“L’erbo[1] que pousso eici, pès puèts è sus plotèu N’es pas coumo en obal, e pus rudo e pus sono, E sent bon; li troubai l’ourgulhouso cinsono, Que despleguo soi flours jiaunos coumo un dropéu.” Do you understand? “The grass that grows up here, on the puys and the plateau, Is not like that below, it is rougher and more wholesome: It smells good; there you find the proud gentian Who displays her yellow flowers like a banner.” It was after four when we at last reached the _buron_. The cows had come in from the moor to the fold. The milkmen had donned their blouses of grey hemp-linen, which hung in stiff hieratic folds. Each had, tied to his loins, a queer stumpy stool, like some odd sort of bustle. Now they call: “Frijado! Morgorido! Marquise!” Amid a silvery tinkle of cow-bells the beautiful red beasts approach. As each takes her stand, a cow-herd brings up to her a curly red calf. But the poor beastie has scarce pulled a throatful or so of its mother’s milk (its mother or its foster-mother, for at the _buron_ each calf has a mother and a nurse) when a strong arm pulls it away and holds it tightly until the pail is full, when it may resume its supper, while the cow caresses it with a loving maternal tongue. All round the fold the beasts are being milked, the calves are bleating or sucking, the herdsmen are busy. Only in the middle, impassible and haughty, sits the bull, with a look that seems to say: “All this has nothing to do with me. Let them settle it among themselves.” Now the cattle will remain all night in the fold, unsheltered. Every morning three sides of the palisade are displaced, so that the cows never sleep twice in the same bed; and in this primitive fashion, at the end of the summer, the whole pasture has been manured: it is called the _fumado_. After the milking time at dawn the cattle are set free, and all day long they pasture in the _aigado_, or marshy moor, where the gentian, the pink, the meadowsweet and larkspur grow among the rush and the broom, the bilberry and heather. Here the grass is scantier, but sweet and aromatic. To the quantity of wild thyme and savoury herbs in the _aigado_, the peasants attribute the wholesome flavour of the Cantal cheese.