e. The
country is delightful and healthy, the society good, and every necessary
article of life plentiful and cheap. Beef, veal, and mutton, are to be
had in great plenty, and the two latter excellent. Poultry is equally
plentiful and cheap. Fuel, to those who have horses, amounts almost to
nothing; house-rent likewise very reasonable. Land in purchase about
15_l._ per acre, one with another--wood, heath, and arable. In the
immediate neighbourhood of the town the meadow land is dear. I believe I
have now mentioned every thing. Young persons would find Tours a
delightful residence, as there is a never-ceasing course of balls and
parties. A carriage may be kept cheaply; in a word, I would venture
positively to say, that for 250_l._ English money annually, a family
might live at Tours in plenty and elegance; but let them not have
English or American servants.

Having seen enough of Tours, we resumed our journey after our breakfast
on the third day, proposing to go no farther on that day than Amboise,
a distance short of twenty miles. Every traveller must have observed,
that the exhilaration of the animal spirits is never greater than after
an interval of fatigue succeeded by sufficient repose. A spirited horse,
for example, will perform his second stage, after a sufficient bait,
with more animation than his first: it is the same with travellers, or
at least I must assert it of myself. My satisfaction is always greater
in the progress, than in the commencement of a journey. There is a
dilatoriness, a _vis inertiae_, which hangs on me on my first departure,
and which does not pass away, till worked off by the fermentation of the
blood and spirits.

The whole party, and myself amongst the number, left Tours in this
enviable state of spirits; the sun shone brightly, but a refreshing
breeze, and intervals of the road well shaded, softened an heat, which
might otherwise have been oppressive. Mr. Younge and myself rode on each
side of the carriage, and travelling slowly, as our proposed day's
journey was short, enjoyed at once the scenes of nature, and the
conversation of these lovely women.

"The next village we shall come to," said Mademoiselle St. Sillery,
"will be a singularity. Unless we were with you, you might perhaps pass
through it without seeing it. You might pass through the midst of three
or four hundred inhabitants without seeing either house, man, woman, or
child."

"You are speaking of Mont Louis," said Mr. Yo