on the other hand, is uninteresting, and as its hotels are uninviting, there is every reason for pushing on. Arthur Young went there in 1787, and wrote as follows: ‘At St. Geronds [St. Girons] go to the Croix Blanche, the most execrable receptacle of filth, vermin, impudence, and imposition that ever exercised the patience or wounded the feelings of a traveller. A withered hag, the dæmon of beastliness, presides there. I laid, not rested, in a chamber over a stable, whose effluviæ through the broken floor were the least offensive of the perfumes afforded by this hideous place. It could give me nothing but two stale eggs, for which I paid, exclusive of all other charges, 20f.’ The church was rebuilt in 1857, leaving the fourteenth-century tower only, and the château founded in the thirteenth century, is now the not very interesting Palais de Justice. The way to Le Mas-d’Azil is along the Route de Foix as far as the fork at Lescure, where one goes to the left. There is a stone direction-post in front of the house at the corner. ALTERNATIVE ROUTE TO PAMIERS THROUGH FOIX If, instead of turning to the left, one goes on to Foix, the route described can be rejoined at Pamiers. The distance is 12 kilometres longer than by Le Mas-d’Azil. In the striking picturesqueness of its situation, the medieval castle of Foix, standing on an isolated mass of rock in the midst of a triangular valley, is very remarkable. Of the three great towers, the earliest is the square one on the north side, and the latest the circular one, wrongly ascribed to Gaston Phœbus. The Palais de Justice, which was the former Château des Gouverneurs, is passed on the way up to the castle. The Church of St. Volusien belongs to the fourteenth-century, but preserves a fine Romanesque door of a former building. After passing Lescure the road winds upwards and then falls at an easy gradient in a rocky valley, [Illustration: THE LIMESTONE CAVERN THROUGH WHICH THE ROAD PASSES NEAR MAS D’AZIL. The small arched opening has been cut to make a convenient entrance for the road.] with great grey ridges of rock standing out boldly, their highest points crowned with Calvaries. At Clermont there is a new church, the grey ruin of its castle, and a Calvary. The fields, tilted at every angle, are ploughed with oxen, whose heads are protected with a piece of sheep-skin. THE GROTTE DU MAS-D’AZIL