y had met in northern and central France.
Here was worn the "barret," of scarlet or white, the rich brown jacket
and red sash of the peculiar costumes of the Basque and Bearnais
peasants--a fine race of men, and one, too, historically noble. They
saw carts drawn by large limbed cream-coloured oxen; and passed flocks
of sheep and milch goats, tended by shepherds in picturesque dresses,
and guarded by numbers of large Pyrenean dogs, whose chief duty was to
protect their charge from the wolves. They saw men standing knee-deep
in the water, surrounded by droves of pigs--the latter voluntarily
submitting themselves to a process of washing, which resulted in
producing over their skins a roseate, pinky appearance. It could be
seen, too, that these _pachyderms_ not only submitted voluntarily to the
operation, but with a keen sense of enjoyment, as evinced by their
contented grunts, and by their long tails, hanging "kinkless" while the
large calabashes of water were poured over their backs. Perhaps to this
careful management of the Pyrenean pigs are the beautiful "Bayonne hams"
indebted for their celebrity.

Further on, our travellers passed a _plumire_, or "hen-bath." Here was
a tank--another thermal spring--in which the water was something more
than "tepid." In fact, it was almost on the boil; and yet in this tank
a number of women were ducking their hens--not, as might be supposed,
dead ones, in order to scald off their feathers, but live fowls, to rid
them, as they said, of parasitical insects, and make them feel more
comfortable! As the water was almost hot enough to _parboil_ the poor
birds, and as the women held them in it immersed to the necks, the
_comfort_ of the thing--so thought our travellers--was rather a doubtful
question.

A little further on, another "custom" of the French Pyrenees came under
the eyes of the party. Their ears were assailed by a singular medley of
sounds, that rose from a little valley near the side of the road. On
looking into the valley, they saw a crowd of forty or fifty women, all
engaged in the same operation, which was that of flax-hackling. They
learnt from this that; in the Pyrenean countries the women are the
hacklers of flax; and that, instead of each staying at her own home to
perform the operation, a large number of them meet together in some
shaded spot, bringing their unhackled flax along with them; and there,
amidst jesting and laughing and singing, the rough staple is r