Part 15 (1/2)
The sun that changes the face of all things, and warms the ideas no less than the earth, now shone out from a blue sky, spreading fire over the ruddy tops of the chestnut woods, and flas.h.i.+ng into the dark caverns of the ancient crags, fringed with box, sumach and juniper. I noticed that one of these caverns had been fortified, but my curiosity was satisfied with the distant view. A yellow chicory, quite leafless, was still blooming on the stony banks, and I also, found a white scabious. Green h.e.l.lebore and wild madder flourished amidst the broken limestone. A forest of brown maize-stalks, from which the golden corn had been gathered, followed the windings of the river, now turgid and tumultuous, and dyed sienna-red by the was.h.i.+ngs from the hills. Every day the increasing water as it descended the weirs made a wilder tumult. These weirs are a great beauty to the Lot, for they generally form an angle or the arc of a circle, and the river tumbles over the rough blocks like a natural cascade. They are connected with a series of locks, which render the stream navigable from the sea; but one rarely sees a barge upon it now, the railway having completely ruined the water traffic, and caused a most elaborate and costly piece of engineering to be practically useless.
The valley now widened out, and a village came into view, together with a ruined castle upon a mamelon, that rose like a volcanic cone from the plain. On the castle wall an immense wooden cross had been set, showing against the sky with an effect truly grand. The village was Vers, and the castle, which was built by the English, is called the Chateau de Bears.
At Vers I was met by an old man, who insisted upon showing me another cave fortified by the English, after taking the precaution of telling me that he would accept nothing for his trouble. He was long and lean and brown, and had a 'glittering, eye' like the Ancient Mariner, but his conversation was much more cheerful than that of the hero who shot the albatross. He was a born actor, for he accompanied his talk with magnificent dramatic gestures, and, after letting his voice drop suddenly to a tragic whisper, he would raise it again to the most gusty and bl.u.s.tering heights of sound. He was a strong type of the Southerner, inasmuch as all this amazing vehemence and gesticulation was quite uncalled for. It is remarkable, however, how much may be done by mere action and intonation to impress the listener with the idea that the speaker must be a person of uncommon intelligence. But when half a dozen such talkers are engaged in discussion upon some trivial topic, and each employs the same means to enforce his views upon the rest (this occurs nightly in the _cafes_ at Cahors), the Northerner is inclined to think that they are all mad. The wiry old man explained to me, in order to account for the ease and agility with which, notwithstanding his years and his awkward _sabots_, he stepped from block to block in the ascent, that he had been all his life a rock-blaster. At length we reached the cavern. The English, who used it as a refuge, had shown much sagacity in its selection, for the enemy that attacked them there would have been compelled to climb up the face of the rock beneath by following zigzag ledges, while the besieged behind their loopholed wall were raining arrows and bolts upon them. The wall, as it exists, is twenty or thirty feet high.
There is a doorway protected by an inner wall. To reach the upper loopholes and parapet the men mounted upon oak beams resting crosswise between the masonry and the rock. One ma.s.sive beam, crumbling and worm-eaten, as may be supposed after the centuries that it has been there, may still be seen serving as the lintel of a window.
I made a rather long stay at Vers, in order to visit the site of a Celtic town on the _causse_; but I did not start upon this journey until the next day. The inn where I put up was much more comfortable than some others which I had chosen for night-quarters while wandering down the valley. To anybody fresh from London it would have seemed primitive indeed, with its broad hearth and ma.s.sive iron dogs, its enormous fire built with logs and the roots of trees, and its cosy chimney-corners, where the sitters' heads were from time to time enveloped with wreathing smoke; but I had grown so accustomed to such sights that this hostelry seemed to contain all the blessings and commodities of an advanced state of civilization.
The hostess was a good and sprightly cook, and I watched her proceedings with a keen interest as I sat upon one of the seats in the chimney. Having hitched the pot that contained the soup upon the hook at the end of the sooty chain, she raked out embers from the centre of the burning ma.s.s, and made separate fires with them upon the hearth.
Others she carried to a range of small charcoal fireplaces on one side of the s.p.a.cious kitchen, and very soon afterwards she had sauce-pans and a frying-pan and a gridiron all murmuring or hissing together.
There was too much garlic in her cookery, but I had also grown used to that. Although the phylloxera had blighted nearly all the vineyards in this region, the landlord here was able to put upon the table some wine, grown upon his own hillside, not unworthy of the ancient reputation of the Cahors district for its vintage.
After dinner I returned to the chimney-corner which was decidedly the most comfortable place in the inn, in spite of the smoke and the close neighbourhood of soot, and set about obtaining information from the aubergiste and his cronies who had dropped in concerning the exact whereabouts of a Celtic town whose ruined fortifications, I knew, were to be found somewhere among the barren hills to the west of Vers. It was some time before I could make these men understand what I was really in search of, and when they understood they seemed to think I was a little mad, until the idea struck them that I might be a dealer in antiquities, hoping to pick up certain odds and ends that would repay me for the trouble of walking to such a desolate and uninteresting spot.
