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These burning hills in the Aveyron have been turned to one good purpose. The hot air that escapes from crevices where there is neither smoke nor fire is used for heating little cabins which have been constructed for the treatment of persons suffering from rheumatic disorders. There they can obtain a natural vapour-bath that is both cheap and effectual.

I had been walking for some time in the department of the Cantal, but the ferry landed me on the Aveyron side of the river. I had now seriously to consider the shortest way to Conques, separated from me by very rough hill country and an uncertain number of miles.

Flints, merely chipped, are clumsy tools, but there is no break in their series till we come to the splendid specimens from Scandinavia or from Mexico. Of the seven types of the Solutreen period, six are met with in the time now under consideration. Five types of Solutreen javelins have also been found in the Durfort Cave, and beneath the dolmens of Aveyron and of Lozere.

The dolmens of Aveyron yielded some flint-flakes and arrow-heads, pieces of pottery, pendants, and bone, stone, shell, and slate-colored schist beads. Beneath one of these dolmens was found one small bronze object, quite an exceptional instance of the occurrence of that metal. The skeletons rested against the walls.

Eight centuries ago! the peasant of the Aveyron and of Finistère still look upon these Dantesque sculptures with genuine awe. Those who blame the monks for giving the devil a forked tail and a pair of horns, and otherwise exhausting their invention in the endeavour to materialize the terrors of hell, are strangely unphilosophic.

To-day it is no longer the playful trick of a schoolboy; it is a matter of serious research. I happen to have the very subject that I need: a Turkey-hen, doomed soon to be the victim of our Christmas merry-making. I repeat with her the method of manipulation which I employed so successfully on the banks of the Aveyron.

At the cost of a great disappointment and a forfeiture of sixty francs, I determined to send the carriage back to Mende, and reach the Cantal by way of Rodez, in the Aveyron. The Pont de Garabit, like the Causses, all well, should be seen another year. Never shall I forget the amazement of my host.

Imagine, then, a group of promontories, their area equal to that of Salisbury Plain, Dartmoor and Exmoor combined, with the varying altitudes of the loftiest Devonshire tor and Cumberland hill. Such a comparison may convey some feeble notion of the three Causses just named, two of which belong to the Lozere. The Causse Noir is partly in the Aveyron.

Grimy children and grimy pigs that were intended to be white or pink sprawled upon the thresholds or wallowed in the hot dust. Having left the blissful coal basin, I met the Lot again near the boundary-line of the Aveyron and entered the department named after the river. Thence to Capdenac the valley was a curving line of uninterrupted but ever-changing beauty.

The scenery during the latter part of the way is beautiful and exhilarating, every feature showing the ripest, most brilliant tints hills clothed with the yellowing chestnut, soil of deep purplish red, the bright gold foliage of the vine, and between spring-like greenery and azure sky, close to the railway, the crystal-clear Aveyron.