Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
The ancient little walled town, basking in this sun-trap of a valley, stood out ochre-coloured against the silver-grey background of olive trees, whilst the jagged profiles of the encircling hills were always mistily blue, with that intense blue of which the Provence hills seem alone to have the secret.
The way in which the ceiling with its heavy centre-piece and plaster cornice is treated is especially interesting. The whole of this is covered with an ochre-coloured bronze, while the walls and door-casings are painted a dark indigo, which includes a faint trace of green.
It did not present that lake-like aspect which the waters of the Para and Tocantins affect, but had all the swing, so to speak, of a vast flowing stream. The ochre-coloured turbid waters offered also a great contrast to the rivers belonging to the Para system. The channel formed a splendid reach, sweeping from southwest to northeast, with a horizon of water and sky both upstream and down.
Emerging from the valley, we urged on our animals over comparatively level ground, in the fallacious hope of seeing the sea that night. The trees became rarer as we advanced and the surface metallic. In spots the path led over ironstone that resembled slag. In other places the soil was ochre-coloured : the cattle lick it, probably on account of the aluminous matter with which it is mixed.
The costume that they are wearing in the photographs was prepared by me in order to present these ochre-coloured Eves to my readers in a more decent state, or rather, a little more in accordance with what civilized society requires, because "to the pure all things are pure" and in my opinion the perfect innocence in which these women go about naked is preferable to that consciousness of their natural form which leads so many of our society ladies and other females, to resort to artificial means that they may deceive their admirers, and gain a name for beauty.
In front a stretch of rough common, the dark-brown heather, the young gorse, bluish-green, the rusty red of soaked bracken, the pale ochre-coloured grass, all blent into a rich tint that pleases the eye with its wild freshness.
Thus, the dark and worn stone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows. Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which the women love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek with blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotless curtains.
Shrill flaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that faced them, were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors of ribbed tin backed them, making quivering disks of light. The floor was covered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud, and stained with dark rings of spilled liquor.
I see the shallow, shining puddles in the hard, fair French road; the pale blue sky, diluted by days of rain; the disgarnished autumnal fields; the mild sparkle of the low horizon; the solitary figure in sabots, with a bundle under its arm, advancing along the chaussée; and in the middle I see the little ochre-coloured trio of apertures, which, in spite of its antiquity, looks bright and gay, as everything must look in France of a fresh Sunday morning.
Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., who left all his honours and slipped out one day to the sun-baked highway with nothing but an ochre-coloured garment and a beggar's bowl. I always envied that man. Not that I could rise to such Oriental heights. The beggar's bowl wouldn't do for me.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking