But never mind, even though this be but the first of many disillusions, and though the "sunny south" become hourly a more humorous catchword. To-day the sun _is_ warm, the breeze is soft, the custom-house officers are civil. We air--but with the caution due to convalescents, or those of tender years--our shaky, tottering French, and get English answers. So we stride across the broad quays of Bordeaux, our hearts before us, our luggage behind, and ourselves in the best of spirits and tempers. Bordeaux, as we saw it, was a cheerful, busy city, full of wide streets and open spaces and handsome buildings; a bright clean, airy, city with little smoke, an immense water frontage, and one very fine bridge: a pleasant etherealized Liverpool, in fact. The white blouses and blue trousers of the workmen, the soldiers' uniforms, the bare heads of some women and the gay 'kerchiefs, worn chignon-wise, of others, gave picturesqueness to the crowds circling about the kiosques, and reminded us, from time to time, that we were in a southern city. Not unnecessarily; for the thermometer fell on the day after our arrival to fifty degrees; and rain fell too, and we were quick to discover the true cause of French vivacity. The French have no fires at home. Consequently, when it is cold--and it often is very cold, even as far South as Bordeaux--their only resource is to go out, and jump about in such faint sunshine as they can find, and so make believe to be warm. Every one in Bordeaux seemed to be doing this that day. We saw a number of churches, but I have jumbled them together in my mind, and dare not distinguish between the beauties of St. Seurin and St. Croix, St. Michel or the Cathedral. Only I attended a service on Sunday morning, and, having heard that no Frenchmen now went to church, noted with interest that of a large congregation one in every four was a man. But then Bordeaux is perhaps the most orthodox city in France, and primitive ideas, good and bad, still prevail in this southwestern province, peopled by descendants of the Huguenots and Albigenses, by devout Basques and simple Navarrese. And two things also in Bordeaux I remember--the semi-circular remains of a Roman amphitheatre, which no one visiting Bordeaux should omit to see; and, secondly, a lofty, detached spire of singular lightness and grace. It is called the Peyberland, and was built by Pierre Berland, who must have been an English subject.