DESCRIPTION OF THE PIGNADA8. 



taking off their shoes and stockings, catch their own shrimps, gather 

 their own cockles, and knock the oysters off the tiles upon which 

 they are growing, for themselves ; and then retiring to the hulk, 

 where sundry articles of diet may be purchased, make their cannibal 

 pic-nic with the addition of these living creatures. . . . Another 

 pleasing entertainment, much resorted to by both sexes, is spearing 

 fish by torchlight. On a dark night the bay is sometimes brightly 

 illuminated with the glare of the pine-splinters flaming from the 

 prows of boats in iron cradles, and the shouts of laughter tell of un- 

 successful prods with many-pronged spears at the eels and mullet 

 which wriggle or dart round the bright reflection on the water. It 

 requires considerable skill and practice to bring home a large basket- 

 ful, but some" ladies become tolerably expert at this sport." 



And here, amidst all the gaiety of a fashionable watering-place, the 

 residenter or the forester may find a solitude, for which he might 

 seek in vain elsewhere, in the forest of pines. " This, indeed," writes 

 Weld, " is the characteristic feature of Arcachon. The great pine 

 forest of the Landes, locally called pignadas, extends from the A.dour 

 to the Gironde, and is an- extraordinary monument of man's skill and 

 perseverance. 



" Prior to 1789 this vast forest area was — 



' A bare strand 

 Of hillocks heaped from ever-shifting sand, 

 Matted with. thistles and amphibious weeds, 

 Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds.' 



The sand was so fine as to be wafted by the faintest breeze ; while 

 the great sea storms raised huge sand waves, which overwhelmed 

 vegetation, and, rolling inland, frequently carried desolation and 

 destruction among far distant villages and fields. Such was the 

 state of this part of the country when M. Bremontier, an officer in 

 the Government department of the administration of forests of 

 France, conceived the idea of erecting wattle hurdles and boards 

 near the sea, so as to break the storms ; and of sowing in narrow 

 zones, leeward and at right angles to the prevailing wind, seeds of 

 the Pinus Pinaster and common broom, in the proportion of five 

 pounds of the former to two of the latter per acre. The area sown 

 was then covered or thatched with pine branches, care being taken 

 to prevent these being blown away, by pinning them to the ground. 

 In about six weeks the broom seeds produced plants six inches high, 

 which attained the height of two feet at the close of the year. These 



