Pass through part of the forest of Orleans belonging to the duke of that name; it is one of the largest in France.

From the steeple of the cathedral at Orleans, the prospect is very fine. The town large, and its suburbs, of single streets, extend near a league. The vast range of country, that spreads on every side, is an unbounded plain, through which the magnificent Loire bends his stately way, in sight for fourteen leagues; the whole scattered with rich meadows, vineyards, gardens, and forests. The population must be very great; for, beside the city, which contains near forty thousand people, the number of smaller towns and villages strewed thickly over the plain is such as to render the whole scene animated. The cathedral, from which we had this noble prospect, is a fine building, the choir raised by Henry IV. The new church is a pleasing edifice; the bridge a noble structure of stone, and the first experiment of the flat arch made in France, where it is now so fashionable. It contains nine, and is four hundred and ten feet long, and forty-five wide. To hear some Englishmen talk, one would suppose there was not a fine bridge in all France; not the first, nor the last error I hope that travelling will remove. There are many barges and boats at the quay, built upon the river in the Bourbonnois, &c. loaded with wood, brandy, wine, and other goods; on arriving at Nantes, the vessels are broken up and sold with the cargo. Great numbers built with spruce fir. A boat goes from hence to that city, when demanded by six passengers, each paying a louis d'or: they lie on shore every night, and reach Nantes in four days and an half. The principal street leading to the bridge is a fine one all busy and alive, for the trade is brisk here. Admire the fine acacias scattered about the town. 20 miles.

The 31st. On leaving it, enter soon the miserable province of Sologne, which the French writers call the triste Sologne. Through all this country they have had severe spring frosts, for the leaves of the walnuts are black and cut off. I should not have expected this unequivocal mark of a bad climate after passing the Loire. To La Ferte Lowendahl, a dead flat of hungry sand gravel, with much heath. The poor people, who cultivate the soil here, are metayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide cattle and seed, and he and his tenant divide the produce; a miserable system, that perpetuates poverty and excludes instruction. At La Ferte is a handsome chateau of the marquis de Coix, with several canals, and a great command of water. To Nonant-le-Fuzelier, a strange mixture of sand and water. Much inclosed, and the houses and cottages of wood filled between the studs with clay or bricks, and covered not with slate but tile, with some barns boarded like those in Suffolk. Rows of pollards in some of the hedges; an excellent road of sand; the general features of a woodland country; and all combined to give a strong resemblance to many parts of England; but the husbandry is so little like that of England, that the least attention to it destroyed every notion of similarity. 27 miles.

June 1. The same wretched country continues to La Loge; the fields are scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are of misery. Yet all this country highly improveable, if they knew what to do with it: the property, perhaps, of some of these glittering beings, who figured in the procession the other day at Versailles. Heaven grant me patience while I see a country thus neglected; and forgive me the oaths I swear at the absence and ignorance of the possessors. Enter the generality of Bourges, and soon after a forest of oak belonging to the count d'Artois; the trees are dying at top, before they attain any size. There the miserable Sologne ends; the first view of Verson and its vicinity is fine. A noble vale spreads at your feet, through which the river Cheere leads, seen in several places to the distance of some leagues; a bright sun burnished the water, like a string of lakes amidst the shade of a vast woodland. See Bourges to the left. 18 miles.

The 2d. Pass the rivers Cheere and Lave; the bridges well built; the stream fine, and with the wood, buildings, boats, and adjoining hills, form an animated scene. Several new houses, and buildings of good stone in Verson; the place appears thriving, and doubtless owes much to the navigation. We are now in Berri, a province governed by a provincial assembly, consequently the roads good, and made without corvees. Vatan is a little town that subsists chiefly by spinning. We drank there excellent Sancere wine, of a deep colour, rich flavour, and good body, 20s. the bottle; but in the country ten. An extensive prospect before we arrived at Chateauroux where we viewed the manufactures. 40 miles.

