442 FRANCE.

hosiery, cutlery, leather, and paper. Epernay seemed, though old, to be better built, and less filthy, than any town I had before passed in France. The road was by the side of the Marne, through the towns of Dormans and Chateau-Thierry, when, to avoid the curvature of one ofits larger bends, it left the banks, and reached the river again at La Ferte sous Jouarre, near the junction of the Morin, a smaller stream. The towns I have noticed have nothing remarkable about them, but the numerous villages have a wretched appearance. The houses of the peasants, and there are no others, are mostly constructed of thin weather boarding, and a very few of them were covered with plaster, but the greater part admitted the air at every joining, and almost all were covered with shingles. There are neither decent houses nor any trees to be seen on the plains of Champagne. s From La Ferte to the city of Meaux, the land and the appearance of the people and their habitations, were much improved; the fields seemed to be better cultivated, and here and there a stack of wheat was to be seen. The whole district between Chalons and Meaux, with a few slight exceptions, is rather a heavy soil, and I saw no plough at work with less than four horses, and frequently five or six were attached to them. The city of Meaux is finely situated in the midst of rich natural meadows, the best[ have remarked since entering France. On these much cattle is reared and fattened; there are some dairies, which furnish good butter and cheese, and the ground a little elevated above the river is fertile in corn. The Marne divides the city into two parts. A canal, upon à very extensive, and, I should think, an unnecessarily expensive scale, is constructing, designed to connect the Marne with the Seine.