One of the most spontaneous, infectious laughs that I have ever heard, was in the market place at Bordeaux, from a market woman keeping one of the stalls. It was like the trill of a lark springing upwards for pure, light-hearted impulse of gaiety. In it seemed impressed the whole soul of humour.

There is so much in a laugh. Some laughs make one instantly desire to be grave: some are absolutely mirthless, but are part of one's conventional equipment, and come in handy when some sort of a conversational squib has been thrown into the midst of a drawing-room full of people, and does not go off as it was expected to do. But the laugh born of the very spirit of humour itself is rare indeed.

The laugh of the woman in the market place at Bordeaux, was one of these last. What provoked it I have forgotten, but I rather fancy it was in some way connected with my camera, as a few moments later she was exclaiming to her companions, her whole face beaming with pleasure, "Ah! je suis pris! je suis pris!" Her voice was like a little, dancing, sparkling Yorkshire beck that is continually and musically, garrulous. It was full of those little sympathetic descents, when pitying or condoling, which never fall on one's ear so delicately as from a Frenchwoman's tongue. How heavily drag most of our own chariot wheels of voice modulation compared with hers! For her sentences in this respect are all coloured, and ours are often inexpressive, often humourless.

It may be—and perhaps this is a possible hypothesis—that our words mean more than hers, but to be bald, if only in expression, is almost as bad as to be bald on the top of one's head!

In the market our first glimpse in the dull gloom of the tarpaulins, was of huge pumpkins sliced open, their vivid yellow showing in sharp outline against the sooty black of the flapping canvas: cool pineapples wearing still their soft prickly leaves and stalks; the dull crimson of the beetroot: the large open baskets filled with ceps, (the fungus common in the neighbourhood, which is like a mushroom, only much larger, and with tiny roots at its base), and with the curious looking bits of warty earth, or dried, dingy sponges, which truffles resemble more than anything else, when first gathered. There was a continuous conversation from all quarters going on as we entered the market, which fell on one's ears like the roar of surf on a distant shore.

In one corner, a little party of four stall holders was sitting down to dinner. The inevitable little bottle of red wine figured on the table, and some hot stew had just been produced, accompanied by the familiar twisted roll of bread which is always a welcome adjunct to any board, whether of high degree or low—the medium betwixt the bread and lip of course being the knife of peculiar shape which one sees everywhere.

Everywhere one met with a ready smile, charming courtesy and kindly interest. For some unknown reason we were taken for Americans in almost every place to which we went! Occasionally, I must confess, I received more "interest" than I care for. For instance, when sketching in the Rue Quai-Bourgeois, I was sometimes aimed at from an upper window with bits of stale bread and apple parings, which luckily failed of their mark and fell harmlessly at my feet! And when trying to "take" some old doorway, people, now and again governed by the idea that human nature must always surpass in interest their dwellings, would strike a pose in the doorway, or leaning against the doorpost itself, hinder one's getting sight of it in its entirety.

Not content even with this, it did on occasion happen that a man would come so close to the lens of the camera that he literally blocked it up! Once a whole family party came down and stood, or sat, in becoming attitudes before the door, all having assumed the pleasing smile which they consider to be a sine qu non on such occasions. It really went to my heart not to take them, but I was reserving my last plate that afternoon for a particularly charming old doorway farther on. As I turned away I saw with the tail of my eye the smiles smoothing themselves out, the man's arm slipping down from the waist of the girl beside him, the surprised disappointment sweeping across the group of faces like a cloud across the sun, and I almost "weakened" on my doorway!

I remember once, some years ago, in Belgium, my modest camera attracted so much attention that I speedily became the centre of an enormous crowd, which increased every minute in bulk, so that at last the street was blocked and all traffic suspended.

Bordeaux is a city of barrels. They are the first thing you see as you leave the station. They line the quay side: barrels yellow, barrels green, barrels blue. They meet you daily as you pass along the streets, whether they lie along the road, or whether they are being conveyed in one of the large, fenced-in carts, whose horses are covered with a faded "art-green" horse cloth, and who wear over the collar a curious black wool top-knot.