f glass beads, and little trifles. The
shopkeepers are, as in every town we have been at, perfect Jews, devoid
of any thing like principle in buying and selling. We are every day
learning more and more how to overcome our scruples with regard to
_beating them down_. They always expect it, and only laugh at those who
do not practise it.

* * *

This day we left Nevers at six in the morning. It appears to be a large
town, when viewed from the bridge over which we crossed; but it is far
from being a fine town in the interior. The streets are, like all French
streets, narrow, and the houses have a look of antiquity, and a want of
all repair; nothing like comfort, neatness, or tidiness, in any one of
them. This is a melancholy desideratum in France, a want for which
nothing can compensate. The road this day conducted us through a finer
district than we have observed on this side of Paris; more especially
between Nevers and St Pierre, where we have travelled through a richer
and more beautiful country than we have yet seen. No longer the sand,
and gravel, and chalk, which we have long been accustomed to, but a dark
rich soil over a bed of freestone. Here also all the land is well
enclosed. I have not yet been able to find the reason of this sudden
change in the manner of preserving the fields: The face of the country
is also more generally wooded; but from the necessity the French are
under of cutting down whatever wood they find near the towns for their
fires, all the fine trees are ruined in appearance, by their branches
being lopped off: The effect of this on the appearance of the country is
very sad.--Still we find a want of that agreeable alternation of hill
and dale, of the enclosed meadows, and wooded vallies; of the broad and
beautiful rivers and the small winding streams, which, as the finest
features in their native landscape, have become necessary to a Scotch or
an English eye.

The dress of the women is here different from what we have elsewhere
seen: the peasants' wives wearing large gipsey straw hats, very much
turned up behind and before; the men have still the immense
broad-brimmed black felt affairs, more like umbrellas than Christian
hats. At the inn here, I saw a number of wounded soldiers returning to
their homes; one of them, I observed, had his feet outside of his shoes.
On entering into conversation with him, he told me that his toes had
been nearly frozen off, but _that he expected to get them heale