The rocks were now of gneiss and mica-schist, and the mica was so abundant as to cause many a crag and heap of shale to glitter in the sun, as though there had been a mighty shattering of mirrors here into little particles which had fallen upon everything. There was, however, no lack of contrast. To the shining rocks and the fierce sunshine, which seemed to concentrate its fire wherever it fell in the open spaces of the deep gorge, succeeded the ancient forest and its cool shade; but the darkly-lying shadows were ever broken with patches of sunlit turf. Pines and firs reached almost to the water's edge, and the great age of some of them was a proof of the little value placed upon timber in a spot so inaccessible. One fir had an enormous bole fantastically branched like that of an English elm, and on its mossy bark was a spot such as the hand might cover, fired by a wandering beam, that awoke recollections of the dream-haunted woods before the illusion of their endlessness was lost.
The afternoon was not far spent, when I began to feel a growing confidence in the value of the cobbler's information, and a decreasing belief in my own powers. It became more and more difficult, then quite impossible, to keep along the bank of the stream. What is understood by a bank disappeared, and in its stead were rocks, bare and glittering, on which the lizards basked, or ran in safety, because they were at home, but which I could only pass by a flank movement. To struggle up a steep hill, over slipping shale-like stones, or through an undergrowth of holly and brambles, then to scramble down and to climb again, repeating the exercise every few hundred yards, may have a hygienic charm for those who are tormented by the dread of obesity, but to other mortals it is too suggestive of a holiday in purgatory.
Having gone on in this fashion for some distance, I lay down, streaming from every pore, and panting like a hunted hare beside a little rill that slid singing between margins of moss, amid Circe's white flowers and purple flashes of cranesbill. Here I examined my scratches and the state of things generally. The result of my reflections was to admit that the cobbler was right, that these ravines of the Upper Dordogne were practically impassable, and that the only rational way of following the river would be to keep sometimes on the hills and sometimes in the gorge, as the unforeseen might determine. Hitherto, I had not troubled to inquire where I should pass the night, and this consideration alone would have compelled me to depart from my fantastic scheme. After La Bourboule there is not a village or hamlet in the valley of the Dordogne for a distance of at least thirty miles, allowing for the winding of the stream.
After a hard climb I reached the plateau, where I saw before me a wide moor completely covered with bracken and broom. Here I looked at the map, and decided to make towards a village called Messeix, lying to the east in a fork formed by the Dordogne and its tributary the Chavannon. Going by the compass at first, I presently struck a road leading across the moor in the right direction. I passed through two wretched hamlets, in neither of which was there an auberge where I could relieve my thirst. At the second one a cottage was pointed out to me where I was told a woman sold wine. When, after sinking deep in mud, I found her amidst a group of hovels, and the preliminary salutation was given, the following conversation passed between us:
'They tell me you sell wine.'
'They tell you wrong—I don't.'
'Do you sell milk, then?'
'No; I have no beasts.'
As I was going away she kindly explained that she only kept enough wine for herself. I had evidently not impressed her favourably. Although I think water a dangerous drink in France, except where it can be received directly from the hand of Nature, far from human dwellings, I was obliged to beg some in this place, and run the risk of carrying away unfriendly microbes.
Having left the hovels behind me, the country became less barren or more cultivated. There were fields of rye, buckwheat, and potatoes, but always near them lay the undulating moor, gilded over with the flowers of a dwarf broom. It was evening when I descended into a wide valley from which came the chime of cattle-bells, mingled with the barking of dogs and the voices of children, who were driving the animals slowly homeward. There were green meadows below me, over which was a yellow gleam from the fading afterglow of sunset, and in the air was that odour which, rising from grassy valleys at the close of day, even in regions burnt by the southern summer, makes the wandering Englishman fancy that some wayfaring wind has come laden with the breath of his native land. Suddenly turning a corner, I so startled a little peasant girl sitting on a bank in the early twilight with a flock of goats about her, that she opened her mouth and stared at me as though Croquemitaine had really shown himself at last. The goats stopped eating, and fixed upon me their eyes like glass marbles; they, too, thought that I could be no good.