[83] Salver.

Then we returned back to Tours, wheir we went first to sie their mail[84] (which I counted by ordinar paces of whilk it was 1000.7 arbres).[85] About the distance of less than halfe a league we saw the Bridge that lays over the river of Chere, which payes its tribut to the Loier at Langes,[86] a little beneath Tours.  Next we went and saw some of their churches.  In their principal was hinging a iron chaine by way of a trophee.  I demanding what it might mean, I was told it was brought their by the Chevaliers or Knights of Malta.

    [84] English, mall.  Originally an alley where a game was played with a
        mail, a strong, iron-bound club, with long, flexible handle, and
        a ball of boxwood.

    [85] Arbre (arbour) probably means ’a shaded or covered alley or
        walk.’—­Murray’s New English Dict., s.v.  ‘Arbour.’  The history
        of the word, with its double derivation from the Anglo-Saxon root
        of ‘harbour’ and the Latin arbor, is very curious.  See
        Introduction, p. 1, note 2.

    [86] Langest in Blaeuw’s map, now Langeais.

We lodged at the Innes.[87] To-morrow tymously we took boat for Saumur (St. Louis).  Al the way we fand nothing but brave houses and castles standing on the river, and amongst other that of Monsoreau tuo leagues large from Saumur, wheir the river of Chattellerault or Vienne, which riseth in the province of Limosin, tumbleth it selfe into the Loier; this Monsereau is the limits of 2 provinces; of Torrain, to the east of whilk Tours is the capital, and of Anjou to the west, in whilk is Saumur, but Angiers is the capitall.  When we was wtin a league of Saumurs they ware telling us of the monstrous outbreakings the river had made wtin these 12 years upon all the country adiacent, which made us curious to go sie it.  Whence we landed; and being on the top of the bank we discovered that the river had bein seiking a new channell in the lands adiacent, and had left a litle young Loier behind it; the inundations of this river seims so much the stranger to many, that finding it so shallow generally that we could not go a league but we had our selfes to row and work of some bed of sand or other, makes men to wonder whence it sould overflow so.  Thir beds randers it wery dangerous in the winters; yea in our coming doun we saw in 3 or 4 places wheir boats had bein broken or sunk thir last winter; some part or other of them appearing above as beacons.  In sewerall places it wines so on the land that it makes considerable islands, yea such as may give some rent by year.  At last we landed at Saumur, but before I leive the,[88] fair Loier, what sall I say to thy commedation?  Surely if anything might afford pleasure to mans unsatiable appetit it most be the, give they be any vestiges of that terrestrial paradise extant, then surely they may lively be read in the.  Whow manie leagues together ware their nothing to be sein but beautiful