DESCRIPTI0N OP THE LANDES. 11 



landscape, are generally mere isolated huts, separated oftentimes by 

 many miles. Bound them spreads a miserable field or two, planted 

 with such crops as might be expected on a poor soil and from 

 deficient cultivation. The cottages are mouldering heaps of sod and 

 unhewn and unmortared stones, clustered round with ragged sheds 

 composed of masses of tangled bushes, pine-stakes and broad-leaved 

 reeds, beneath which the meagrest looking cattle conceivable find a 

 precarious shelter. 



" The Landes are divided into the Little Landes, near Mont-de- 

 Marsan ; and the Great Landes, stretching to the north and west of 

 the department of which that town is the capital, and uniting unin- 

 terruptedly with those that occupy the vast country situated south of 

 the Gironde. The total superficial area of these plains is estimated 

 at upwards of 2,400,000 acres, of which two-thirds belong to the de- 

 partment of the Landes, and the remainder to that of the Gironde." 



Again — '* In shape, the Great Landes may be compared to an 

 immense rectangular triangle, having for its base the coast, which, 

 from the mouth of the Gironde to Bayonne, or for a length of more 

 than sixty leagues, is almost rectilineal. But they are separated 

 from the sea by a long parallel chain of lakes and water-courses — 

 a waste of shallow pools — a labyrinth of gulfs and morasses, and then 

 by the continuous chain of the Dunes. 



" That which is commonly called the Great Lande is bounded on the 

 north by the etang, or lake, of Cazau. It is a sandy, treeless plain, and 

 upon which, for a traject of several leagues from east to west, not 

 one habitation worthy of the name is perceptible until the traveller 

 arrives at Mimizan, near the southern point of the lake of Aureilhan. 

 This lake on the south-west pours its waters into the sea. To the 

 north it communicates, through the canal of St. Eulalie, 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 sand hills. 



** 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 and 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 and 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 



