It is pleasant to look at all this from afar, but very unpleasant to be in the midst thereof; for it is a remarkable fact, alike observable in Cologne as in Rouen, that the more historical the city, the more horrible the smells. Coleridge counted in the former city a certain and distinct number of odours vile; we wonder to what numerals his inquiring nose would have extended itself at Rouen. The prevailing type of flavour in the latter city seems to be a compound of extra-sour vinegar, stale slop pails, and burnt india-rubber. It is also unpleasant to be ferried over a rapid river in a thing like a worn-out gondola, with several holes in the direction of the keel, the portentous effects of which the strenuous baling powers of two men with a sardine box and a coffee cup could scarcely allay. It was, however, observed of us before we embarked, by a funny friend who accompanied us, and whose miserable puns often made us melancholy, that if we trusted ourselves to such a craft we should be _in Seine_. No one in these parts, excepting idiots or princes, being in the habit of travelling in a first-class carriage, we started in a second (we mean no pun) _en route_ for Le Mans, in the fresh and healthy society of some young Norman peasant girls. No abominable chignon disfigured the backs of their neat little heads, for there was no necessity with them to shine with borrowed plumes. Their smooth hair was neatly arranged beneath the small linen cap of snowy white, while a striped kerchief was drawn modestly across the breast. "There is no joy without alloy," however, and certainly the old peasant woman up in the corner, with a bottle of red acid liquor and a stout staff of bread--the real staff of life--guarding-like a halberdier the well-closed windows, did not strike the eye as anything peculiarly attractive, excepting perhaps at times, when, from the red acid which she occasionally imbibed, her face took a sympathetic tone, and being completely encircled by her large frill, produced an effect which a rather extravagant imagination might regard as something like that of the setting sun in a nightcap. The girls were young--_she_, doubtless, at some time or other had been so too; but grey moustaches are not generally associated with any distinct type of beauty in ladies. Notwithstanding the aforesaid head-gear she certainly could not be pronounced _cap_-tivating as our punning friend said and, wonderful to say, she knew it!