What a babel of confusion it is, this motley gathering of fruit-and vegetable-women, seated in long rows of improvised stalls along the paved slope, enclosed on all sides by tall buildings, which forms the market-place! They all wear red-and-yellow head-kerchiefs, and are chattering away for dear life. It is a recognized principle in their code to ask any price they think they can get for their wares, but for all that living is not costly at Limoges. Good beef and mutton sell at eighteen cents a pound, and articles of _charcuterie_, such as ham, sausage, _pâtés_ and _galantine_, are sold in great quantities. Vegetables of all kinds are plentiful and cheap, and in the season there is an abundance of pears, apples, grapes and figs. In the autumn, too, thousands of bushels of a giant species of chestnut are gathered and sold or shipped to other markets. Mushrooms as large round as a dinner-plate are sold by weight, and women and children can be seen munching them as they would crusts of bread. Wine is poor and high-priced, for the Limousin is not a vine-growing province, and with the recent rise in price the poorer classes have to forego the daily litre of _vin rouge_ which their compatriots in the neighboring Charente still consider indispensable to their health and happiness. Looking at these market-people about him, the observer can easily see that they are not habitual wine-drinkers. They take a little cider, a little beer, but wine only now and then. Simplicity and frugality of diet, in fact, mark the habits of all the people, rich and poor, of the province. A cup of coffee on rising, a plate of soup at nine, a substantial meal at mid-day, and another plate of soup between six and eight in the evening, make up the bill of fare for the day. The hotels, however, keep up the Parisian hours for meals, and as breakfast does not come until eleven o'clock, it would be well for our visitor to devote his remaining morning hours to the famous Ceramic Museum, which is not far from the Place d'Orsay, and which contains the finest collection of faïence and porcelains in the world excepting that at the Louvre. All the principal European countries are here found represented by specimens of their wares, but the United States, alas! is conspicuous by its absence, notwithstanding the fact that last year a notice was generally published throughout the American press advising our porcelain-makers that samples, if sent by them to the United States consular agent at Limoges, would be exhibited in the museum side by side with the rest. In connection with the establishment a free school for drawing and porcelain-decoration has been inaugurated by the city, and with such success that it numbers six hundred and fifty pupils of both sexes and all ranks of society.