Spiers: Memoranda of an autumn tour in 1836

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CONT. AUG. 17. WED.

us to show the way to Rochfort. Over high hills & across green valleys which others were constantly joining, in sight of & passing by or through new woods & old woods, cornfields & grass land did our varied road traverse. Here a long avenue of trees leading up a slope to the village church. There a herd of cows driven by girls & boys who appear to have the management of these animals every where in this country. Now a tombstone under a hedge describing how a man was struck dead in this place by the thunder. Then again while looking at the reapers of corn who every where saluted us with the bon jour, we should perceive the top [of] a steeple rising as it were out of the very field in which they were at work; anon a few yards progress showed us its little village so completely under us in the valley that it appeared as if we could have thrown a stone of it. Then the black berries that we met with & fed upon, oh, most truly did they inform us that the little boys of this country are either less numerous or less industrious than those of our own or surely the roadside would not have detained us so long. After leaving Chevretogne the road became more difficult to discover & our guides, the working people in the fields, very rare. We had hitherto kept to the road which appeared best frequented but now on trying our compass on the excellent map of the Duchy of Luxembourg, we preferred using the scientific indicator. But again in five minutes would the road again separate & thus 10 or 12 times in the course of a league were we compelled to recur to our valued friends. For three miles we saw no one to ask the way & when on reaching a village we found we had arrived at Frandeux, which was the one we had been searching, we congratulated ourselves on our skill & good luck & so did the old women we spoke to. The remaining league was not difficult to find

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