24 STATE OF MENDICITY. Accustomed, however, from infancy to this inconvenience, they probably bestow all their wonder upon the stupidity of those of their neighbors who pile up their loads too high, to pass beneath the arch; sagely arguing like mine host, who parried complaints about the inadequacy of his accommodations for his numerous guests, by replying, that the fault was in having not too small rooms, but too much company. FRENCH MENDICANTS. Public begging is well systemized here. Whilst the diligence stops at the coach office for a relay of horses, it is beseiged by a troop of beggars, who traverse around it with their hats extended in their hands, as a substitute for contribution boxes, and with their eyes upraised to catch the compassionate regards of every passenger who may chance to look out of an open door or window. They solicit a few sous with a perseverance unchecked by a first repulse; which seems, on the contrary, to stimulate them to resume imploring attitudes, and to renew more earnestly their supplications for a trifle for "un pauvre miserable." In giving utterance to this phrase, they perform the part of true orators,and suit the action to the word; for they cast their eyes with assumed contempt on their own shrivelled, pitiful persons, and invoke commiseration in the name of God and the Virgin. They really look and act so much like poor miserable beings, that one cannot refrain from involuntarily thrusting the hand into the pocket for the purpose of drawing forth a few sous for distribution among them; particularly when, by way of offering a valuable consideration for a small trifle of money, they promise to pray for a prosperous journey for the traveller. One beggar was destitute of legs. He lost no courage by his misfortune, but persevered, as observed in the ballad of Chevy Chace, JOURNEY TO PARIS. Like one in doleful dumps," "For when his legs were smitten off, 25 His lower extremity was snugly stowed away in a great wooden bowl. He spun around, like a top, on this wooden pivot, and sailed over the ground by lifting himself with his hands, which he applied somewhat like oars. At the foot of one of the steep hills, where the passengers are requested to alight to relieve the horses by walking to the summit, groups of beggars are stationed in readiness to issue forth like a swarm of mosquitos. They continue to buzz around the traveller, first on one side and then on the other, until it seems a cheap bargain to get rid of their importunities at the expense of a few sous. In the conduct of our guide, we had an unfavorable specimen of the sobriety of Frenchmen, which has been so often noted by travellers as exemplary. After the rambles of the morning, he anticipated a portion of his stipend, in expending which he nearly incapacitated himself for performing any useful services in the afternoon; as he could with difficulty walk erect or talk coherently. JOURNEY TO PARIS, AND AGRICULTURAL VIEWS. From Amiens to Paris, a distance of about 80 miles, we passed many villages, and through a country cultivated principally under grain and grass. Sanfoin and trefoil, among the grasses, give the bright tinge of their blossoms to extensive fields. There are neither fences nor hedges to secure the growing crops from the cattle. They are not, therefore, permitted to range the roads at large, as is common in the United States. No fences, indeed, are even used to divide the meadow lands, pastures, and fields of grain, of neighboring farmers; but the crops of all sorts are growing as it were sociably together, without a ditch 26 UNFENCED FIELDS. or embankment to divide them. It must be obvious, that under such circumstances it would not answer to turn out cows, sheep, or horses into a pasture, to range uncontrolled, as is done by New-England farmers on their wellfenced lands. A string tied to a peg at one end, and to the leg of a horse or the horn of a cow at the other, usually limits the range of their grazing excursions. The extent of the rope serves as the radius of the circle, about which they vibrate from side to side, to crop the grass.To prevent the horses from being cast, or entangled by the rope, long poles are tied one to the end of another next to his heels. By this means no coils or embarrassing loops are formed by the cord to entrap his feet, as it were in a slip-noose. On a narrow strip of pasture between two wheat fields, I saw a single cow grazing under the special care of an old lady, who was seated on the grass near the animal, and was patiently abiding a hot sunshine whilst busily employed with her needle. Along another similar narrow strip of pasture, a cow was feeding under the superintendance of a boy, who had tied a rope to her horns. Without rising from the ground