Soon little plantations appeared, covered over with diminutive vines trailed up stout, white sticks; at a little distance they looked like clusters of dried red-brown leaves tied up by the stem, and drooping at the top. Seen in the gloom, from a little distance in the train, these lines of petits vignoles looked like a detachment of foot soldiers marching in file, with rifle on shoulder. We had, of course, come just too late for the vintage; the day of the vines was over for this year.
Now and again we caught sight of long strips of some vivid green plant, unknown to me, but resembling nothing so much as a certain delicious chicory and cream omelet on which we had regaled ourselves at Paris! Magpies, here and there, fluttered over the white stretch of sandy road, giving the effect of black letter type on a dazzling white page of paper.
An old woman in a blue skirt presented, as she bent over the stubble, a sort of counter-paned back, patched with all sorts of different coloured pieces of cloth: a little further on, a man, in white apron and bib, was strolling along a furrow scattering handfuls of what looked like white flour from a basket slung over his left arm. Up a winding country road wound groups of blue-smocked villagers; the women frilled-capped, the men baggily-trousered. Under the roofs of some of the cottages were hanging bunches of some herb or other to dry. At the corner of the road a picturesque blue cart was lying on its side, making a useful bit of local colour, though passé as regards utilitarian purposes. On the higher ground were windmills, dotted about in profusion: some of them had taken up a position on the top of some pointed cottage roof.
Over some of the cultivated strips of land were placed, at intervals, sticks with what suggested a touzled head of hair, but which was in reality composed of loose strands of straw. Along the sides of these strips lie citronnes (which, on mature acquaintanceship with the district, I find are a sort of vegetable used largely in soup) strewn loosely and carelessly about on the ground to ripen. The trees not far from St. Pierre des Corps seem a great deal infested by various kinds of fungi: that kind, whose scientific name I forget, which grows bunchily, in shape like a bird's nest, and which give a sort of uncombed appearance to the branches.
We had intended, originally, to stop at Tours for the night but, finding that our doing so would involve two changes, we altered our minds, and determined to go straight on to Bordeaux. Then ensued the enormous difficulty of rescuing our luggage; for, as everyone who has travelled much abroad knows, the "red tape" which is always tied, with great outward ceremony and pomp of circumstance, round one's goods and chattels when travelling by train, is exceedingly difficult to undo, and especially so at short notice.
However, my companion plunged promptly in medias res when, at the Junction, the train allowed us a few minutes on the loose, and we contrived to get our luggage out of the consignment labelled for Tours—though it was at the very bottom of all the other trunks—and transferred into the Bordeaux train, while I secured from the buffet a basket of pears, some rolls and cold chicken, flanked by a bottle of vin ordinaire. And, while on the subject of vin ordinaire, though there is an old, well-worn saying to the intent that "good wine needs no bush," yet I cannot help planting a little shrub to the honour of the wine of the country in the fair country of the Gironde.
Without exception, I found it excellent, and I can say in all sincerity, that I do not desire a better meal or better wine to wash it down, while travelling, than is put before one in the restaurants of Bordeaux and the neighbourhood, especially in the country villages. Seldom have I spent happier meal-times than were those I passed opposite the two sentinelling bottles, one of white wine, the other of red, which flanked (without money and without price) the simple, excellently-cooked, second déjeuner or table d'hôte, whichever it might chance to be.
Dr. Thomas Fuller, of blessed memory, has left behind the wise injunction that no man should travel before his "wit be risen." An addendum might very well be added that he should not travel before his judgment be up as well, and if Englishmen, who travel so much more in body than in spirit, always saw to it that both their "wit" and their judgment accompanied them to valet their mental equipment on their travels, their somewhat insular views as regards foreign ways of doing things, and foreign productions (such as the much, and unjustly, decried vin ordinaire, for instance,) would be brushed up and cleared of the cobwebs of tradition that are, in so many cases, over them even in the present year of grace.
To return, after this digression. After leaving Blois, the land was mapped out in larger squares of vineyards, in which a different kind of vine was growing: taller and bigger than the ones we had passed earlier in the day. These were dark brown in leafage, topped by a sort of flowery head. At the head of all the trees, that were denuded of foliage, there was a little round cap of yellow leaves, growing conically, and presenting a very curious effect when seen on the verge of a distant line of landscape. In France trees are assisted and instructed in their manner of growth.
Poitiers was our next stop; it was just growing dusk as we slowed into the station. Surely few cities offer more suggestive environment for mystery and romance than does Poitiers, seen by the fading light of a November afternoon. Dim heights surround the city; a broad, grey river, in parts a dazzle of steely points, flows round the outskirts; a glimpse is seen here and there, of spire, tower and battlements rising from out the midst of wooded heights; of grey, winding roads leading steeply down from the city on the hill, to the valleys and ravines beneath.