The boat races down the pool of Rouen through the gauntlet of colliers, timber-ships, supply-ships, multitudinous barges, and swinging cranes. Once past the island, the commercial river-side is done with, and the journey proceeds through some of the most exquisitely beautiful hill-country in Normandy. Rouennaise merchants have grown fat on the trade of decades of peace, and have built their _maisons_ on the grand scale on the slopes of the Dieppedale and Roumare Forêts. The forests clothing this Seine Valley are famed through all Europe for growth and colour. The _maisons_ lie buried in their depths, thrusting up their towers and high gables. The slim Seine Islands are thick with groves, and mansions stand in the midst of them too. And for many miles down the right bank under the chalk ridge the houses stand trim in their orchards on the river's brink. Their little summer-houses overlook the road, seated and cushioned; and the old people sit there looking on the river, watching the youngsters play and the old men and the soldiers fishing from the wall. These banks are castled, too, like the Rhine. The potentates of Normandy chose the heights of this river basin from all the rest of Normandy, for reasons that are obvious. Apart from the elevation of these hills, the beauty of the sites is something to aspire to live in the midst of. Many of these old seats are crumbling. Some are so strongly built they will last for ever. All were built by men with some force of personality. Famous amongst them is the fine old castle of Robert le Diable, the rough parent of William the Conqueror. It's the oldest, and half decayed, but its strong points are still reared up there on the hill-brow. You move on under these noble hills, broken rarely by a timbered valley. There is nothing sombre aboard. Whatever the French can or cannot do, they can talk--gratefully and incessantly. The Norman tongue, however unintelligible, is incredibly pleasing in the mouths of its women. It is as free from harshness as the landscape. And the prattle of the children is music which a river orchestra would defile.