac. The best belongs to the President Pichard, who makes one hundred and fifty tons, at two hundred and eighty livres, new, and six hundred livres, old. Sauterne is the pleasantest; next Prignac, and lastly Barsac; but Barsac is the strongest; next Prignac, and lastly Sauterne; and all stronger than Grave. There are other good crops made in the same parishes of Sauterne, Prignac, and Barsac; but none as good as these. There is a virgin wine, which, though made of a red grape, is of a light rose color, because, being made without pressure, the coloring matter of the skin does not mix with the juice. There are other white wines, from the preceding prices down to seventy-five livres. In general, the white wines keep longest. They will be in perfection till fifteen or twenty years of age. The best vintage now to be bought, is of 1784; both of red and white. There has been no other good year since 1779.

The celebrated vineyards before mentioned are plains, as is generally the canton of Medoc, and that of the Grave. The soil of Hautbrion, particularly, which I examined, is a sand, in which is near as much round gravel or small stone, and very little loam; and this is the general soil of Medoc. That of Pontac, which I examined also, is a little different. It is clayey, with a fourth or fifth of fine rotten stone; and at two feet depth it becomes all a rotten stone. M. de Lamont tells me he has a kind of grape without seeds, which I did not formerly suppose to exist; but I saw at Marseilles dried raisins from Smyrna without seeds. I saw in his farm at Pontac some plants of white clover, and a good deal of yellow; also some small peach trees in the open ground. The principal English wine merchants at Bourdeaux are, Jemon, Barton, Johnston, Foster, Skinner, Copinger and M'Cartey; the chief French wine merchants are, Feger, Nerac, Bruneau, Jauge, and du Verget. Desgrands, a wine broker, tells me they never mix the wines of first quality; but that they mix the inferior ones to improve them. The smallest wines make the best brandy. They yield about a fifth or sixth.

May 28th, 29th. From Bordeaux to Blaye, the country near the river is hilly, chiefly in vines, some corn, some pasture; further out, are plains, boggy and waste. The soil, in both cases, clay and grit. Some sheep on the waste. To Etauliere, we have sometimes boggy plains, sometimes waving grounds and sandy, always poor, generally waste, in fern and furze, with some corn however, interspersed. To Mirambeau and St. Genis, it is hilly, poor, and mostly waste. There are some corn and maize however, and better trees than usual. Towards Pons, it becomes a little red, mostly rotten stone. There are vines, corn, and maize, which is up. At Pons we approach the Clarenton; the country becomes better, a blackish mould mixed with a rotten chalky stone; a great many vines, corn, maize, and farouche. From Lajart to Saintes and Rochefort, the soil is reddish, its foundation a chalky rock, at about a foot depth; in vines, corn, maize, clover, lucerne, and pasture. There are more and better trees than I have seen in all my journey; a great many apple and cherry trees; fine cattle and many sheep. May 30th. From Rochefort to le Rochex, it is sometimes hilly and red, with a chalky foundation, middling good; in corn, pasture, and some waste; sometimes it is reclaimed marsh, in clover and corn, except the parts accessible to the tide, which are in wild grass. About Rochelle, it is a low plain. Towards Usseau, and half way to Marans, level highlands, red, mixed with an equal quantity of broken chalk; mostly in vines, some corn and pasture; then to Marans and half way to St. Hermines, it is reclaimed marsh, dark, tolerably good, and all in pasture; there we rise to plains a little higher, red, with a chalky foundation, boundless to the eye, and altogether in corn and maize. May 31st. At St. Hermines, the country becomes very hilly, a red clay mixed with chalky stone, generally waste, in furze and broom, with some patches of corn and maize; and so it continues to Chantenay, and St. Fulgent. Through the whole of this road from Bourdeaux, are frequent hedge rows, and small patches of forest wood, not good, yet better than I had seen in the preceding part of my journey. Towards Montaigu, the soil mends a little; the cultivated parts in corn and pasture, the uncultivated in broom. It is in very small inclosures of ditch and quickset. On approaching the Loire to Nantes, the country is leveller; the soil from Rochelle to this place, may be said to have been sometimes red, but oftener grey, and always on a chalky foundation. The last census, of about 1770, made one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants at Nantes. They conjecture there are now one hundred and fifty thousand, which equals it to Bourdeaux. June 1st, 2d. The country from Nantes to L'Orient is very hilly and poor, the soil grey; nearly half is waste, in furze and broom, among which is some poor grass. The cultivated parts are in corn, some maize, a good many apple trees; no vines. All is in small inclosures of quick hedge and ditch. There are patches and hedge-rows of forest wood, not quite deserving the name of timber. The people are mostly in villages; they eat rye bread, and are ragged. The villages announce a general poverty, as does every other appearance. Women smite on the anvil, and work with the hoe, and cows are yoked to labor. There are great numbers of cattle, insomuch that butter is their staple. Neither asses nor mules; yet it is said that the fine mules I have met with on my journey, are raised in Poictou. There are but few chateaux here. I observe mill ponds, and hoes with long handles. Have they not, in common with us, derived these from England, of which Bretagne is probably a colony? L'Orient is supposed to contain twenty-five thousand inhabitants. They tell me here, that to make a reasonable profit on potash and pearl ash, as bought in America, the former should sell at thirty livres, the latter thirty-six livres the quintal. Of turpentine they make no use in their vessels. Bayonne furnishes pitch enough; but tar is in demand, and ours sells well. The tower of L'Orient is sixty-five pieds above the level of the sea, one hundred and twenty pieds high, twenty-five pieds in diameter; the stairs four feet radius, and cost thirty-thousand livres, besides the materials of the old tower.