The 3d. Within about three miles of Argenton come upon a fine scene, beautiful, yet with bold features; a narrow vale bounded on every side with hills, covered with wood, all of which are immediately under the eye, without a level acre, except the bottom of the vale, through which a river flows, by an old castle picturesquely situated to the right; and to the left a tower rising out of a wood.

At Argenton, walk up a rock that hangs almost over the town. It is a delicious scene. A natural ledge of perpendicular rock pushes forward abruptly over the vale, which is half a mile broad, and two or three long: at one end closed by hills, and at the other filled by the town with vineyards rising above it: the surrounding scene that hems in the vale is high enough for relief; vineyards, rocks or hills covered with wood. The vale cut into inclosures of a lovely verdure, and a fine river winds through it, with an outline that leaves nothing to wish. The venerable fragments of a castle's ruins, near the point of view, are well adapted to awaken reflections on the triumph of the arts of peace over the barbarous ravages of the feudal ages, when every class of society was involved in commotion, and the lower ranks were worse slaves than at present.

The general face of the country, from Verson to Argenton, is an uninteresting flat with many heaths of ling. No appearance of population, and even towns are thin. The husbandry poor and miserable. By the circumstances to which I could give attention I conceive them to be honest and industrious; they seem clean; are civil, and have good countenances. They appear to me as if they would improve their country, if they formed the part of a system, the principles of which tended to national prosperity.

18 miles.

The 4th. Pass an inclosed country, which would have a better appearance if the oaks had not lost their foliage by insects, whose webs hang over the buds. They are but now coming into leaf again. Cross a stream which separates Berri from La Marche; chesnuts appear at the same time; they are spread over all the fields, and yield the food of the poor. A variety of hill and dale, with fine woods, but little signs of population. Lizards for the first time also. There seems a connection relative to climate between the chesnuts and these harmless animals. They are very numerous, and some of them near a foot long. Sleep at La Ville au Brun. 24 miles.

The 5th. The country improves in beauty greatly; pass a vale, where a causeway stops the water of a small rivulet and swells it into a lake, that forms one feature of a delicious scene. The indented outlines and the swells margined with wood are beautiful; the hills on every side in unison; one now covered with ling the prophetic eye of taste may imagine lawn. Nothing is wanted to render the scene a garden, but to clear awav rubbish.

The general face of the country, for 16 miles, by far the most beautiful I have seen in France; it is thickly inclosed, and full of wood; the umbrageous foliage of the chesnuts gives the same beautiful verdure to the hills, as watered meadows (seen for the first time to day) to the vales. Distant mountainous ridges form the back ground, and make the whole interesting. The declivity of country, as we go down to Bassies, offers a beautiful view; and the approach to the town presents a landscape fancifully grouped of rock, and wood, and water. To Limoge, pass another artificial lake between cultivated hills; beyond are wilder heights, but mixed with pleasant vales; still another lake more beautiful than the former, with a fine accompaniment of wood; across a mountain of chesnut copse, which commands a scene of a character different from any I have viewed either in France or England, a great range of hill and dale all covered with forest, and bounded by distant mountains. Not a vestige of any human residence; no village ; no house or hut, no smoke to raise the idea of a peopled country; an American scene; wild enough for the tomohawk of the savage. Stop at an execrable auberge, called Maison Rouge, where we intended to sleep; but, on examination, found every appearance so forbidding, and so beggarly an account of a larder, that we passed on to Limoge. The roads through all this country are truly noble, far beyond any thing I have seen in France or elsewhere. 44 miles.

The 6th. View Limoge, and examine its manufactures. It was certainly a Roman station, and some traces of its antiquity are still remaining. It is ill built, with narrow and crooked streets, the houses high and disagreeable. They are raised of granite, or wood with lath and plaster, which saves lime, an expensive article here, being brought from a distance of twelve leagues; the roofs are of pantiles, with projecting eaves, and almost flat; a sure proof we have quitted the region of heavy snows. The best of their public works is a noble fountain, the water conducted three quarters of a league by an arched aqueduct, brought under the bed of a rock 60 feet deep to the highest spot in the town, where it falls into a basin fifteen feet diameter, cut out of one piece of granite ; thence the water is let into reservoirs, closed by sluices, which are opened for watering the streets, or in case of fires.

