Nous ne
comprenons rien a de semblables speculations, dont l'un des plus
facheux resultats est d'ajouter--une _affreuse odeur_ aux desagrements
de nos voitures publiques!'
All through the fruitful land that we have passed, we cannot help being
struck with the evident inadequate means of transport for goods and
provisions; at Coutances, for instance, and at Granville (the great
centre of the oyster fisheries of the west) they have only just thought
about railways, and we may see long lines of carts and waggons, laden
with perishable commodities, being carried no faster than in the days
of the first Napoleon.
But we, who are in search of the picturesque should be the very last to
lament the fact, and we may even join in the sentiment of the Maire of
Granville, and be 'thankful' that the great highways of France are under
the control of a careful Government; and that her valleys are not (as in
England) strewn with the wrecks of abandoned railways--ruins which, by
some strange fatality, never look picturesque.
Granville is a favourite place of residence, and a great resort for
bathing in the summer; although the 'Etablissement' is second-rate, and
the accommodation is not equal to that of many smaller watering-places
of France. It is, however, a pleasant and favourable spot in which to
study the manners and customs of a sea-faring people: and besides the
active human creatures which surround us, we--who settle down for a
season, and spend our time on the sands and on the dark rocks which
guard this iron-bound coast--soon become conscious of the presence of
another vast, active, striving, but more silent community on the
sea-shore, digging and delving, sporting and swimming, preying upon
themselves and each other, and enjoying intensely the luxury of living.
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