THE TRACK-BOAT ON THE CANAL DU MIDI--APPROACH TO THE MEDITERRANEAN--SALT-MARSHES AND SALT-WORKS--A CIRCUS THRASHING-MACHINE--THE MEDITERRANEAN AND ITS CRAFT--CETTE AND ITS MANUFACTURED WINES, WITH A PRIEST'S VIEWS ON GOURMANDISE. I left Beziers for the Mediterranean, by Pierre Paul Riquet's canal. The track-boat passes once a-day, taking upwards of thirty-five hours to make the passage from Toulouse to Cette. The Beziers station is about a mile from the town; and on approaching it early in the morning, I found a crowd of people collected on the banks, looking at men dragging the canal with huge hooks at the end of poles. They were searching for the body of a poor fellow from Beziers, who had drowned himself under very remarkable circumstances; and just as the packet-boat came up, the corpse was raised, stark and stiff, almost from beneath it. The deceased was a _decrotteur_, or boot-cleaner, and a light porter at Beziers--a quiet, inoffensive man, who, by dint of untiring industry, and great self-denial, had scraped together upwards of two hundred and fifty francs, all of which he lent another _decrotteur_, without taking legal security for the money. After the stipulated term for the loan had elapsed, the poor lender naturally pressed for his cash. He was put off from month to month with excuses; and when, at length, he became urgent for repayment, the debtor laughed in his face, told him to do his best and his worst, and get his money how he could. The _decrotteur_ went away in a state of frenzy, and procured and charged a pistol, with which he returned to the rascal borrower. "Will you pay me?--ay or no?" he said. "No," replied the other; "go about your business." The creditor instantly levelled his pistol and fired. Down went his antagonist, doubled up in a heap on the road, and away went the assassin as hard as his legs could carry him, to a bridge leading over the canal, from the parapet of which he leaped into the water; while, as he disappeared, the _quasi_ murdered man got up again, with no other damage than a face blackened by the explosion of the pistol. He had fallen through terror, for he was absolutely unscathed.