centre of which is a fountain. Each has a large umbrella, which covers her and her productions from the rain and sun. The fish women, the poulterers, the herb women, &c. all have their separate quarters, so that you are never at a loss to find what you wish to purchase, nor are any suffered to deal in different sorts of commodities. Butchers, or rather butcheresses, for these too are women, their husbands after having killed the cattle assigning to them the care of disposing of it, being in a different quarter from the rest of the market. By this regulation the market affords no place for the collection of filth, or the stagnation of air. When the market hours are over, the stalls and umbrellas are removed, and the whole may be perfectly cleaned; whereas no care can keep our markets from being sources of corruption, at least till we give them brick or stone pavements: For the animal and vegetable substances, which even, in the very act of washing, find their way below the flooring, garrison an impregnable fortress, from whence in hot weather, with certain aim, they shoot envenomed arrows winged with death. Though the decay of trade makes this place abound in beggars; yet there is much less appearance of poverty than one would expect to find. This is probably owing to the ease of subsisting near the sea, where fish is easily obtained; to horses not consuming the food of men, for none except post horses are kept in L'Orient, all transportation being done by porters; and above all, to the forests and chesnuts

which are in the vicinity of the town, and which afford bread to many of the inhabitants, if I may judge by a view of the most frequented streets, which, when I was there, were literally paved with their rinds; that they are very wholesome food, the looks of the children, who chiefly live upon them, manifest; for never have I seen any more healthy and ruddy. This, with the warmth and comfort of their cloathing, would repel your charity, were it possible to resist the importunity of those little chubby cheeked beggars, whose innocence and good-nature forbids you to be angry, though you know they have no physical wants to supply with the produce of your charity.

THE soil in the vicinity of this town, appears to me chiefly gravelly. The stone used in building is brought down the Loire, and transported by sea to L'Orient. The enclosures are made of earth, sometimes, but not often, faced with round stones. On the top of the bank we now and then see an imperfect hedge, but in general they are covered with genista, which grows wild here in great abundance, and is extremely beautiful, with its fine pendant branches of light green, covered with thick yellow flowers. These enclosures are for the most part extremely small, seldom containing five acres, and very often not more than one. For what purpose

this extreme small division is made, I know not, and it surprised me more, as many of these enclosures seemed to be very imperfectly cultivated,

and some not at all. But as Brittany, of which this makes a part, has suffered more than any other department of France by the war, perhaps this want of cultivation may be derived from the same source, and yet the abundance of villages and their apparent population, speak a different language.

As the route to Nantz runs along the sea coast, which in all countries exhibits the worst lands, we passed over several barrens though of no great extent, covered with heath. We found them paring it in some places-for the common husbandry is to mix it with stable dung, and when rotted applying it to their grain. I'afterwads found that it is also burnt, and the ashes applied to that use, more particularly upon the downs in Flanders and Holland. We passed on this route through a great number of villages and some very considerable towns; in none of which, contrary to our expectation, we found the beggary we had left at L'Orient. The villa ges are all built of stones. The streets so extremely narrow that in many of them two carriages cannot pass. The stable forms the front of the farmer's house, and you generally go through this to his own habitation-though some few have courts, the stables forming the sides. This gives the vil lages a gloomy appearance, and contributes to render them extremely dirty. As you leave the sea coast the soil improves, and no land is to be seen, except such as is left in wood, that is uncultivated.

AFTER leaving Nantz, which contains about 70,000 inhabitants, and lays upon the river Loire, and has been and still is the centre of a very consid erable commerce, but which I shall not stay to describe, as I am not writing travels, but a brief sketch of the agricultural state of the country; we travelled, for the great part of the way, to Orleans, through the most beautiful and fertile country in the world. The road lays along the Loire, and is altogether on a bank raised above ten or fifteen feet higher than the level of the river-the opposite bank of which is elevated and covered with towns, villages, and the ruins of churches and castles; for it was here the barbarous rage of destroying every monument of religion or the ancient grandeur of the nobles most prevailed; while the side on which we were consists of low or interval lands, whose average breadth, for an extent of about fifty miles, I take to be not less than eight. The back ground is elevated, and like the opposite side of the river, covered with towns and villages. This low ground is all in the highest possible state of cultivation. Adjoining the road, and below the bank, are the farm houses, surrounded by a garden filled with fruit trees, with vines, trained up the trees and extended from one to the other every house also is covered with a large grape vine, at least on three sides. Next to these gardens, are the arable lands, a few spots only excepted, which are turned to grass, as being too low to plough. The grain is all sown upon narrow ridges, made by laying two furrows

back to back; these are raised so high that I conceived it hardly possible to effect it with a plough, which they assured me was generally the only imple. ment made use of: However, I saw some instances of their raking out the intervals with hoes. In the management of the plough, they certainly are more skilful than in our country, or in any other I have seen, though their ploughs appeared to me as illconstructed foot ploughs with very long beams. But as the season for ploughing was over, and the heavy rains had set in, I did not see them used.

PERMIT me here to remark, that the practice of planting a few vines round the house, might be usefully followed by our small farmers; and though its product should not be wine, yet the fruit would add to their enjoyments and their health. The advantages of this mode of planting are, that by a straw mat, or by drawing the vine into the house during the winter, it might have the fullest protection from the cold-that if the stem is long, it wants none from cattle when growingthat the soil about the house is always rich and warm, and that the fruit will be secure from rob. beries: Add to this, that it adds much to the beauty of a small house, and shelters it from the heat of the sun.

AFTER leaving the low lands upon the Loire, we enter a country of light loam, upon a bottom of white soft stone, which continues all the way to Pa