At length I gathered that the site of the ancient _oppidum_ was at Murcens, a hamlet upon a hill, half a day's walk away to the west, and that the best way to reach it was to follow the valley of the Vers. At about seven o'clock the next morning I started, and, having been warned that I should find no inn where I could get a meal, I took with me some provisions.
It was a gray, dreary morning, and at that hour the weather could not have been more November-like had I been upon the banks of the Severn or the Trent, instead of being by one of the rivers of our ancient southern province of Guyenne.
As I turned westward up the valley of the Vers, I pa.s.sed under detached fragments of the aqueduct built by the Romans to carry water to Cahors. By taking advantage of the rocks which hem in the narrow valley, they saved themselves the trouble of raising arches to the desired height to ensure the flow. The conduit is carried along upon a ledge hewn out of the natural wall, projecting ma.s.ses of rock being cut through with the hammer and chisel. The masonry is of undressed stone, but so firmly cemented that it is scarcely less solid than the rock itself.
Where an inconvenient b.u.t.tress projected, a narrow pa.s.sage was cut through it for the channel, and the marks of the chisel look as fresh as if they had been lately made. Much of this aqueduct was destroyed in quite recent days, when the rocks were blasted to make room for the road to Cahors. The Romans may have thought of many destructive agencies being employed upon their work, but dynamite was certainly not one of them. Box and h.e.l.lebore, bramble and dogwood, moss and ferns, have been striving for centuries to conceal all trace of the conduit, and those whose foreknowledge did not lead them to look for it might easily pa.s.s by without observing it.
The road followed the stream, now a furious torrent that a man on horseback could hardly ford without risk of being carried away. Two or three weeks previously a mere thread of water wound its way amongst the stones in the centre of the channel. It is one of the many streams which in Guyenne gradually disappear in summer, but at the return of winter fill the long-scorched and silent valleys with the sound of roaring waters. On either side of the gorge rose abrupt stony hills thinly wooded, chiefly with stunted oak, or escarped craggy cliffs pierced with yawning caverns. There was no suns.h.i.+ne, but the mult.i.tude of lingering leaves lit up all the desert hills with a quiet, solemn flame. Here and there, amidst the pale gold of the maple or the browner, ruddier gold of the oak, glowed darkly the deep crimson fire of a solitary cornel. In steady, unchanging contrast with these colours was the sombre green of the box.
The stream descends in a series of cascades, and there is a mighty roar of waters. For many yards I have for a companion a little wren, that flies from twig to twig through the well-nigh naked hedge along the wayside, now hidden behind a bramble's crimson-spotted leaf, now mingled with a tracery of twigs and thorns. I can almost believe it to be the same wren that kept up with me years ago in English lanes, and since then has travelled with me so many miles in France, vanis.h.i.+ng for long periods, but reappearing as if by enchantment in some roadside hedge, its eyes bright with recognition, and every movement friendly. Whimsical little bird, or gentle spirit in disguise, we may travel many a mile together yet.
My thoughts were turned from the wren by a carrier's cart, which the people of the country would term a _diligence_. It was like a great oblong box with one end knocked out, set on wheels. The interior was a black hole, crammed with people and bundles. When I looked for my little feathered friend it was gone, but we shall meet again.
Two or three miles farther up the valley, near a small village or hamlet, I crossed a low bridge over the Vers, and by following the road on the other side, still ascending the course of the stream, I came to a spot where a volume of water that would soon have filled a large reservoir flowed quietly out of a little hollow at the foot of great rocks. It was the Fountain of Polemie which, on account of its abundant flow in all seasons, is supposed to have been the source from which the Romans led their aqueduct to Divona--now called Cahors. The water of this fountain, which derives its name from Polemius, a Roman functionary, is of limpid purity, and its constancy proves that it rises from a great depth. The Romans must have carried the water on arches across the valley, and probably for a considerable distance down it, before they made use of the natural wall of rock in the manner described, but not a trace remains of the arches, or even of the piers.
In order to reach the tableland of Murcens, it was necessary to cross again the roaring torrent of the Vers, and after several vain attempts to do so, by means of the rocks lying in its bed, I came to a bridge which solved the difficulty. The scene was now sublimely rugged and desolate. On each side the majestic rocks reared their ever-varying fantastic shapes towards the sky.
I knew, from what I had been told, that Murcens lay somewhere above the escarped cliff on my left, and at no great distance, but the difficulty was to reach it. I had heard of a path, but I soon gave up the attempt to find it. As there was not a human being to be seen who could give me any counsel, I commenced climbing the hill in the direction that I wished to take. It was anything but straightforward walking. The lower part of the steep was strewn with loose stones like s.h.i.+ngle, that slipped under the feet, so that I had to proceed in zigzag fas.h.i.+on, taking advantage of every bush of juniper and box and root of h.e.l.lebore as a foothold. But the vegetation grew denser as I ascended, and I had soon plenty of box and dwarf oak to help me.
