12 APPEARANCE OF THE LANDES, 



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 Eomans would certainly have dedicated to Jupiter 

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

 sand and earth, a sub-soil of tii^a 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 

 imperviousness 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? Efibrts were made to repel it. It is 

 said that Charlemagne, during a brief residence in the Landes, on 

 his return from his expedition against the Saracens, employed his 

 veterans, and expended large sums of money in preserving the cities 

 of the coast from imminent ruin ; but whether the means employed 

 were insufficient, or whether the imperial resources failed, and other 

 urgent needs diverted the population and their leaders from this 

 struggle against nature, the works were wholly abandoned." 



But in more propitious circumstances the work has been resumed 

 with better success. 



" The reader," says the writer I have quoted, " must not believe 

 this country to be a desert in the popular acceptation of the word ; 

 it has its forests of pines, where the extraction and pi-eparation of 

 resinous matter are carried on with considerable activity. It has its 

 small towns, its pretty villages, its factories, and even its handsome 

 villas. Finally, modern industry has cut the Landes in two by the 

 Bordeaux railway, which traverses them from north to south, and 

 bifurcates at Morans to throw ofi" a line to Bayoune, and another to 

 Tarbes." 



