'You will never do it. There are rocks, and rocks, and rocks. Even the fishermen, who go where anybody can go, do not try to follow the Dordogne very far. There are ravines—and ravines. Bon Dieu! And the forest! You will be lost! You will be devoured!'
To be devoured would be the climax of misfortune. I wished to know what animals would be likely to stop my wayfaring in this effectual manner.
'Are there wolves?'
'No; none have been seen for years.'
'Are there boars?'
'Yes, plenty of them.'
'But boars,' I said, 'are not likely to interfere with me.'
'That is true,' replied the local wiseacre, 'so long as you keep walking; but if you fall down a rock—ah!'
'I would not care to have you for a companion, with all your local knowledge,' I thought, as I thanked the cobbler and turned down a very stony path towards the Dordogne. It is always prudent to follow the advice of those who are better informed than yourself; but it is much more amusing—for awhile—to go your own way. I had lunched, and was prepared to battle with the desert for several hours. It was now past mid-day, and notwithstanding the altitude, the heat was very great. But for the discomfort that we endure from the sun's rays we are more than amply compensated by the pleasure that the recollection brings us in winter, when the north wind is moaning through the sunless woods and the dreary fog hangs over the cities. When I again reached the Dordogne there was no longer any road, but only a rough path through high bracken, heather and broom. Snakes rustled as I passed, and hid themselves among the stones. The cobbler had forgotten to include these with the dangers to be encountered. To my mind they were much more to be dreaded than the boars, for these stony solitudes swarm with adders, of which the most venomous kind is the red viper, or aspic. Its bite has often proved mortal.
The path entered the forest which covers the steep sides of the ever-winding gorge of the Dordogne for many leagues, only broken where the rocks are so nearly vertical that no soil has ever formed upon them, except in the little crevices and upon the ledges, where the hellebore, the sedum, the broom, and other unambitious plants which love sterility flourish where the foot of man has never trod.