The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1930-04-11

yOnu Cnat ZO-mlle route eXtenQ the
RhOne's northern canal connections
whereby barges can travel inland from
Bordeaux to French channel ports.
The most recently completed canal
Marseilles-to-Calais line. This is $50
miles long, or considerably shorter
than the sea route
The Canal du Midi Is not only an
important commerce carrier; it is
among the most beautiful of French
waterways. Immediately beyond TOu-
louise it traverses series of wood
land vistas, a ceaseless interplay Of
lights, shadows and reflections, that
change with each turn of this endless
ly twisting stream.
The Midi canals picturesque charac-
ter is due to the magnificent trees
which line its banks for more than
100 miles. Here are venerable oak
glades, there alleys of plane trees,
and yonder spear-straight pines or
somber walls of cypress. Often, in
deed, ranks of these different species
parallel each other in a multiplied
depth of sylvan shelter. The lovely
curves and green wealth of foliage are
alike due to its planners method Of
mitigating, for the benefit of barge
traffic, the sweeping winds of the
region.
Nothing less than the epithet "fish-
ability" could convey a picture of the
Midrs anglers, squatting in endless
succession along the canal bank. The
approach of boats scarcely stirs them
from their piscine dreams.
Land of Troubadours.
Beyond Toulouse one has left Cas-
cony behind and is well into Langue-
doc. Gascony, LanguedOc, Provence
names how redolent of history and ro-
nance!
For Gascony read Vasconia, and con-
jure up ghosts of the Basque-speaking
VaScons who, in the Sixth century,
crossed the Pyrenees and gave their
infusion of Spanish blood to the Midi.
Earlier still, the region was part of
the Roman Aquitania. The name re-
calls Eleanor of Aquitaine who, at her
marriage to Henry of Anjou, later
Henry III, lowered the English crown
with a goodly portion of southern
France.
Languedoc brings to mind that early
culture, including rhetoric schools,
splendid amphitheaters, and fine tenn
pies, upon which successive hordes of
arbarians-Vandals, Suevi, and Visi-
goths-imposed temporary kingdoms,
incidentally contributing their re-
spective blood strains to the Midi.
Provence is "short" for Provencia
Romano, as the Romans named their
earliest conquest in Gaul Yet, far
from being what we moderns mean by
provincial, this little corner Of coun-
try developed, through its Eleventh
century joglars, or professional enter
tainers in jugglery and in poetry Of
the local vernacular, an entire prov
encal' literature which imbued south
ern France, northern Italy and Spain.
From many remote blood strains and
from constant transpyrenean infiiltra-
tons has sprung up the Midi type
dark-skinned, glowing eyed, often Sar-
acenlike.
Busy Market-Day Scenes.
Castelnaudray tempts one ashore for
that busiest of sights, market town
on market day. One of it's leafy squares
is reserved for vegetable sellers, a sec
ond for poultry and game, and a third
for horse dealing. Down one street
come cartfuls of huge hampers con-
tanning mixed families of ducks and
rabbits. Down another come peasants
bicycling into town. with geese sitting
sedately arrow in trays attached to the
handlebars.
Trade is brisk, and by noon the
world and his wife are walking home
ward with sQuirming rabbits and cack-
ling chickens under their arms. AS
for the horse fairs in Rosa Bonheur's
native countryside, they are just such
animated sights as her famous can
vases portray.
Carcassonne, on the Midi canal, is
two towns in one. The Cite is COM
pletely ASSOCIATED from Carcassones
Vile Basse, or lower town. The for
mer is steep hill, its crest encircled
with mighty walls, hardly less than
mile around, thronged with tall towers
showing candle-snuffer tops-the epito-
me of high-perched, rawbridge-guard-
ed medievalism, profiled against fleacy
clouds adrift in the blue.
Famous carcassonne.
For Is centuries it has stood thus,
The Cite of Carcassonne.
Beyond the fact that the Roman en-
pire gave government to Carcaso,
as it was then called, and classed it
as a mobile" or elected" city, little of
Carcassonne's history emerges until the
Fifth century. 1t was then that the
Visigoths fortified this strategic point,
which commands half a dozen Pyren-
can passes, by erecting the Cite on the
ruins of Roman ramparts, utilizing
their knowledge of Roman fortifica-
lions.
For 1900 years these Notifications
have been accommodating the cobwebs
of history. Here East met West and
North met South, in the succession of
foreign conquerors who came and
went now besieging the Cite and now
modifying it into what was acclaimed
by Viollet-le-Duc, its chief restorer, as
the most picturesque and most nearly
II. q e.