Of the four summers which the writer of this 'Chronicle of the Wayside and
Waterside' spent by Aquitanian rivers, the greater part of two provided the
impressions that were used in 'Wanderings by Southern Waters.' Although
the earlier pages of the present work, describing the wild district of the
Upper Dordogne, through which the author passed into Guyenne, belong, in
the order of time, to the beginning of his scheme of travel in Aquitaine,
the summers of 1892 and 1893, spent chiefly in Périgord and the Bordelais,
furnished the matter of which this volume is mainly composed. Hence the
title that has been given to it.
It may be thought that there is not a sufficient separation of interest,
geographically speaking, between the tracts of country described in the two
books. The author regrets that it is not possible to convey in a few words
an idea of the extent of the old English Duchy of Aquitaine as it was
defined by the Treaty of Brétigny. Still less easy would it be to deal
rapidly with its physical contrasts, its relics of the past, and its
historical associations. Surely no writer could pretend to have exhausted
the interest of such a subject even in two volumes.
Before the final expulsion of the English, Aquitaine was gradually taking
the name of Guyenne; but when this designation came to be definitively
applied, at the time of the Renaissance, Gascony was not included in
it, nor were Poitou, Saintonge, Angoumois and Limousin. Even when thus
restricted in its meaning, Guyenne still represented a very considerable
part of France, including as it did the regions or sub-provinces known as
the Bordelais, Périgord, the Agenais, the Rouergue, and the Quercy.
If the author's work during the fifteen years that he has been living in
France has served to make the people, the scenery, and the antiquities of
this ever-fascinating country somewhat better known to those who speak
the English language, he believes that it is to his favourite mode of
travelling that such good fortune must be largely attributed. His faring on
foot has caused him to see much that he would otherwise have never seen;
it has also widened his knowledge of his fellow-men, and has helped him to
control prejudices which are not to be entirely overcome, but ever remain
an insidious snare to the traveller and student of manners.