Through Spain to the Sahara. Matilda Betham-Edwards

N a golden autumn afternoon we found ourselves in the old city of Tours, bound for Spain and the enchanted lands lying north of the Great Sahara. Pleasant it was to look backward and forward; backward to the busy life in England, forward to the bright holiday of travel, repeating to ourselves again and again the sentiment, if not the words, of Catullus:—

“Jam mens prætrepidans avet vagari,

Jam læti studio pedes vigescunt,

Oh! dulces comitum, valete, coetus,

Longe quos simul a domo profectus

Diversæ variæ viæ reportant.”

We were to be made so much richer and so much wiser by the experiences of the next few weeks; a new country was about to be mapped out on our chart: we were to speak another language, breathe another atmosphere, feel the influences of another religion. For the present we were at home, among French faces and French voices; and, however impatient we might be to reach the wonderful country lying beyond the Pyrenees, we could but willingly linger in these lovely border-lands.

It was Sunday, and our hearts were yet full of the tender beauty of the region through which we had come, when we reached Tours, and joined the stream of church-goers. The Cathedral on that glowing autumn afternoon was a sight to remember, standing as it did against a bright blue sky, with a rosy flush of sunset upon its spires. Nothing can be richer than the façade, and yet so simple is the construction as a whole, that one comes away with a clear idea of it in every part. We lingered in the light for a little, and then went in. A mediæval-looking priest, with shaven head, was preaching to a crowd of reverent peasants—and we listened, no less reverent, to a sermon that might have been preached hundreds of years ago. The preacher had a melancholy, monastic face, and a fervid eloquence that would, perhaps, have stirred up any other congregation, though none could have been more devout than these simple-hearted vintagers and farmers. We stayed till the sermon drew to a close, and then went on by train to Mettray.

It was at Tours that the Saracens were driven back, and it seemed to us a good starting-point for a journey which had for one of its objects the study of Moorish monuments in Spain. We amused ourselves with speculating upon the condition of Europe had the Saracens succeeded at Tours. But for that defeat, we might have had now—who knows?—a Caliphate at Marseilles, and, perhaps, a Cordova at Oxford. But, no; climate, if not Anglo-Saxon spirit, would have driven the sunshine-loving Moors from our island, so that, even in dreams we cannot spread Islamism farther than the Rhine—which is a consolation to good churchmen and patriots!

I purpose narrating our journey from the very beginning, because on our way from Paris to Bayonne we made two excursions which I should strongly recommend to every one; firstly, to the great agricultural Reformatory of Mettray, and secondly, to the Protestant Orphanages of La Force in the province of La Dordogne. We reached Mettray in about twenty minutes. Such a sweet, peaceful, little spot lying in the heart of the wine-country! The village postman conducted us, through a dusky winding road that was all a-twitter with the twilight songs of birds, to a large Swiss cottage that proved to be an inn, where we slept as if we had lived there all our lives.

The chirping of the birds woke us early, and we hastened to pay our visit to la Colonie, as the great Reformatory is cheerfully and properly called. For Mettray is neither more nor less than a collection of farms and factories, carried on by such waifs and strays of society as its humane founders have been able to snatch from destruction. Once having entered the gates, the whole system of the place suggested itself to us. To our right, to our left, peeped from the trees pretty-looking farm-buildings and workshops, all resounding with the noise of the wheel, the hammer, the saw, and the turning-lathe, and made sunny and pleasant with trellised vines and well-kept gardens. Every place was orderly, quiet, and cheerful; and, as we passed along, the young farmers and artisans greeted us, if not with blithe, at least with contented faces. Leaving our letters of introduction at the porter’s lodge, we made a survey of the place accompanied by an intelligent person employed as superintendent of the boys. Our first object of interest—for we knew something of agriculture ourselves—was the farm; and here was meat and drink to delight the most orthodox Suffolk farmer going. Beautifully stalled bullocks; pigs, cleanly littered or scampering about, of the proper breed, small of bone, long of body, sleek of skin; stores of grain, of root, and of forage; a good supply of modern farm-implements—in fine, every accessory to good farming on a miniature scale.

Then we passed on to the workshops, which were like so many hives, only a little quiet, considering the age of the bees. Some of these workmen, in blue blouses and wooden shoes, were mere mannikins of six or seven years old; but if to a stranger the discipline appears a little hard, it must be remembered that each and all have been snatched from the discipline of prison. All these eight hundred boys, whom we saw working under such kind

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