stone upon another; and, strange to say, the
only walled enclosure now within its precincts is the little
burying-ground of the Guillestre Protestants. One memorable stone has,
however, been preserved, the stone trough in which the peasants were
required to measure the tribute of grain payable by them to their
reverend seigneurs. It is still to be seen laid against a wall in an
open space in front of the church.

It happened that the fair of Guillestre, which is held every two
months, was afoot at the time of our visit. It is frequented by the
people of the adjoining valleys, of which Guillestre is the centre, as
well as by Piedmontese from beyond the Italian frontier. On the
principal day of the fair we found the streets filled with peasants
buying and selling beasts. They were apparently of many races. Amongst
them were many well-grown men, some with rings in their
ears--horse-dealers from Piedmont, we were told; but the greater
number were little, dark, thin, and poorly-fed peasants. Some of them,
dark-eyed and tawny-skinned, looked like Arabs, possibly descendants
of the Saracens who once occupied the province. There were one or two
groups of gipsies, differing from all else; but the district is too
poor to be much frequented by people of that race.

The animals brought for sale showed the limited resources of the
neighbourhood. One hill-woman came along dragging two goats in milk;
another led a sheep and a goat; a third a donkey in foal; a fourth a
cow in milk; and so on. The largest lot consisted of about forty
lambs, of various sizes and breeds, which had been driven down from
the cool air of the mountains, and, gasping with heat, were cooling
their heads against the shady side of a stone wall. There were several
lots of pigs, of a bad but probably hardy sort--mostly black,
round-backed, long-legged, and long-eared. In selling the animals,
there was the usual chaffering, in shrill patois, at the top of the
voice--the seller of some poor scraggy beast extolling its merits, the
intending buyer running it down as a "miserable bossu," &c., and
disputing every point raised in its behalf, until the contest of words
rose to such a height--men, women, and even children, on both sides,
taking part in it--that the bystander would have thought it impossible
they could separate without a fight. But matters always came to a
peaceable conclusion, for the French are by no means a quarrelsome
people.

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