y moves among them, for he is strongly
of the belief that earth was made for humanity and is most lovable where
it has been handled and moulded by men, in the marking out of fields and
the damming of rivers, till it becomes a garden.

His acquaintances of travel make a strange and entertaining gallery of
people. How admirable is the Arab who could not contain himself for
thinking of the way his fruit trees bore, and the tinner of pots who
improved his trade with song, and the American who said that the
Matterhorn was surprising. There is something restrained and credible in
Mr. Belloc's account of these curious beings. He seems to sit still and
savour their conversation: he hardly reports his own.

He conveys to the reader a solid and real impression of the men he has
met, and it is one of the most delightful parts of his work. They go and
come through the essays like minor characters in a novel written with
prodigality of invention and genius. It is no exaggeration to say that
they are all interesting, persons one could wish to have met. They stand
out with the same clearness, the same reality, as the landscapes and
physical features that Mr. Belloc describes: they bear the same witness
to his curious gift for receiving an impression whole and clean, and
presenting it again with lucidity.

This want of exaggeration we find again in the common-sense tone of his
descriptions. He makes no literary fuss about being in the open air:
perhaps because he did not discover the value of the atmosphere as a
stimulant for literature, but always naturally knew it as a proper
ingredient in life. He is no George Borrow. There is a reality in his
travels that may seem to some often far from poetical: dark shadows and
patches about food and its absence, and a despair when marching in the
rain which is anything but romantic. He is not self-conscious when
speaking of countries, and his boasting of miles covered and places seen
has always an essential modesty in it. He disdains no common-sense aid
to travel, neither the railway nor his meals; he seems to keep
excellently in touch with his boots and his appetite, and to those
kindred points his most surprising rhapsodies are true.

Take as an illustration the end of his admirable and discerning judgment
upon the inns in the Pyrenees:

In all Sobrarbe, there are but the inns of Bielsa and Torla (I mean
in all the upper valleys which I have described) that can be
approache