At Langon we stopped to supper, during which important avocation, we were waited on by a smiling, black-eyed country girl with scarcely a word of French to her back; for be it remembered, that here, on the banks of the Garonne, all the peasantry speak Gascon, as their mothers did before them; and after having made several ineffectual attempts to arrive at our little attendant's intellects, through any other channel than that of her native tongue, I was obliged to have recourse to that as a last resource. Never did I perceive joy and satisfaction so plainly depicted, as in her countenance, when she heard the first two or three words of Gascon which came out of my mouth; but the effect was not so good as might have been anticipated, for in that language she had no lack of expressions, and would fain have entered into a long conversation with me, which put my knowledge to the stretch. However, in the mean time, my companion, from what whim I know not, had persuaded the rest of the people in the house, that I was a Chinese, to which, perhaps, my fur travelling cap lent itself in a degree. He explained to them also, that China was the country from whence tea was brought, and to this, I believe, we were indebted for the best tea the place could afford, and for being stared at all the rest of the evening. We travelled on from Langon with the intention of sleeping at Bazas, but by the time we arrived at that place, the night was so far wasted, that we agreed to continue our route without stopping. The dress of the country people now began to vary; we had no longer the high Rochelle caps, which the women in Bordeaux sometimes wear, and which resemble very much the helmet of Hector, in the picture of his parting from Andromache; nor the neat twisted handkerchiefs, with which the grisettes dress their heads, but, as a substitute, a flat, square piece of linen, brought straight across the forehead, and tied under the chin in the fashion of the Landes. We had lost, too, the neat, pretty foot and well-turned ankle, with the stocking as white as snow, the shoe cut with the precision of an artist, and sandled up the leg with black ribbon; and instead had nothing but good, stout, bare feet, well clothed in dirt, and hardened by trotting over the rough roads of the country. The men were generally dressed in blue carter's shirts with the Bearnais berret, not at all unlike in shape the Scotch blue bonnet, but larger, of a firmer texture, and brown colour.