Dark hair, rich complexions, regular features, an animated
expression, are the portion of most, especially of the women, whilst all
wear a look of cheerfulness and health. No rags, no poverty, no squalor;
and the abundance of natural resources brings the good things of life
within reach of all. At the unpretending hotel, the cookery would not
discredit the Hotel de Bristol itself, everything being of the best. I
was served with a little bird which I ate with great innocence, and no
little relish, supposing it to be a snipe, but, on asking what it was, I
found, to my horror, the wretches had served up a thrush! I am sorry to
say a tremendous slaughter of migratory birds goes on at this time of
the year; not only thrushes, but larks, linnets, and other sweet little
songsters supplying the general dinner table. The thrushes feed largely
on grapes, which lend them a delicious flavour when cooked, and for
which nefarious practice on their part they are said to be destroyed. I
was assured that a thrush will eat two bunches of grapes a day, and so
they are killed by the hundreds of thousands, and sold for three
half-pence each, or sometimes a franc per dozen. Thrushes, moreover, are
considered game, and occasionally the gendarmes succeed in catching a
poacher, but so mixed are one's feelings in dealing with this question
that it is impossible to know whether to sympathise with the unfortunate
wine-grower whom the thrush robs of his two bunches of grapes per day,
the poacher who is caught and heavily fined for catching it, or with the
bird itself.
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