The tops of the hills here and there are crowned with small round towers with conical roofs.[D] After winding among the hills for several kilometres, there appears a great view towards the east as the road drops into the valley of the Drot above the picturesque village of Eymet. The houses on the road are modern, but behind them is a little medieval town, with its machicolated château grown over with ivy, a picturesque gateway and walls, as well as some interesting Gothic houses. [Illustration: No. 10. BERGERAC TO MONT-DE-MARSAN.] In Miramont, which is entered almost at right angles, one turns to the right for Marmande by a curious arcade of considerable width, which runs beneath some of the old houses. Some of the oldest shops have the primitive doorway and window in one, exactly the same as those one finds in the old Italian towns, and even in Pompeii. The small churches dotted over the country generally have bell-cotes, and are surrounded with sentinel cypresses. Fruit-trees and vineyards are everywhere, and the slow-moving bullock-carts constantly passed make the roads exceedingly attractive. After the village of Seyches the country becomes flatter and flatter, and the road is lined with plane-trees. MARMANDE is entered at a level-crossing, beyond which one goes straight on to the last turning to the right before reaching the river (Garonne). This street leads to an open space, where one goes to the left and crosses the river by a suspension bridge. The church is an interesting building, dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, and has a fine rose-window in the façade. There are three naves and a restored apse of the thirteenth century. Marmande must have been well defended in the Hundred Years’ War, for when the English took it in 1447 they only succeeded by resorting to a ruse. The journey from Marmande to Mont-de-Marsan--a distance of nearly sixty miles--is practically level throughout, and nearly the whole time one is passing through an immense forest. Casteljaloux stands on the edge of this forest, and all the yards are stacked with sawn timber. The town is full of sixteenth-century and earlier houses, and some old _hôtels_. The most remarkable is the Maison des Xaintrailles, or Château de Jeanne d’Albret, of which only a wing survives. The road in passing through the town goes to the right, and then to the left, and to the left again at a fork. South of Casteljaloux great perspectives of yellow road stretch away to a vanishing point among the blue-grey pines. It is not an uncommon thing to pass groups of dark-blue-coated soldiers bivouacking by the roadside, with stacked rifles and their heavy accoutrements deposited on the grass, while the men are lighting fires to cook their field rations. Pompogne is a pretty hamlet in the forest, with a whitewashed church of the eleventh, thirteenth, and sixteenth centuries.