The roof is over-loaded
with goods and passengers, which gives a pleasant swaying motion to the
vehicle; but the road is so smooth and even that 'nobody cares'--the
rocking to and fro is soothing, and sends the driver to sleep, the
pieces of string that keep the harness together will hold for another
hour or two, and the crazy machine will last our journey at least.
We halt continually on the journey--once, for half-an-hour, literally
'under the lindens'--they are not yet in bloom, but they give out a
pleasant perfume into the dreamy air; we are again in the open country,
in the atmosphere of old historic Normandy, and bound, slowly it is
true, for the birthplace of William the Conqueror; and we can read or
sleep at pleasure, as our crazy diligence crawls up and creeps down
every hill, and stops at every cottage by the way.
On this beautiful winding road, which is carried along and between, the
ridge of hills on which Avranches stands, and commands views westward
over the bay to Mont St. Michael and eastward towards Alencon and the
plains of Orne, we only meet one or two solitary pedestrians. We are
nearly as much alone as in a Swiss pass; the scenery might be part of
the Tete Noire, and the _Hotel de la Poste_, at Mortain, which is built
on the side of a hill over a ravine, and at which our diligence makes a
dead stop, might, for many reasons, be a posada on the Italian Alps.
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