LA ROCHE GUYON.

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hotel at Plouharnel in 1849, and two gold collars and some fragments of urns were found in them; in the enclosed chamber were human bones, ashes, charcoal, and a good many broken urns.

Our kind friends from Château le Salo had provided an excellent dinner, which we were all quite ready for after our long day's work. It was very delightful to sit on this elevated spot and look across the expanse of rich brown moor, enamelled with tiny flowers and broken by rugged blocks of moss-grown granite, to the sea. The breeze from this came almost too strongly, and threatened to throw our tablecloth down into the chambers below the dolmen which our hostess made a table of.

There was a strange, almost an awful contrast between the mirth of the young ones of our party and the greengrey monstrous stones beside which we sat. A group of barefooted children came and tormented us, chattering their guttural language; but our host poured out a volley of strong-sounding Breton words which seemed to frighten them, for they at once scampered across the moor.

We again examined the grottoes under the dolmen, and then went back to the inn at Plouharnel, where the landlady showed us one of the gold collars found at Roche Guyon, and several celts found elsewhere, in jade and also in bronze.

We found by this time that we had had a hard day's work, and that some days were required to explore the many interesting stones scattered round Plouharnel. To examine them carefully would take several weeks, for the large triangular tract of country between Plouharnel, Erdeven, and Plomel literally teems with dolmens, menhirs, and unex

plored ridges. For those who wish to see as much as possible in a short time, the best way is to sleep at Plouharnel, and next day examine on the Auray road the dolmen of Les Grottes de Grionec.

In a field on the left before reaching it is a dolmen, near the village of Runusto; it is now half-buried in earth, but it has been explored. The Grottes de Grionec are very interesting-three chambers almost buried in a large mound. We had already seen at Vannes the curious articles found in one of the chambers in these grottoes. Some of the supporting stones are carved.

On the right of the road is another dolmen, and farther on, on the same side as the Grottes de Grionec but farther from the road, is a dolmen with four chambers, called Klud-er-ier. Although these grottoes seem all to have been explored, yet we heard of more than one who had found curious relics either in the grottoes or in the excavated earth beside them. There are several other dolmens about nere, and it is wiser to take a guide from Plouharnel so as to avoid losing time in searching for them.

Returning westwards a little way north of Roche Guyon, on the right of the road to Erdeven are some very large menhirs near a windmill; these are called Pierres du Vieux Moulin. Nearly opposite, on the left of the road, are the remains of the avenues of Ste. Barbe. On the right of the mill is a hill with a dolmen on it called Mané-Remor. From here there is a good view over the stone-cumbered plain, and at the bottom of this hill northward is the famous dolmen of Corconno-an enormous sepulchre, now used as a barn. We heard that it had once been inhabited for ten years by an idiot, a native of Corconno. The

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A little way

covering stone is immense, 22 feet long. east of Corconno is a very curious erection—a square of menhirs, once 100 feet square; but most of those remaining are now prostrate.

Another dolmen, on a rising ground called Mané-er-Groah, a gallery with two half-buried chambers, and we are close to the long grey avenues of Erdeven. Although this is the eastern end, the first menhirs are medium size. For some distance ten lines can be traced, and it is supposed they

once reached in a north-west direction about seven thousand feet; but many of them lie prostrate, others have been removed. Still this is the most imposing of all the ranges, and seems to have been the beginning of them. On the right of the avenues is a hill, Mané-Bras, on which are two open dolmens and an unexplored ridge.

Mr. Lukis's handbook is a most valuable and necessary help on these excursions; but even with it and the aid of a pocket-compass it is better to get a boy to act as guide;

for here, as indeed throughout Brittany, the country is intersected with narrow twisting lanes sunk between banks, and often not going in the direction which they seem to promise.

From Plouharnel it is an easy drive to Quiberon. Even without the miserable memory of the ill-fated expedition of 1794, and the butchery executed on Sombreuil and his companions, emigrés and Chouans alike shot down in the Champ des Martyrs and the Garenne, there is something very sad and desolate in this long narrow strip of land. It must have been much more of a desert, however, before the Princess Bacciochi planted the pine-trees, which give a less naked aspect to the isthmus, although they rather enhance its sombreness. Just beyond Fort Penthièvre are the menhirs of St. Pierre, a set of prostrate lines which seem to run into the sea. At Quiberon the isthmus widens slightly into a peninsula, with an excellent and sheltered harbour. Some remains of the old church of Quiberon are to be found in that now existing dedicated to Notre Dame de Locmaria. Mr. Lukis speaks of curious cup-markings on a projecting rock near Port Haliguen.

There are many excursions to be made from Auray besides those to Carnac and its immediate surroundings. Locmariaker should certainly be seen from Auray, even if already visited from Vannes, the road between the two places is so full of interest; and there are also many things to see between Locmariaker and Carnac, among others the château of Plessis-Kaër. But, indeed, throughout the whole department of Morbihan one finds constantly a menhir or dolmen, or the ruins of some Roman road or ancient fortress.

MORBIHAN.

WE

CHAPTER XI.

ST. NICHOLAS.

E had heard a vivid description of the fair of St.. Nicodème, and were anxious to be present at it; but at Auray they seemed to know nothing about it. Even when we reached Baud, and asked the station-master, he shook his head: "Yes, yes, there is a Pardon ; but when it occurs-ma foi, some time in August. That is all I know." saw on the map that

This was discouraging, but as we St. Nicholas des Eaux looked close to St. Nicodème, we decided to go on there by rail, in search of more definite tidings.

We crossed the Blavet, a broad river here, running through a wooded valley. A little way from the station, up the côte, on the left bank of this stream, we came upon the quaint old village of St. Nicholas. It looks so primitive, so sequestered, that doubtless it is rarely visited; even Bretons seem to know nothing about it, and yet its position beside the lovely winding river, its two straggling, irregular lines of granite cottages, hardly to be called a street, running up from the river, shaded by huge spreading chestnut boughs that cross

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