The Castle of Bôves is here introduced as a good example of a moated mound on the other side of the Channel. The castle and village stand upon the left bank of the valley of the Noye, in the old province of Picardy, above and about a quarter of a mile distant from the stream. The Noye rises near to Crêvecœur-le-Grand, beyond Bretuil, and flows across a district of chalk. Both a little above and immediately below Bôves, it inosculates with the Avre, which rises near to Crêvecœur-le-Petit, and the combined stream, flowing past Longeau, joins the Somme immediately above Amiens, which city is about five miles distant from Bôves. Both the Noye and the Avre exhibit the features which are still more strongly marked in the Somme. They flow sluggishly across broad, flat tracts of peat and gravel, contained within steep and high banks of chalk. The peat has been extensively excavated for fuel, and the cavities are filled with dark peaty water. The supply of coal by railway and canal seems somewhat to have checked the demand upon these turbaries, and the uncut surfaces are highly cultivated as nursery gardens, which appear in patches amidst the pools, and are chiefly reached by boats. The poplar is the prevailing tree of these damp, gloomy districts, and it there attains a very considerable size. Below the peat, and at the base and up the sides of the chalk hills, the rock is more or less thickly covered up with beds of gravel and light loam, in which are found the flint implements which have been the subject of so much speculation. The village of Bôves contains under 2,000 persons, whose chief employment is bleaching in the open fields the cotton cloths manufactured in the neighbourhood. The church, the only public building, is a heavy Doric temple, of modern date. The village is built at the foot of the chalk hill upon which stands the castle, and which has been quarried for building purposes into a cliff of 50 feet to 80 feet high. The castle, now a mere ruin of no great extent, is chiefly remarkable for its earthworks. It stands upon a chalk ridge, perhaps 150 feet above the valley, and has been isolated towards the south by a curved ditch, about 50 feet deep by 60 feet or 70 feet broad, and about a furlong in length. This ditch works out upon the face of the cliff towards the village, and upon the natural slope in the opposite direction. The ground without, or upon its counterscarp, has not been disturbed. The contents have been thrown inward, and cause the scarp to be crowned by an elevated bank.