June 3d, 4th, 5th. The country and productions from L'Orient to Rennes, and from Rennes to Nantes, are precisely similar to those from Nantes to L'Orient. About Rennes, it is somewhat leveller, perhaps less poor, and almost entirely in pasture. The soil always grey. Some small separate houses which seem to be the residence of laborers, or very small farmers; the walls frequently of mud, and the roofs generally covered with slate. Great plantations of walnut, and frequently of pine. Some apple trees and sweet briar still in bloom, and broom generally so. I have heard no nightingale since the last day of May. There are gates in this country made in such a manner, that the top rail of the gate overshoots backwards the hind post, so as to counterpoise the gate, and prevent its swagging.

_Nantes._ Vessels of eight feet draught only, can come to Nantes. Those which are larger, lie at Point Boeuf, ten leagues below Nantes, and five leagues above the mouth of the river. There is a continued navigation from Nantes to Paris, through the Loire, the canal de Briare and the Seine. Carolina rice is preferred to that of Lombardy for the Guinea trade, because it requires less water to boil it.

June 6th, 7th, 8th. _Nantes._ _Ancenis._ _Angers._ _Tours._ Ascending the Loire from Nantes, the road, as far as Angers, leads over the hills, which are grey, oftener below than above mediocrity, and in corn, pasture, vines, some maize, flax, and hemp. There are no waste lands. About the limits of Bretagne and Anjou, which are between Loriottiere and St. George, the lands change for the better. Here and there, we get views of the plains on the Loire, of some extent, and good appearance, in corn and pasture. After passing Angers, the road is raised out of the reach of inundations, so as at the same time, to ward them off from the interior plains. It passes generally along the river side; but sometimes leads through the plains, which, after we pass Angers, become extensive and good, in corn, pasture, some maize, hemp, flax, peas, and beans; many willows, also poplars and walnuts. The flax is near ripe. Sweet briar in general bloom. Some broom here still, on which the cattle and sheep browse in winter and spring, when they have no other green food; and the hogs eat the blossoms and pods, in spring and summer. This blossom, though disagreeable when smelt in a small quantity, is of delicious fragrance when there is a whole field of it. There are some considerable vineyards in the river plains, just before we reach Les trois volées, (which is at the one hundred and thirty-sixth mile stone) and after that, where the hills on the left come into view, they are mostly in vines. Their soil is clayey and stony, a little reddish, and of southern aspect. The hills on the other side of the river, looking to the north, are not in vines. There is very good wine made on these hills; not equal indeed to the Bourdeaux of best quality, but to that of good quality, and like it. It is a great article of exportation from Anjou and Touraine, and probably is sold abroad, under the name of Bourdeaux. They are now mowing the first crop of hay. All along both hills of the Loire, is a mass of white stone, not durable, growing black with time, and so soft, that the people cut their houses out of the solid, with all the partitions, chimnies, doors, &c. The hill sides resemble cony burrows, full of inhabitants. The borders of the Loire, are almost a continued village. There are many chateaux; many cattle, sheep, and horses; some asses.

