read it in the collection of those which have arose out of the
journey across this plain--and which, therefore, I call my

Plain Stories.

How far my pen has been fatigued, like those of other travellers, in
this journey of it, over so barren a track--the world must judge--but
the traces of it, which are now all set o' vibrating together this
moment, tell me 'tis the most fruitful and busy period of my life; for
as I had made no convention with my man with the gun, as to time--by
stopping and talking to every soul I met, who was not in a full
trot--joining all parties before me--waiting for every soul
behind--hailing all those who were coming through cross-roads--arresting
all kinds of beggars, pilgrims, fiddlers, friars--not passing by a woman
in a mulberry-tree without commending her legs, and tempting her into
conversation with a pinch of snuff--In short, by seizing every handle,
of what size or shape soever, which chance held out to me in this
journey--I turned my plain into a city--I was always in company, and
with great variety too; and as my mule loved society as much as myself,
and had some proposals always on his part to offer to every beast he
met--I am confident we could have passed through Pall-Mall, or St.
James's-Street, for a month together, with fewer adventures--and seen
less of human nature.

O! there is that sprightly frankness, which at once unpins every plait
of a Languedocian's dress--that whatever is beneath it, it looks so
like the simplicity which poets sing of in better days--I will delude my
fancy, and believe it is so.

'Twas in the road betwixt Nismes and Lunel, where there is the best
Muscatto wine in all France, and which by the bye belongs to the honest
canons of Montpellier--and foul befal the man who has drunk it at their
table, who grudges them a drop of it.

--The sun was set--they had done their work; the nymphs had tied up
their hair afresh--and the swains were preparing for a carousal--my mule
made a dead point--'Tis the fife and tabourin, said I--I'm frighten'd
to death, quoth he--They are running at the ring of pleasure, said I,
giving him a prick--By saint Boogar, and all the saints at the backside
of the door of purgatory, said he--(making the same resolution with the
abbesse of Andouillets) I'll not go a step further--'Tis very well, sir,
said I--I never will argue a point with one of your family, as long as I
live; so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into t