e of faith; though cattle there must be and are to do the ploughing
and hauling. I suspect they are seldom turned loose in summer, and that
there is not a cow to every third cottage. I think I did not see a yoke
of oxen throughout the day's ride of 243 miles.

I was again agreeably disappointed in the abundance of Trees. Wood
seems to be the peasants' sole reliance for fuel, and trees are planted
beside the roads, the streams, the ditches, and often in rows or patches
on some arable portion of the peasants' narrow domain. This planting is
mainly confined to two varieties--the Lombardy Poplar and what I took to
be the Pollard, a species of Willow which displays very little foliage,
and is usually trimmed up so as to have but a mere armful of leaves and
branches at the top of a trunk thirty to fifty feet high, and six to
twelve inches through. The Lombardy Poplar is in like manner preferred,
as giving a large amount of trunk to little shade, the limbs rarely
extending three feet from the trunk, while the growth is rapid. Such are
the means employed to procure fuel and timber with the least possible
abstraction of soil from the uses of cultivation. There are some
side-hills so rocky and sterile as to defy human industry, and these are
given up to brush-wood, which I presume is cut occasionally and bound
into faggots for fuel. Some of it may straggle up, if permitted, into
trees, but I saw little that would fairly justify the designation of
Forest. Of Fruit-trees, save in the villages, there is a deplorable
scarcity throughout.

We passed through few villages and no town of note but DIJON, the capital
of ancient Burgundy, where its Parliament was held and where its Dukes
reigned and were buried. Their palace still stands, though they have
passed away. Dijon is 200 miles from Paris, and has 25,000 inhabitants,
with manufactures of Cotton, Woolen and Silk. Here and henceforth the
Vine is more extensively cultivated than further Northward.

We reached CHALONS on the Saone (there is another Chalons on the Marne)
before 9 P. M. or in about ten hours from Paris. Here a steamboat was
ready to take us forthwith to Lyons, but French management was too much
for us. Our baggage was all taken from the car outside and carried piece
by piece into the depot, where it was very carefully arranged in order
according to the numbers affixed to the several trunks, &c., in Paris.
This consumed the better part of half an hour, though half as man