A peasant woman.
The guide-book assures us that the paysannes walk barefoot on the country roads; but, upon approaching the town, they cover their wayworn feet with the cherished shoes and stockings that have thus been spared from wear and tear.
On a cold spring morning we saw a company of women descending a hill at Lourdes with enormous bundles of wood on their heads. As we were pitying the bare feet that went toiling down the steep way, we suddenly spied their shoes dangling from the fagots where they had considerately placed them, to be out of harm.
The strength of these little peasant women is wonderful. They walk off with grand strides, carrying heavy burdens on their heads, and sometimes knitting as they go. Many of the young girls are very pretty; but exposure and hard work soon change the fresh tint and the graceful outlines to a brown wrinkled visage and a gaunt ungainly figure.
Sitting here, we are attracted by a jaunty young creature tripping along with a large, round, shallow basket of salad, or choux de Bruxelles, on her head, carelessly steadying it with one hand, while in the other she carries a pair of chickens or a basket of eggs. But how can we see a pinched-looking woman tugging along under a big bag of potatoes, or breaking stones on the road, without feeling tired ourselves and sad? And neither the sadness nor the weariness is lightened upon seeing, as we invariably do, that when a woman is working with a man he generously gives her the heaviest end of the load.
Ox-team.
The wood is brought in on clumsy carts, generally two-wheeled and often covered. The oxen and cows that draw these carts have their bodies draped with coarse linen covers, and across their heads is a strip of sheep-skin, which is worn with the shaggy side out and the skinny side in. M. Taine tells us in his book on the Pyrenees that he saw the heads of the cattle protected by thread nets and ferns, which, I trust is their usual summer coiffure; for in a country where, in winter, gentlemen carry parasols and wear large white streamers depending from their hats, to protect the head and back of the neck from the too ardent rays of the sun, even the “patient ox” might complain of the unfitness of a head-dress of sheep skin.