lad; their wants are few,
and therefore their labour, added to the fertility of the soil, is
sufficient to satisfy them. They repine not for luxuries of which they
can have no notion.

We took leave of Monsieur de Corseult on the Wednesday instead of the
Monday, but he insisted upon accompanying us on horseback half way to
Saumur, where we proposed sleeping. The ladies could not but accept this
obliging offer, and the information which Mons. de Corseult was enabled
to give us, rendered his society equally agreeable to Mr. Younge and
myself. We learned from this gentleman, that though Anjou is reputed to
have a great proportion of heath and barren land, it does not yield to
any province in France either for beauty or fertility. As much of it as
lays along the Loire, I have already had occasion to describe, and what
we were now passing through was not a whit behind it. Every village was
most romantically situated; some in orchards, some in fenced gardens,
some in corn-fields, and others in vales and in recesses on each side of
the road. The corn being ripe, added much to the beauty of the
landscape. In some fields the reapers were at work, and the harvest was
going on with true French gaiety. Sometimes we would see them dancing in
the field; sometimes sitting round some central tree sporting and
gamboling with the women and girls. I never saw a scene in England which
could enter into comparison with a French harvest. I was sorry, however,
to see that the women had more than their due share of the labour; they
reaped, bound, and loaded. Some of the elder women were accordingly very
coarse, but the girls were spirited, and pleasing. They nodded to us
whenever we caught their eyes, and if we stopt our horses, would come to
us, at whatever distance, as if to satisfy our inquiries.

We happened to pass an estate which was for sale, and the house being at
hand, inquired the price and particulars. There were six hundred acres
of land, a good house, and the purchase-money was five thousand pounds
English. Four hundred acres were arable, the other wood and heath. In
England, the price of such an estate would have been at least twenty
thousand pounds. The land, though stony, was good, and under the hands
of a tolerable farmer, might have cleared the purchase-money in five
years. There was a trout stream and fish-ponds, and the whole country
was even infested with game. The chateau itself would certainly have
required some repairs;