The day after my arrival, I had a singular opportunity of becoming acquainted with the spirit of the place. North from Nismes rises a species of chaos of steep hills and deep valleys, or rather ravines, composed almost entirely of shingle and rock, covered over, however, with olive-groves and vines, and dotted with little white summer-houses, to which almost the entire middle and working class population retire upon Sundays to pass the day, partly in cultivating their patches of land--there is hardly a family without an allotment--and partly to amuse themselves after the toils of the week. Rambling among these rugged hills and dales, I chanced to ask my way of a person I met descending towards Nismes. He was a tall, ungainly, raw-boned man--pallid and worn, as if with sedentary labour; but he seemed intelligent, and was very polite--pointing out a number of localities around. Presently, he told me that he had been up to his _cabane_, or summer-house; that he was a silkweaver in Nismes; that his wages were so poor, that he had a hard struggle to live; but that he still managed to give up an hour's work or so a-day to go and feed his rabbits at the _cabane_. As we talked, he inquired whether I were not a foreigner--an Englishman--and, with some hesitation, but with great eagerness--a Protestant? My affirmative answer to the last interrogatory produced a magical effect. The man's face actually gleamed. He jumped off the ground, let fall his apronful of melons and fresh figs, while he clutched both of my hands in his, and exclaimed, "A Protestant! _Dieu merci! Dieu merci!_ an English Protestant! Oh, how glad I am to see an English Protestant! Listen, monsieur. We are here. We of the religion (the old phrase--as old as Rosny and Coligni), we are here fifteen thousand strong--fifteen thousand, monsieur. Don't believe those who say only ten. Fifteen thousand, monsieur--good men and true. All ready--all standing by one another--all _braves_--all on the _qui vive_--all prepared, if the hour should come. We know each other--we love each other, and we hate"--a pause; then, with a significant grin--"_les autres_. You will tell that, in England, monsieur, to our brothers. Fifteen thousand, monsieur; and every man, woman, and child, true to the cause and the faith." The whole tone of the orator did not appear to me to be so much a matter of religious bitterness, as it marked a hatred of race. The two contending parties at Nismes were evidently of different blood: their religious animosities had gradually divided them into two distinct and hostile peoples.