80 GENERAL FEATURES OF THE LANDES. 



with the lake of Biscarosse, which is itself connected with that of 

 Cazau. East of this chain of lakes lies the Lande ; west of it 

 stretches the range of Dunes, or sandhills. 



The lake or pool of Cazau is a small sea of fresh water, perfectly 

 clear, profoundly deep, and fourteen to fifteen thousand acres in 

 extent. It has its whirlwinds arid its tempests, so that in certain 

 seasons it is perilous to embark on its surface. And were its banks 

 clothed with rich woods, or raised aloft in irregular or precipitous 

 cliffs, it would surely attract as great a throng of tourists as the 

 mountain-tarns an4 lochs of Scotland or Cumberland, or the Arcadian 

 waters of Northern Italy. The lake of Biscarosse, in form a triangle, 

 with one side formed by the Dunes, covers about twelve thousand 

 acres. It derives its name from a village situated at its northern 

 angle, on the bank of the canal which connects it with the lake of 

 Cazau. The lake of Aureilhan is the smallest of the three ; the 

 St. Eulalie canal, which links it to the preceding, traverses a series 

 of peat-bogs bounded eastward by gloomy pine-forests, and westward 

 by the interminable Dunes, which, by arresting the flow of the rain- 

 waters, have really created these so-called lakes and extensive swamps. 

 Enormous quantities of rain fall every year in the Landes, which 

 district the Romans would certainly have dedicated to Jupiter 

 Pluvius, and find beneath the thin superficial stratum or crust of 

 sand and earth, a sub-soil of tufa and allios in other words, of com- 

 pact chalk and sand agglutinated by a ferruginous sediment. Fre- 

 quently this tufa possesses all the hardness of stone, and its impervi- 

 ousness is its fundamental property. Hence it follows, that a portion 

 of the heavy annual rainfall remains in the receptacles provided by the 

 hollows and depressions of the soil, and in due time accumulates into 

 marshes and lagoons, until gradually evaporated by the heat of spring. 



When of old the scared peasants beheld the irresistible advance 

 of these strange ministers of destruction, they had no other resource 

 than to fell their woods, abandon their dwellings, and surrender their 

 " little all " to the pitiless sand and devouring sea. What could 

 avail against such a scourge ? Efforts were made to repel it. It is 



