WEIiD S DESCBIPTION OP THE LANDES. 3 



. . . Lighted by huge wax candles, I walked long and wonderingly 

 through alleys lined by hogsheads, or barriques, as they are called. 

 The value of these, as I was informed, was £1 20,000. There 

 are generally 10,000 barriques in store, for the most part cob- 

 webbed and venerable vessels emitting a peculiar aroma, something 

 like that of new hay ; for your first-class claret requires to be kept 

 many years before it is ripe for post-prandial honours." 



But sterile as seem the lands of the Medoc, where such treasures 

 are produced, they come short in this respect of the appearance 

 presented by the Landes of the Gironde, which have no such 

 tales to tell of fruit and wine. 



" A few miles from Bourdeaux," he writes, " you enter the Landes, 

 across which the line is carried to Bayonne. Nothing can be more 

 dreary than these apparently interminable wastes. Your passage 

 across them suggests ideas of the ocean, with this great difference 

 however, that whereas the latter is rarely at rest, the vast tract of 

 the Landes, comprising 600,000 hectares, equal to 1,482,600 acres, 

 except when swept by hurricanes, presents a still and monotonous 

 surface. The soil is sand — endless sand — vertically as well as 

 superficially. Artesian wells have been sunk to nearly the depth of 

 1,000 feet, and then a scanty supply of wretched yellow water has 

 been the only result. As may be supposed, the lives of the inhabitants 

 of this unpromising region are short, feverish, and sickly. The 

 Landais have a proverb — 



' Tant que Landes sera Landes 

 LapeUagri te demande.' 



The said pellagri, being a fatal disease occasioned by malaria 

 and bad water. Amidst these wastes, lying to the east of the pine 

 forests which fringe the sea coast, the Landais, who are with few 

 exceptions shepherds, spend the long summer days with their flocks 

 of sheep, each animal being as well known to them as their dogs. 

 The T-fl.nHa.in shepherd is a primitive being, fond of solitude, rarely 

 venturing near the railway ; when he does, he gazes wonderingly at 

 the passing train — so to see him, you must penetrate into his wilder- 

 ness. There, amidst the great wastes, clothed in sheeps* skins, and 

 wearing the Navarre cap, you will find him mounted on tall stilts, 

 become, from long habit, like a second pair of legs, for he has been 

 accustomed to them from childhood ; probably knitting while his 

 flock cross the scanty herbage. There he stands, resting against his 

 pole, a strange tripod-looking figure — stranger still when he strides 



