282 TRAVELLING OVER THE MUD. 



which has been adopted by the men,- for each man has not only 

 to paddle his own canoe on these soft fields of mud, but if he 

 have a visitor, he has to paddle his boat as weU. The manner 

 of progression is very primitive. The man kneels in his little 

 wooden vessel with one leg, the other, being encased in a great 

 boot, is fixed deep in the mud ; a lift of the little canoe with 

 both hands, and a simultaneous shove with the mud-engulfed 

 leg, and lo ! a progress of many inches is achieved ; this action, 

 frequently repeated by the industrious labourers, soon overcomes 

 the distance between the different fields; and when a new 

 trousseau has to be carried out to the bouchots, or a stranger 

 has to be conducted over the fields, two men wUl load a canoe, 

 and work it out between them, not, however, without a few jolts 

 and jerks, which, like a ride on a camel's back, is rather tiring 

 to the unaccustomed. When three of the canoes are joined 

 together by means of pieces of stout rope, the boucholier in the 

 first one uses his left leg as the propelling power, while the man 

 in No. 3 uses his right leg, and by this means they get along in 

 a straighter line and with greater speed. This peculiar boat- 

 exercise has not a little of the comic element in it, especially 

 when one sees a fleet of more than a hundred narrow boats all 

 propelled in the same eccentric manner by upwards of one 

 hundred merry boucholiers. I may mention that the mud at 

 Aiguillon is unusually smooth and soft ; there are no sun-baked 

 furrows to interrupt the progress of the canoe, a fact that is due 

 to the presence of a little animal, which accomplishes for the 

 boucholier what a regiment of a thousand soldiers could not 

 perform. 



In addition to the large and strong stakes originally used as 

 holdfasts for his bird-nets, Walton planted others, in long rows, 

 in the form of a double V, with their apex open to the sea, the 

 sides being interlaced with branches of trees, to which the 

 mussels, by means of their byssus, affixed themselves with 

 great aptitude. These bouchots were also so arranged one with 

 another so as to serve as traps for the taking of such fish and 

 crustaceans as frequent the coast; so that the fishermen had 

 thus a double chance, being, of course, always assured, when 

 there is no fish, of a canoeful of mussels. 



The men in search of fish depart for the farm a little 

 time before the tide recedes, and taking their places at the 

 mouth or apex of the V, they affix a smaU net to the opening, 

 so that they are sure to intercept any fish that may have come 