The cathedral is ancient, and the roof of stone; there are some arabesque ornaments cut in stone, as light, airy, and elegant as any modern house can boast, whose decorations are in the same taste.

The present bishop has erected a large and handsome palace, and his garden is the finest object to be seen at Limoge, for it commands a landscape hardly to be equalled for beauty: it would be idle to give any other description than just enough to induce travellers to view it. A river winds through a vale, surrounded by hills that present the gayest and most animated assemblage of villas, farms, vines, hanging meadows, and chesnuts blended so fortunately as to compose a scene truly smiling. This bishop is a friend of the count de la Rouchefoucald's family; he invited us to dine, and gave us a very handsome entertainment. Lord Macartney, when a prisoner in France, after the Grenades were taken, spent some time with him; there was an instance of French politeness shewn to his lordship, that marks the urbanity of this people. The order came from court to sing Te Deum on the very day that lord Macartney was to arrive. Conceiving that the public demonstrations of joy for a victory that brought his noble guest a prisoner, might be personally unpleasant to him, the bishop proposed to the intendant to postpone the ceremony for a few days, in order that he might not meet it so abruptly;

this was instantly acceded to, and conducted in such a manner afterwards as to mark as much attention to lord Macartney's feelings as to their own. The bishop told me that lord Macartney spoke French better than he could have conceived possible for a foreigner, had he not heard him; better than many well educated French

men.

The post of intendant here was rendered celebrated by being filled by that friend of mankind, Turgot, whose well earned reputation in this province placed him at the head of the French finances, as may be very agreeably learned, in that production of equal truth and elegance, his life by the marquis of Condorcet. The character which Turgot left here is considerable. The noble roads we have passed, so much exceeding any other I have seen in France, were amongst his good works; an epithet due to them because not made by corvees. There is here a society of agriculture, which owes its origin to the same distinguished patriot: but in that most unlucky path of French exertion he was able to do nothing; evils too radically fixed were in the way of the attempt. This society does like other societies, they meet, converse, offer premiums, and publish nonsense. This is not of much consequence, for the people, instead of reading their memoirs, are not able to read at all. They can however see; and if a farm was established in that good cultivation which they ought to copy, something would be presented from which they might learn. I asked particularly if the members of this society had land in their own hands, from which it might be judged if they knew any thing of the matter themselves: I was assured that they had; but the conversation presently explained it: they had metayers around their country seats, and this was considered as farming their own lands, so that they assume something of a merit from the identical circumstance, which is the curse and ruin of the whole country. In the agricultural conversations we had on the journey from Orleans, I have not found one person who seemed sensible of the mischief of this system.

The 7th. No chesnuts for a league before we reach Biere Buffiere, they say because the basis of the country is a hard granite; and they assert also at Limoge, that in this granite there grow neither vines, wheat, nor chesnuts, but that on the softer granites these plants thrive well: it is true, that chesnuts and this granite appeared together when we entered Limosin. The road has been incomparably fine, and much more like the well kept alleys of a garden than a common high way. See for the first time old towers, that appear numerous in this country. 33 miles.

The 8th. Pass an extraordinary spectacle for English eyes, of many houses too good to be called cottages without any glass windows. Some miles to the right is Pompadour, where the king has a stud; there are all kinds of horses, but chiefly Arabian, Turkish, and English. Three years ago four Arabians were imported, which had been procured at the expence of 72,000 livres (31491.) the price of covering a mare is only three livres to the groom; the owners are permitted to sell their colts as they please, but if these come up to the standard height, the king's officers have the preference, provided they give the price offered by others. These horses are not saddled till six years old. They pasture all day, but at night are confined on account of wolves, which are so common as to be a great plague to the people. A horse of six years old, a little more than four feet six inches high, is sold for 701.; and 151. has been offered for a colt of one year old. Pass Uzarch; dine at Douzenac; between which place and Brive meet the first maize, or Indian corn.

