THE STUDY OF NATURE, 45 
throughout an immense circuit, and perhaps owed to it its name, the 
High Forest. 
At the other end of the enclosure, from a deep sheet of water, 
rose a small ascent, crowned with a garland of pines. These fine 
trees, incessantly beaten by the sea-breezes, and shaken by the 
adverse winds which follow the currents of the great river and its 
two tributaries, groaned in the struggle, and day and night filled the 
profound silence of the place with a melancholy harmony. At times, 
you might have thought yourself by the sea; they so imitated the 
noise of the waves, of the ebbing and flowing tide. 
By degrees, as the season became a little drier, this sojourn ex- 
hibited itself to me in its real character; serious, indeed, but more 
varied than one would have supposed at the first glance, and beauti- 
ful with a touching beauty which went home to the soul. Austere, 
as became the gate of Brittany, it had all the luxuriant verdure of 
the Vendean coast. 
I could have thought, when I saw the pomegranates blooming in 
the open air, robust and loaded with flowers, that I was in the south. 
The magnolia, no dwarf, as we see it elsewhere, but splendid and 
magnificent, and full-grown, like a great tree, perfumed all my garden 
with its huge white blossoms, which contain in their thick chalices an 
abundance of I know not what kind of oil, an oil sweet and penetrat- 
ing, whose odour follows you everywhere; you are enveloped in it. 
We found ourselves this time in possession of a true garden, a 
large establishment, a thousand domestic occupations with which we 
had previously dispensed. A wild Breton girl rendered help only in 
the coarser tasks. Save one weekly journey to the town, we were 
very lonely, but in an extremely busy solitude; rising very early in 
the morning, at the first awakening of the birds, and even before the 
day. It is true that we retired to rest at a good hour, and almost at 
the same time as the birds. 
This profusion of fruits, vegetables, and plants of every kind, 
enabled us to keep numerous domestic animals: only the difficulty 
was, that nourishing them, knowing each of them, and well-known by 
