crimson geranium that clothed the sides of the Pyrenees; what the buttercups in the pastures to the meadows converted to ponds of liquid gold, in the south, by the spring crocuses? He never, to my knowledge, made a single water-colour drawing in Devonshire. My Uncle Thomas George Bond was often at Lew. He was so devoted to his native county that it was said of him, he thanked God in his prayers night and day that he had been born and lived in the county. Once he was induced to visit Chepstow and the Wye. He returned much depressed. "Well," asked my father, "is not the Wye far superior to our paltry Tamar?" My uncle took a pinch of snuff, wiped his nose leisurely, and said in a despondent tone, "I am sorry to have to admit it, but I must say that the Tamar is tamer."
My father looked on this infatuation as near akin to lunacy.
This time we took with us, on leaving England, not only our carriage, but also our pair of horses, a groom, William Pengelly, a fresh tutor, Mr. Hadow, and the governess, Miss Richardson.
Cholera at this time was raging in France. At La Meilleraye we were rather cramped for rooms at night. The apartment occupied by my brother and myself was under the attic bed-chamber in which lodged at night the domestics, and in which Pengelly was given a bed. The room my brother and I were in was unceiled, and the knot-holes in the planking allowed one to see and hear much of what was going on above. During the night we were roused by loud groans and gasps above. A candle was lighted, and there ensued tramping about, and many voices raised in discussion, making and rebutting suggestions. A man had been attacked by cholera, and whilst the women prepared a tisane, a couple of men, one on each side of the sufferer's bed, proceeded vigorously to rub and pound the seat of pain and disturbance. No sleep for us that night. The rubbing was so vigorous as to strain the beams, much as they are strained in a ship at sea in a gale, and the furniture rocked. The sufferer presumedly felt some ease at this treatment, for he kept screaming out at intervals, "Plus fort! encore plus fort! frottez diablement!"
In the morning we were informed that the patient was better; but Pengelly shook his head in dissent. "If those French frogs had pommelled my stomach," said he, "in the way they did that
