Sometimes on the narrow pavement we ran up against a donkey belonging to some water-carrier selling water from the Rhône in barrels. We also encountered troops of sunburnt gleaners, newly returned from the country, carrying on their heads the heavy load of gleanings, and beside these the vendors of snails, shouting at the pitch of their voices: “Who will buy fresh snails from the fields!” About sunset we inquired of a woman, who stood just outside the fish-market knitting a stocking, if she could direct us to some little inn or tavern, unpretentious, but clean, where we could dine in simple apostolic fashion. The woman, thinking we were joking, cried out to her neighbours, who, at her shout of laughter, came to their doors coifed with the coquettish headgear of Arles. “See, here are some gentlemen looking for a tavern at which to sup--do you know of one?” “Send them,” cried one, “to the Rue Pique-Monte.” “Or to the ‘Little Cat,’” said another. “Or to the ‘Widow Come Here.’” “Or to the Gate of the Chestnuts.” “Don’t mock us, my dears,” said I. “We want some quiet little place within the reach of anybody, where honest people go.” “Very well,” said a fat man seated on a post, smoking his pipe, with a face coloured like a beggar’s gourd, “why not go to Counënc’s? See here, gentlemen, I will conduct you,” he continued, rising and shaking out his pipe; “I have to go by that way. It is on the other side of the Rhône, in the suburb of Trinquetaille. It is not an hotel of the first order, my faith, but the watermen, the bargees and the boatmen who come from Condrieu, feed there and are not discontented. The owner is from Combs, a village near Beaucaire, which supplies some bargemen. I myself, who have the honour of addressing you, am master of a boat, and I have done my share of sailing.” We inquired if he had been far afield. “Oh no,” he replied, “I have only sailed in the small coasting trade as far as Havre-de-Grace, but it is a true saying that there is never a boatman who does not face danger--and for sure, had it not been for the Great Saintes-Maries, who have always protected me, there are many times, my friends, when we should have gone under.” “And they call you?” “Master Gafet! Always at your service should you at any time run down to Sambuc or to Graz to see the vessels embedded in the sand at the river’s mouth.” So, chatting pleasantly, we arrived at the bridge of Trinquetaille, at that time still a bridge of boats. As we passed over the moving planks which connected the chain of boats one felt beneath the heaving river, powerful and living, on whose mighty bosom one rose and sank as it drew breath. Having crossed the Rhône, we turned to the left on the quay, and there, beneath an old trellis, bending over the trough of the well, we saw--how shall I describe her?--a kind of witch, and one-eyed to boot, scraping and opening some lively eels. At her feet some cats were gnawing and fighting as she threw the heads down to them.