.
"Dol," said he, "is a dull place." He pronounced "Dol" and "dull" in
precisely the same manner, and smiled at his sickly pun. I did not like
that smile; and I alighted at the town that he despised. It was a little
picture-book of a place, with many toy-like medieval houses clustered side
by side around a market-place where peasants twisted the tails of cows. I
strolled to the cathedral--and found myself mysteriously in England. It
was a manly Norman edifice, sane and reticent and strong, set in a
veritable English green, with little houses round about, reminding one of
Salisbury. I entered the Cathedral; and found the nave to be composed in
what is called in England the "decorated" style, and the choir to give
hints of "perpendicular." And then I remembered, with a start, that the
ancestors of all that is most beautiful in England had migrated from
Normandy, and that here I was visiting them in their antecedent home.
"Saxon and Norman and Dane are we;" and all that was Norman in me reached
forth with groping hands to grasp the palms of those old builders who
reared this little sacrosanct cathedral in the far-off times when one
dominion extended to either side of the English Channel.

It was by a similar accident--desiring to transfer myself from Bourges to
Auxerre--that I discovered the wonderful junction-town of Nevers, which,
despite the guide-books, is more interesting than either of the others. It
possesses a Gothic cathedral with an apse at either end, that looks as if
two churches had collided and telescoped each other. There is also a
Romanesque church at Nevers which is just as simple and as manly as either
of the famous abbeys in Caen; and a chateau with rounded towers, which
once belonged to Mazarin. But the most amusing feature of this town is
that, though Bourges packs itself to bed at ten o'clock, Nevers sits
blithely up till twelve, listening to music in cafes, and watching
moving-pictures; and this amiable incongruity in a medieval town makes you
bless that complication of the time-table which has forced you, against
forethought, to stay there over night.

It is difficult for me to remember a railway junction in which there was
nothing to do; but perhaps Pyrgos, in Greece, comes nearest to this
description. At this point, you change cars on your way from Patras to
Olympia. The town is made of mud: that is to say, the single-storied
houses are built of unbaked clay. There is nothing to see in Pyrgos. But