The beauty of the country, through the thirty-four miles from St. George to Brive, is so various, and in every respect so striking and interesting, that I shall attempt no particular description, but observe in general, that I am much in doubt, whether there be any thing comparable to it either in England or Ireland. It is not that a fine view breaks

now and then upon the eye to compensate the traveller for the dullness of a much longer district; but a quick succession of landscapes, many of which would be rendered famous in England, by the resort of travellers to view them. The country is all hill or valley; the hills are very high, and would be called with us mountains, if waste and covered with heath; but being cultivated to the very tops, their magnitude is lessened to the eye. Their forms are various: they swell in beautiful semi-globes: they project in abrupt masses, which inclose deep glens: they expand into amphitheatres of cultivation that rise in gradation to the eye: in some places tossed into a thousand inequalities of surface; in others the eye reposes on scenes of the softest verdure. Add to this the rich robe, with which nature's bounteous hand has dressed the slopes, with hanging woods of chesnut. And whether the vales open their verdant bosoms, and admit the sun to illuminate the rivers in their comparative repose; or whether they be closed in deep glens, that afford a passage with difficulty to the water rolling over their rocky beds, and dazzling the eye with the lustre of cascades; in every case the features are interesting and characteristic of the scenery. Some views of singular beauty rivetted us to the spots; that of the town of Uzarch, covering a conical hill, rising in the hollow of an amphitheatre of wood, and surrounded at its feet by a noble river, is unique. Derry in Ireland has something of its form, but wants some of its richest features. The water-scenes from the town itself, and immediately after passing it, are delicious. The immense view from the descent to Douzenach is equally magnificent. To all this is added the finest road in the world, every where formed in the perfect manner, and kept in the highest preservation, like the well ordered alley of a garden, without dust, sand, stones, or inequality, firm and level, of pounded granite, and traced with such a perpetual command of prospect, that had the engineer no other object in view, he could not have executed it with a more finished taste.

The view of Brive, from the hill, is so fine, that it gives the expectation of a beautiful little town, and the gaiety of the environs encourages the idea; but, on entering, such a contrast is found as disgusts completely. Close, ill built, crooked, dirty, stinking streets, exclude the sun, and almost the air, from every habitation, except a few tolerable ones on the promenade. 34 miles.

The 9th. Enter a different country, with the new province of Quercy, which is a part of Guienne; not near so beautiful as Limosin, but, to make amends, it is far better cultivated. Thanks to maize, which does wonders! Pass Noailles, on the summit of a high hill, the chateau of the marshal duke of that name. Enter a calcareous country, and lose chesnuts at the same time.

In going down to Souillac, there is a prospect that must universally please: it is a bird's-eye view of a delicious little valley, sunk deep amongst some very bold hills that inclose it; a margin of wild mountain contrasts the extreme beauty of the level surface below, a scene of cultivation scattered with fine walnut trees; nothing can apparently exceed the exuberant fertility of this spot.

Souillac is a little town in a thriving state, having some rich merchants. They receive staves from the mountains of Auvergne by their river Dordonne, which is navigable eight months in the year; these they export to Bourdeaux and Libourn; also wine, corn, and cattle, and import salt in great quantities. It is not in the power of an English imagination to figure the animals that waited upon us here, at the Chapeau Rouge. Some things that called themselves by the courtesy of Souillac women, but in reality walking dunghills. But a neatly dressed clean waiting girl at an inn will be looked for in vain in France. 34 miles.

The 10th. Cross the Dordonne by a ferry; the boat well contrived for driving in at one end and out at the other, without the abominable operation, common in Eng