With this digression I bid farewell to Yvetot, and its Lilliputian
kingdom; nor will I detain you much longer on the way to Rouen, the road
passing through nothing likely to afford interest in point of historical
recollection or antiquities; though within a very short distance of the
ancient Abbey of Pavilly on the one side, and at no great distance from
the still more celebrated Monastery of Jumieges on the other. The houses
in this neighborhood are in general composed of a framework of wood,
with the interstices filled with clay, in which are imbedded small
pieces of glass, disposed in rows, for windows. The wooden studs are
preserved from the weather by slates, laid one over the other, like the
scales of a fish, along their whole surface, or occasionally by wood
over wood in the same manner. I am told that there are some very ancient
timber churches in Norway, erected immediately after the conversion of
the Northmen, which are covered with wood-scales: the coincidence is
probably accidental, yet it is not altogether unworthy of notice.
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