Before attempting to climb the upper wall of solid limestone, I sat in the mouth of a small cavern to eat the frugal lunch I had brought with me, and to contemplate at my leisure the wild grandeur of the valley.
I could not have chosen a better place for feeling in one sense dwindled, in another expanded, by the majesty of the stony solitude.
Suddenly, while I gazed, the sun breaking through the clouds made every yellow tree brighten like melting gold, and drew a voice of joy from all the dumb and solemn rocks.
I leave the remnants of my feast for the foxes and magpies to quarrel over, and feel prepared to put forth a vigorous effort to reach the _causse_. I work my way up by the clefts of the rocks, hanging on to the tough box, and getting thoroughly asperged by the dew that has not yet dried upon it. I have not ascended fifty feet in this manner before I am as wet as if I had been walking in a thunderstorm. I creep along ledges, now to the right and now to the left, and presently I am only about twenty-five feet from the top of the rock that prevents me from attaining my object. It is pleasanter to look up than to look down, for, being no climber of mountain peaks, I do not enjoy the sensation of clinging to the side of a precipice like a caterpillar to a leaf. Now comes the real trial. The rest of the rock above me is quite bare of vegetation. By making four or five steps upwards to the left, then to the right, a spot can be reached where the trouble will be over; but some of these steps need a considerable stretch of leg, and the eye cannot measure the distance with certainty. Time is on the wing, and the days are short. I am strongly tempted to make the essay, but doubt holds me back. What if I, were to get half-way, and were unable to go on or to retreat? What if I were to slip and roll down the rocks? If I were not killed outright, who would be likely to come to my aid in such a solitude? The ravens would have ample time to pick my bones before those interested in my existence would know what had happened to me. I resolve that I will not give the birds of ill omen a chance of so rare a meal. In descending, the cold showers from the box bushes add to my humiliation and discomfiture.
Keeping on the side of the hill, I went farther up the valley, seeking a place where I could with better chance of success make another attack upon the difficulties of this rocky wall. I found what I wanted at no great distance, the only objection to the spot being the dense growth of shrubs laden with moisture. It was almost like wading through a stream. At length the line of high rocks was pa.s.sed, and I was upon land that, notwithstanding its steepness and the mult.i.tude of stones with which it was strewn, had undergone some cultivation. That wine had not long since been grown here was evident from the numerous stumps of vines which had been killed by the phylloxera. A few lingering flowers of hawkweed relieved the monotony of the dreary waste. But if, while looking before me, the scene was saddening, in looking back there was a sublime and soul-lifting picture which the forces of Nature had been painting unmolested for ages. I can do no more than suggest to the imagination the combined effect of those fantastic rocks rising from the foaming torrent to the drifting, tinted clouds; b.u.t.tresses and bastions of the ancient earth laid bare in the mysterious night of the inconceivable past, some black and gloomy as the walls of a feudal moat, others yellow like ochre; others, again, sun-bleached almost to whiteness, yet streaked with ruddy veins--all flashed here and there with burning oak and maple, or sprinkled with the purple blood of the dogwood's dying leaves.
Half an hour later I reached Murcens, only inhabited nowadays by a few peasants in two or three scattered hovels, which are nevertheless called farms. I had no difficulty in finding the wall of the Gaulish town. It is broken down completely in places, but the almost circular line is plainly marked. The site of the _oppidum_ is a little tableland raised above the surrounding soil by a natural embankment.
The circ.u.mvallation in its best preserved places is now from seven to ten feet high. The materials used were such as Caesar mentions as having been employed by the Gauls in the fortification of their _oppida_, namely, timber and rough stone. I looked for some traces of the wooden uprights, but although there is ample proof that they existed there down to our own time, my search was vain. Many stones measuring several feet in length were set in a perpendicular position to give extra stability to the wall. The ancient rampart is in places completely overgrown with juniper. Within the wall is nothing but level field. No trace remains of any buildings that stood there in the far-off days when the spot was the scene of all pa.s.sions and vanities, the tragedy and comedy of human life, even as we know it now. The peasant as he ploughs or digs turns up from time to time a bit of worked metal, such as a coin, or a ring, but the hands which held them may or may not be mingled with the soil that supports the buckwheat and enables the peasant to live. The Gaulish city has no history.
I had some talk with a peasant who had been watching my movements wonderingly. He spoke French with difficulty, but his boy--a lad of about twelve, who had been to school--could help him over the stiles.
I got the man to speak about the ancient wall, although it was evidently not a subject that interested him so deeply as his pigsty.