upon which he lay stretched at his ease, by jerking the rope he restrained every movement of the animal toward the tempting stalks of a luxurant field of wheat. To obviate the inconvenience of constant attendance on the cattle in the pastures, the grass is sometimes cut in a green state, and is given to them in a barnyard, upon a plan similar to that of stallfeeding in England. The American farmer would realize what a labor-saving contrivance his fences are, were he to witness all the expedients resorted to in a country where the necessary materials for fences are not obtainable. Hedges do not thrive so well in the dry climate of France, nor indeed in that of the United States, as under the more humid skies of England; where the abundant moisture is favorable to the SHEPHERDS AND SHEPHERDESSES. 27 growth of the thorn. In this district of France, the soil is of a chalky nature, in which few stones, except nodules of flint, are found to abound. Trees, suitable for making rails or wooden fences, are too scarce and valuable to be used as a material for inclosing fields. Even the fruit trees are exposed to the free access of pilferers from the public roads. For want of suitable fencing materials, shepherds and shepherdesses are still to be found in the fields of France, as a substitute for rail fences and stone walls. Their services are not necessary to protect their flocks from the depredations of wolves, but for a very different purpose ;—to protect the growing crops, which border the pastures, from the depredations of the sheep. To relieve themselves of the laborious duty of running back and forth constantly between the verge of the fields of grain and the sheep pasture, the shepherds have resorted to the sagacity of dogs. They appear to be an indolent race, lying down upon the grass at their ease, whilst their ever active dogs take upon themselves the whole management of the flock. These dogs, as if conscious of their elevated station, and of the importance of the command entrusted to them over the herd of subordinate animals, stride gravely along the edges of the pastures, like trusty sentinels, displaying, in their very step and mien, what might almost be deemed an air of magisterial dignity. Where the range of the pasture is extensive, two or more dogs are necessary. They pace back and forth, meeting each other with the regularity of sentinels, half way on their allotted round, and wheeling about like them to retrace their line of march. A French gentleman stated to me, that so great are the docility and sagacity of well trained shepherd's dogs, that their masters have only to take them around the limits of the grounds allotted for the range of the flock, and to designate properly the bounds or lines for them to traverse, when they seem to 28 SHEPHERDS' DOGS. comprehend the extent of their task, and will suffer no errant sheep to transgress them. When a nose is seen projected over this line, to crop the herbage beyond it, the dog hastens silently to the spot. I noticed one of them, attending a flock near Lille, to give a sudden and loud bark at the very ear of the trespassing sheep, who in his agitation at the unexpected rebuke, wheeled completely around, as if stunned. Thus it appears to be the business of the dogs, as well as of the shepherds, to watch, not so much for the safety of the flocks, as for that of the adjacent unfenced fields of grain. The Shepherd-dogs sell for one or two hundred francs each, according to the excellence of their education, as the postillion expressed himself, in reply to my inquiries. The shepherds themselves frequently take up their abode in the fields during the summer, sleeping at night in the little portable houses or sheds mounted on wheels, which they move about at pleasure on changing their pastures. I have seen them travelling along the roads between the sheep pastures and the houses from whence they get their supply of food, with their wallets or scrips, probably somewhat after the fashion practised by the primeval shepherd, David. The shepherdesses, as well as the shepherds, from their constant residence in the fields and exposure to the sun, have complexions quite as brown as those of the native Indians or squaws of America; and, judging from appearances, one would suppose them to be about as susceptible of sentimental loves. Pastoral life, as depicted in poetry, like many other conceits of the poet's imagination, loses a portion of its charms when viewed in the sober light of truth. The idle life led by shepherds of ancient days allowed them such ample leisure to make love, that the very terms, "swain," and lover, have become synonymous. When the most worthy lovers were shepherds, and the prettiest belles attended sheep out of doors, thought, |