'L'église pour aller prier dedans?'
What does he mean by asking me that? I thought. Could there be a church at
Fronsac that was not used for praying?
'Yes, that is the kind of church I am looking for.' 'Very good,' rejoined the man. 'Now I know what you want I can inform you. I put that question to you because there are some people here called Léglise.'
It was to the church pour prier dedans that I went, not to Mr. Church. Originally Romanesque, it has been pulled about and changed almost as much as the Tertre de Fronsac, which I am sure I shall never wish to climb again.
[Illustration: No Name]
BY THE GARONNE
I have reached—I need not say how—the south-eastern corner of the Bordelais, and am now at Bazas in very hot September weather, I am not only as warm as a lizard of the dusty roadside likes to be, but am hungry and thirsty. I therefore cast about for an inn that looks both cool and capable of giving a fair meal to a tired wanderer. My choice rests with one that swings the sign of the White Horse; for, to tell the truth, I have somewhat of a superstitious belief in the luck that this emblem brings to the traveller. I place it immediately after the Golden Lion, my favourite beast on a signboard, although it deceived me once. The deception, however, befell in the Bordelais, where the inhabitants are far from being the most pleasant to be found in France; therefore I judged this Lion d'Or charitably, and took account of all that might have frustrated its good intentions.
Having made up my mind to trust myself to the White Horse, I entered a large, salle-à-manger, which, after the glare of the mid-day sunshine, seemed as dark as a cellar that is lighted by a small air-hole. The shutters had been closed against the heat and the flies, but the rays that broke through had the ardour and brilliancy cast by molten metal in a smelting-house, and the sight very quickly accepted with relief the lessened light of the room. There was one other person present, and, although the table was long enough to accommodate fifty, my plate was set immediately opposite his. He was a young negro gentleman, with such a shining ebony skin that he was almost refreshing to eyes that had just left the dazzling whiteness of the outer world. He gave me the impression of being a rather conceited African, but this may have been because my dress compared so unfavourably with his. He was the son of a merchant at St. Louis in Senegal, and was just like a Frenchman in all but his colour. I asked him if he found the weather we were having sufficiently warm, and he replied:
'Regardez comme je sue!'
True enough, the beads of perspiration glistened upon his forehead like black pearls. What is the use, I thought, of being an African if one cannot keep dry in a temperature of 95° Fahrenheit?