Tours is at the one hundred and nineteenth mile stone. Being desirous of inquiring here into a fact stated by Voltaire, in his Questions Encyclopediques, article Coquilles, relative to the growth of shells unconnected with animal bodies, at the Château of Monsieur de la Sauvagiere, near Tours, I called on Monsieur Gentil, premier secretaire de l'Intendance, to whom the Intendant had written on my behalf, at the request of the Marquis de Chastellux. I stated to him the fact as advanced by Voltaire, and found he was, of all men, the best to whom I could have addressed myself. He told me he had been in correspondence with Voltaire on that very subject, and was perfectly acquainted with Monsieur de la Sauvagiere, and the Faluniere where the fact is said to have taken place. It is at the Château de Grillemont, six leagues from Tours, on the road to Bourdeaux, belonging now to Monsieur d'Orcai. He says, that de la Sauvagiere was a man of truth, and might be relied on for whatever facts he stated as of his own observations; but that he was overcharged with imagination, which, in matters of opinion and theory, often led him beyond his facts; that this feature in his character had appeared principally in what he wrote on the antiquities of Touraine; but that, as to the fact in question, he believed him. That he himself, indeed, had not watched the same identical shells, as Sauvagiere had done, growing from small to great; but that he had often seen such masses of those shells of all sizes, from a point to a full size, as to carry conviction to his mind that they were in the act of growing; that he had once made a collection of shells for the Emperor's cabinet, reserving duplicates of them for himself; and that these afforded proofs of the same fact; that he afterwards gave those duplicates to a Monsieur du Verget, a physician of Tours, of great science and candor, who was collecting on a larger scale, and who was perfectly in sentiment with Monsieur de la Sauvagiere, that not only the Faluniere, but many other places about Tours, would convince any unbiassed observer, that shells are a fruit of the earth, spontaneously produced; and he gave me a copy of de la Sauvagiere's Recueil de Dissertations, presented by the author wherein is one Sur la vegetation spontanée des coquilles du Château des Places. So far, I repeat from him. What are we to conclude? That we have not materials enough yet, to form any conclusion. The fact stated by Sauvagiere is not against any law of nature, and is therefore possible; but it is so little analogous to her habitual processes, that, if true, it would be extraordinary; that to command our belief, therefore, there should be such a suite of observations, as that their untruth would be more extraordinary than the existence of the fact they affirm. The bark of trees, the skin of fruits and animals, the feathers of birds, receive their growth and nutriment from the internal circulation of a juice through the vessels of the individual they cover. We conclude from analogy, then, that the shells of the testaceous tribe, receive also their growth from a like internal circulation. If it be urged, that this does not exclude the possibility of a like shell being produced by the passage of a fluid through the pores of the circumjacent body, whether of earth, stone, or water; I answer, that it is not within the usual economy of nature, to use two processes for one species of production. While I withhold my assent, however, from this hypothesis, I must deny it to every other I have ever seen, by which their authors pretend to account for the origin of shells in high places. Some of these are against the laws of nature, and therefore impossible; and others are built on positions more difficult to assent to, than that of de la Sauvagiere. They all suppose the shells to have covered submarine animals, and have then to answer the question, How came they fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea? And they answer it, by demanding what cannot be conceded. One, therefore, who had rather have no opinion than a false one, will suppose this question one of those beyond the investigation of human sagacity; or wait till further and fuller observations enable him to decide it.

