THE LANDES OF GASCONY. 581 



it produced only ferns, ruslies and heath, and scarcely furnished 

 pasturage for a few half-starved flocks. To crown its miseries, 

 this plain was continually threatened by the encroachments of the 

 dunes. Vast ridges of sand, thrown up by the waves for a dis- 

 tance of more than fifty leagues along the coast, and continually 

 renewed, were driven inland by the west wind, and, as they rolled 

 over the plain, they buried the soil and the hamlets, overcame all 

 resistance, and advanced with fearful regularity. The whole prov- 

 ince seemed devoted to certain destruction, when Bremontier in- 

 vented liis method of fixing the dunes by plantations of the mari- 

 time pine." * 



Although the Landes had been almost abandoned for ages, 

 they show numerous traces of ancient cultivation and prosperity, 

 and it is principally by means of the encroachments of the sands 

 that they have become reduced to their present desolate condi- 

 tion. The destruction of the coast towns and harbors, which 

 furnished markets for the products of the plains, the damming 

 up of the rivers, and the obstruction of the smaller channels of 

 natural drainage by the advance of the dunes, were no doubt very 

 influential causes ; and if we add the drifting of the sea-sand over 

 the soil, we have at least a partial explanation of the decayed agri- 

 culture and diminished population of this great waste. When 

 the dunes were once arrested, and the soil to the east of them 

 was felt to be secure against invasion by them, experiments, in 

 the way of agricultural improvement by drainage and plantation, 

 were commenced, and they have been attended with such signal 

 success, that the complete recovery of one of the dreariest and 

 most extensive wastes in Europe may be considered as both a 

 probable and a near event, f 



* J^tudes ForestUres, p. 250. See, also, Reoltts, La Terre, f., 105, 106. 



f Lavergne, ^conomie Burale de la Frariee, p. 300, estimates the area of 

 the Landes of Gascony at 700,000 hectares, or about 1,700,000 acres. The 

 same author states (p. 304), that when the Moors were driven frora Spain by 

 the blind cupidity and brutal intolerance of the age, they demanded permis- 

 sion to establish themselves in this desert ; but political and religious pre- 

 judices prevented the granting of this liberty. At this period the Moors were 

 a far more cultivated people than their Christian persecutors, and they had 

 carried many arts, that of agriculture especially, to a higher pitch than any 

 other European nation. But France was not wise enough to accept what 



