One of our great amusements is to watch the _living_ life on the river,
--there is no _still_ life in France. All the washerwomen of the village
assemble, three days in the week, beneath our terrace, and a merrier set
of _grisettes_ is not to be found in the neighbourhood of Paris. They
chat, and joke, and splash, and scream from morning to night, lightening
the toil by never-ceasing good humour. Occasionally an enormous
scow-like barge is hauled up against the current, by stout horses,
loaded to the water's edge, or one, without freight, comes dropping down
the stream, nearly filling the whole river as it floats broad-side to.
There are three or four islands opposite, and, now and then, a small
boat is seen paddling among them. We have even tried _punting_
ourselves, but the amusement was soon exhausted.

Sunday is a great day with us, for then the shore is lined with
Parisians, as thoroughly cockney as if Bow-bells could be heard in the
Quartier Montmartre! These good people visit us, in all sorts of ways;
some on donkeys, some in cabriolets, some in fiacres, and by far the
larger portion on foot. They are perfectly inoffensive and unobtrusive,
being, in this respect, just as unlike an American inroad from a town as
can well be. These crowds pass vineyards on their way to us, unprotected
by any fences. This point in the French character, however, about which
so much has been said to our disadvantage, as well as to that of the
English, is subject to some explanation. The statues, promenades,
gardens, etc. etc. are, almost without exception, guarded by sentinels;
and then there are agents of the police, in common clothes, scattered
through the towns, in such numbers as to make depredations hazardous. In
the country each _commune_ has one, or more, _gardes champetres_, whose
sole business it is to detect and arrest trespassers. When to these are
added the _gendarmes a pied_ and _a cheval_, who are constantly in
motion, one sees that the risk of breaking the laws is attended with
more hazard here than with us. There is no doubt, on the other hand,
that the training and habits, produced by such a system of watchfulness,
enter so far into the character of the people, that they cease to think
of doing that which is so strenuously denied them.

Some of our visitors make their appearance in a very quaint style. I met
a party the other day, among whom the following family arrangement had
obtained:--The man was mounted on a