_Chanteloup._ I heard a nightingale to-day at Chanteloup. The gardener says, it is the male who alone sings, while the female sits; and that when the young are hatched, he also ceases. In the border at Chanteloup, is an ingenious contrivance to hide the projecting steps of a stair-case. Three steps were of necessity to project into the boudoir: they are therefore made triangular steps; and instead of being rested on the floor, as usual, they are made fast at their broad end to the stair door, swinging out and in, with that. When it shuts, it runs them under the other steps; when open, it brings them out to their proper place. In the kitchen garden, are three pumps, worked by one horse. The pumps are placed in an equilateral triangle, each side of which is of about thirty-five feet. In the centre is a post, ten or twelve feet high, and one foot in diameter. In the top of this, enters the bent end of a lever, of about twelve or fifteen feet long, with a swingle tree at the other end. About three feet from the bent end, it receives on a pin, three horizontal bars of iron, which at their other end lay hold of one corner of a quadrantal crank (like a bell crank) moving in a vertical plane, to the other corner of which is hooked the vertical handle of the pump. The crank turns on its point as a centre, by a pin or pivot passing through it. The horse moving the lever horizontally in a circle, every point of the lever describes a horizontal circle. That which receives the three bars, describes a circle of six feet in diameter. It gives a stroke then of six feet to the handle of each pump, at each revolution.

_Blois._ _Orleans._ June 9, 10. At Blois, the road leaves the river, and traverses the hills, which are mostly reddish, sometimes gray, good enough, in vines, corn, St. foin. From Orleans to the river Juines, at Estampes, it is a continued plain of corn, and St. foin, tolerably good, sometimes gray, sometimes red. From Estampes to Estrechy, the country is mountainous and rocky, resembling that of Fontainebleau. Quære. If it may not be the same vein?

FOOTNOTE:

[19] It is twenty American miles from Aix to Marseilles,
and they call it five leagues. Their league, then, is of
four American miles.

XII.

_A Tour to some of the Gardens of England._

[Memoranda made on a tour to some of the gardens in England, described by Whateley in his book on gardening.] While his descriptions, in point of style, are models of perfect elegance and classical correctness, they are as remarkable for their exactness. I always walked over the gardens with his book in my hand, examined with attention the particular spots he described, found them so justly characterized by him as to be easily recognized, and saw with wonder, that his fine imagination had never been able to seduce him from the truth. My inquiries were directed chiefly to such practical things as might enable me to estimate the expense of making and maintaining a garden in that style. My journey was in the months of March and April, 1786.

_Chiswick._--Belongs to Duke of Devonshire. A garden about six acres;--the octagonal dome has an ill effect, both within and without: the garden shows still too much of art. An obelisk of very ill effect; another in the middle of a pond useless.

_Hampton-Court._--Old fashioned. Clipt yews grown wild.

_Twickenham._--Pope's original garden, three and a half acres. Sir Wm. Stanhope added one and a half acre. This is a long narrow slip, grass and trees in the middle, walk all round. Now Sir Wellbore Ellis's. Obelisk at bottom of Pope's garden, as monument to his mother. Inscription, "Ah! Editha, matrum optima, mulierum amantissima, Vale." The house about thirty yards from the Thames: the ground shelves gently to the water side; on the back of the house passes the street, and beyond that the garden. The grotto is under the street, and goes out level to the water. In the centre of the garden a mound with a spiral walk round it. A rookery.

_Esher-Place._--The house in a bottom near the river; on the other side the ground rises pretty much. The road by which we come to the house forms a dividing line in the middle of the front; on the right are heights, rising one beyond and above another, with clumps of trees; on the farthest a temple. A hollow filled up with a clump of trees, the tallest in the bottom, so that the top is quite flat. On the left the ground descends. Clumps of trees, the clumps on each hand balance finely--a most lovely mixture of concave and convex. The garden is of about forty-five acres, besides the park which joins. Belongs to Lady Frances Pelham.

