CONTRAST BETWEEN FRANCE AND TYROL
Hôtel de France, Bagnieres de Luchon,
Haute Garonne,
February 8th, 1879.
To Blanche Lewes.
I hear you were interested by my other letter. Now I am in quite another country. I am in France, and very near Spain. We meant to have ridden to-day a little way up the mountain and looked down into Spain; but there is still a little too much snow. They have no sledges here, as they had in Tyrol. The snow soon melts here. All the carts are drawn by great oxen. They draw them with their heads, not with collars as horses do. They have their heads harnessed, because their necks are so very strong. They have great sheepskins fastened on their horns, partly to look pretty, and partly, I think, to prevent the harness rubbing them. On Wednesday, we were driving in a carriage with two fine horses. We began to go up a hill, and we passed a cart with a heavy block of granite, and twelve strong oxen to draw it. We went on a very little way, and then our naughty horses didn’t like going up-hill; and, instead of going on, they went back; and they wouldn’t press against the collar; and, the more the coachman tried to drive them on, the more they went back. This is called “jibbing”; and it is very dangerous, because they can’t see where they are pushing the carriage; and they might send it off the road, down a precipice. Miss Yorke and I got out, as well as we could. The coachman, who had been very proud of his horses, and who had driven past the twelve oxen very dashingly (the oxen go very slowly), now said very meekly, “I must get two cows.” So he called the driver of the oxen to lend him two; and they fastened these in front of the horses. It looked so funny to see how the patient things pulled slowly and steadily up the hill; and the naughty horses couldn’t help coming, though once, when the rope broke which fastened the oxen, the horses again tried to go backwards. The man talked to the oxen all the way; they seemed to know all he meant them to do when he shouted. We couldn’t tell what he said, for the people here don’t talk French among themselves, but an old language that their neighbours can understand. They wear bright handkerchiefs tied round their heads, instead of hats or bonnets, and their boots are not made of leather, but all of wood; they are turned up at the toes, and oh! they make such a noise on the floor! Besides the oxen they use a great many mules; and they carry the milk to market in bottles slung on each side of the mules. It is much warmer here than in England, and many flowers are out already. The snowdrops grow wild in the woods.
March, 1879.
Mrs. Hill to Octavia.
Miranda gave your message to Mrs. Hollyer[[90]] whilst she was doing my grate. When she had left Mrs. Hollyer said, “Paradise Place is so quiet now; there are such nice respectable people. We are all so comfortable there”; then she looked up in my face with such a nice expression, and added, “Will you tell Miss Octavia so?” I did think it such a delicate way of returning your sympathy in her illness.
WILLIAM HOWITT’S DEATH