and drizzle, I was not by any means afraid of being melted, recommended me to make my way to the Palombiere, and see them catch wild pigeons, after a fashion only practised there and at one other place in the Pyrenees. Not appalled, then, by the prospect of a three-mile pull up-hill, I made my way through the narrow suburban streets, and across the foaming Adour, here a glorious mountain-stream, but already made useful to turn numerous flour-mills, and to drive the saws and knives by which the beautiful marble of the Pyrenees is cut and polished. Hereabouts, in the straggling suburbs, the whole female and juvenile population were clustered, just within the shelter of the open doors, knitting those woollen jackets, scarfs, and so forth, which are so much in vogue amongst the visitors in the season. There was one graceful group of pretty girls, the eldest not more than four years of age, pursuing the work in a shed open to the street, seated round a loom, at which a good-natured-looking fellow was operating. "That is a beautiful scarf," I said to the girl next me; "how much will they give you for making it?" The weaver paused in his work at this question. "Tell the gentleman, my dear, how much Messieurs So-and-so give for knitting that scarf." "Two liards," said the little girl. Two liards, or half a solitary sous! This was worse than the shirt-makers at home. "It is a bad trade now," said the weaver. "She is a child; but the best hands can't make more than big sous where they once made francs; but all the trades of the poor are going to the devil. I don't think there will be any poor left in twenty years--they will be all starved before then." This led to a long talk with my new friend, who was a poor, mild, meek sort of man--a thinker, after his fashion, totally uninstructed--he could neither read nor write--and a curious specimen of the odd twists which unregulated and unintelligent ponderings sometimes give a man's mind. His grand notion seemed to be, that whatever might be the isolated crimes and horrors now and then committed upon the earth, the most terrible and malignant species of perverted human ingenuity was--the employment of running streams to work looms. "Was water made to weave cloth?" he asked. "Did the power that formed the Adour intend its streams to be made use of to deprive an honest man of his daily bread? He would uncommonly like to find the orator who would make that clear to his mind. It was terrible to see how men perverted the gifts of Nature! How could I, or any one else, prove to him that the water beside us was intended to take the place of men's arms and fingers, and to be used, as if it were vital blood, to manufacture the garments of those who lived upon its banks?"