_Claremont._--Lord Clive's. Nothing remarkable.

_Paynshill._--Mr. Hopkins. Three hundred and twenty-three acres, garden and park all in one. Well described by Whateley. Grotto said to have cost £7,000. Whateley says one of the bridges is of stone, but both now are of wood, the lower sixty feet high: there is too much evergreen. The dwelling-house built by Hopkins, ill-situated: he has not been there in five years. He lived there four years while building the present house. It is not finished; its architecture is incorrect. A Doric temple, beautiful.

_Woburn._--Belongs to Lord Peters. Lord Loughborough is the present tenant for two lives. Four people to the farm, four to the pleasure garden, four to the kitchen garden. All are intermixed, the pleasure garden being merely a highly-ornamented walk through and round the divisions of the farm and kitchen garden.

_Caversham._--Sold by Lord Cadogan to Major Marsac. Twenty-five acres of garden, four hundred acres of park, six acres of kitchen garden. A large lawn, separated by a sunk fence from the garden, appears to be part of it. A straight, broad gravel walk passes before the front and parallel to it, terminated on the right by a Doric temple, and opening at the other end on a fine prospect. This straight walk has an ill effect. The lawn in front, which is pasture, well disposed with clumps of trees.

_Wotton._--Now belongs to the Marquis of Buckingham, son of George Grenville. The lake covers fifty acres, the river five acres, the basin fifteen acres, the little river two acres--equal to seventy-two acres of water. The lake and great river are on a level, they fall into the basin five feet below, and that again into the little river five feet lower. These waters lie in form of an : the house is in middle of open side, fronting the angle. A walk goes round the whole, three miles in circumference, and containing within it about three hundred acres: sometimes it passes close to the water, sometimes so far off as to leave large pasture grounds between it and the water. But two hands to keep the pleasure grounds in order; much neglected. The water affords two thousand brace of carp a year. There is a Palladian bridge, of which, I think, Whateley does not speak.

_Stowe._--Belongs to the Marquis of Buckingham, son of George Grenville, and who takes it from Lord Temple. Fifteen men and eighteen boys employed in keeping pleasure grounds. Within the walk are considerable portions separated by inclosures and used for pasture. The Egyptian pyramid is almost entirely taken down by the late Lord Temple, to erect a building there, in commemoration of Mr. Pitt, but he died before beginning it, and nothing is done to it yet. The grotto and two rotundas are taken away. There are four levels of water, receiving it one from the other. The basin contains seven acres, the lake below that ten acres. Kent's building is called the temple of Venus. The inclosure is entirely by ha-ha. At each end of the front line there is a recess like the bastion of a fort. In one of these is the temple of Friendship, in the other the temple of Venus. They are seen the one from the other, the line of sight passing, not through the garden, but through the country parallel to the line of the garden. This has a good effect. In the approach to Stowe, you are brought a mile through a straight avenue, pointing to the Corinthian arch and to the house, till you get to the arch, then you turn short to the right. The straight approach is very ill. The Corinthian arch has a very useless appearance, inasmuch as it has no pretension to any destination. Instead of being an object from the house, it is an obstacle to a very pleasing distant prospect. The Grecian valley being clear of trees, while the hill on each side is covered with them, is much deepened to appearance.

_Leasowes, in Shropshire._--Now the property of Mr. Horne by purchase. One hundred and fifty acres within the walk. The waters small. This is not even an ornamented farm--it is only a grazing farm with a path round it, here and there a seat of board, rarely anything better. Architecture has contributed nothing. The obelisk is of brick. Shenstone had but three hundred pounds a year, and ruined himself by what he did to this farm. It is said that he died of the heart-aches which his debts occasioned him. The part next the road is of red earth, that on the further part gray. The first and second cascades are beautiful. The landscape at number eighteen, and prospect at thirty-two, are fine. The walk through the wood is umbrageous and pleasing. The whole arch of prospect may be of ninety degrees. Many of the inscriptions are lost.