Half-sliding, half-rolling, we soon reached the bottom of a narrow valley of gloomy aspect. A feeble brook flowed silently and slowly among thick reeds, and over its crumbling banks hung a few moss-grown tree-trunks. The road crossed the stream by a bridge of a single arch, and, climbing the farther hill, cut a white track across a wide, barren, and naked _lande_ whose crest stood out sharply against the horizon in front of us. Near the bridge and close to the road was a ruined hovel. Its air of desolation struck to the heart. A young, robust man was splitting wood by the door; his long, fair hair was fastened at the back by a black ribbon. He raised his head, and I was surprised at the strange character of his features and at the calm gaze of his blue eyes. He greeted me in an unknown tongue and with a quiet, soft, and timid accent. A woman was spinning at the cottage window; the style of her hair and dress reproduced with theatrical fidelity the images of those slim chatelaines of stone we see on tombs. These people did not look like peasants; they had, in the highest degree, that easy, gracious, and serious air we call distinction. And they had, too, the sad and dreamy expression often seen among people whose nationality has been destroyed. I had got down to walk up the hill. The _lande_, which was not separated from the road, extended all round me as far and farther than I could see; stunted furze clung to the black earth on every side; here and there were ravines, clefts, deserted quarries, and low rocks, but no trees. Only when I had reached the high ground I saw the distant sombre line of the heath broken by a more distant strip of the horizon. A little serrated, blue as the sea and steeped in sunlight, it seemed to open in the midst of this desolation the sudden vision of some radiant fairy region. At last I saw Brittany!