n, where, however, we were regaled with an excellent supper;
and among other delicacies, with a dish of green pease. Provence is a
pleasant country, well cultivated; but the inns are not so good here as
in Languedoc, and few of them are provided with a certain convenience
which an English traveller can very ill dispense with. Those you find
are generally on the tops of houses, exceedingly nasty; and so much
exposed to the weather, that a valetudinarian cannot use them without
hazard of his life. At Nismes in Languedoc, where we found the Temple
of Cloacina in a most shocking condition, the servant-maid told me her
mistress had caused it to be made on purpose for the English
travellers; but now she was very sorry for what she had done, as all
the French who frequented her house, instead of using the seat, left
their offerings on the floor, which she was obliged to have cleaned
three or four times a day. This is a degree of beastliness, which would
appear detestable even in the capital of North-Britain. On the fourth
day of our pilgrimage, we lay in the suburbs of Aix, but did not enter
the city, which I had a great curiosity to see. The villainous asthma
baulked me of that satisfaction. I was pinched with the cold, and
impatient to reach a warmer climate. Our next stage was at a paltry
village, where we were poorly entertained. I looked so ill in the
morning, that the good woman of the house, who was big with child, took
me by the hand at parting, and even shed tears, praying fervently that
God would restore me to my health. This was the only instance of
sympathy, compassion, or goodness of heart, that I had met with among
the publicans of France. Indeed at Valencia, our landlady,
understanding I was travelling to Montpellier for my health would have
dissuaded me from going thither; and exhorted me, in particular, to
beware of the physicians, who were all a pack of assassins. She advised
me to eat fricassees of chickens, and white meat, and to take a good
bouillon every morning.

A bouillon is an universal remedy among the good people of France;
insomuch, that they have no idea of any person's dying, after having
swallowed un bon bouillon. One of the English gentlemen, who were
robbed and murdered about thirty years ago between Calais and Boulogne,
being brought to the post-house of Boulogne with some signs of life,
this remedy was immediately administered. "What surprises me greatly,
(said the post-master, speaking of t