DISORIPTION OP DUNES. 16 



broken surface, the same extent of undulation, the billows of sand 

 being upheaved by the wind like the billows of the sea, and sharing 

 in their mobility. You must see, says a writer, in order to form an 

 idea of those colossal masses of fine sand, which the wind incessantly 

 skims, and which travel in this way towards the inland country ; you 

 must see their contours so softened that they look like mountains of 

 plaster of Paris polished by the workman's hand, and their surface so 

 mobile that a little insect leaves upon it a conspicuous track ; their 

 slopes, at every degree of inclination ; their everlasting sterility — 

 not a blade of grass, not an atom of vegetation ; their solitude, less 

 imposing than that of the mountains, but still of a truly savage 

 character. You must see, from the summit of one of these ridges, the 

 ocean on your right hand, and on your left the extensive lakes which 

 border the littoral ; and, in the midst of this tumultuous sea of tawny 

 sand, green grassy valleys, rich and fertile pastures, smiling oases of 

 verdure, where herds of horses graze, and cows, half-wild, guarded by 

 shepherds scarcely less wild than they. 



" The marked characteristic of the Dunes, as we have already said, 

 is their mobility, which renders them a constant menace for the 

 neighbouring populations. To the wind which creates them they 

 owe their frequent changes and their inland movement. While the 

 sea eats into the coast, assisted by the breezes which gradually sweep 

 clear the ground before it, the Dunes extend, and drive before them 

 the shallow lakes : these in their turn encroach upon the Laudes, and 

 until now man has been constrained to recoil, step by step, before his 

 threefold enemy. It is in this phenomenon, rather than in the un- 

 grateful soil of the Landes, that we must seek the cause of the curse 

 which has seemed so long to rest upon this country-side. You must 

 go back some twenty centuries to trace the origin of the Dunes of 

 Gascony. Fourteen or fifteen hundred years ago the coast north of 

 the Adour was inhabited, and comparatively flourishing. Mimizan 

 was then a town and a sea-port, from which were exported the resinous 

 products of the neighbouring forests. The Normans disembarked 

 there on several occasions. Under its walls, in 506, was fought a 

 great battle between the allied Goths and Ostrogoths on the one side, 

 and the Bearnais, commanded by a bishop of Lescar, on the other. 

 Both town and port to-day are buried under the sands. ' Full fathom 

 five ' lie church and convent, and the busy street, the noisy mart, and 

 the once peaceful home. The present village has nearly perished : 

 the Dune was not three yards from the church when its progress was 

 recently arrester). Other cities, laid down in old charts of the country, 



