20 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
Les Grandes Landes , or the great lieatli3 or 
barrens, is a district in the south-west corner of 
France, stretching from Bordeaux to Bayonne, 
a distance of over a hundred miles in length, and 
from the Atlantic Ocean on the west thirty miles 
inland. This piece of country is of the dreariest 
character, and were it not that the high road from 
Western France to Spain passes through the 
center of it, it would be deserted altogether to 
its ragged sheep and three-legged shepherds. It 
is a wretched sandy waste, bounded on one 
side by sand-hills and salt-marshes of the coast, 
and thence stretching eastward, a barren plain, 
occupied by a stunted vegetation of prickly 
bushes, starved pines and heaths, which grow, 
or rather barely exist, in the soil of loose sand 
. and gravel. The inhabitants and their dwellings 
are equally wretched, and very few and scat¬ 
tered. Probably the first sight that would strike 
the attention of the traveler crossing these plains 
would be a strange thing moving along in the 
distance, not unlike an ostrich that had had its 
neck cut off 1 ; the long legs making immense 
strides, and the rough hairy or feathery body 
jerking and swinging in its progress. By and 
by other similar objects would be descried in 
the distance, stationary, and with three legs 
stretched out like the legs of a long stool. As 
they are approached these figures are seen to 
THE SHEPHERD 0 
be human beings, probably men, but as they arc 
dressed in sheep-skins and their clothes are cut 
in a strange manner, one can not judge of their 
sex very well, and when they are found, on close 
inspection, to be knitting socks or caps, or some¬ 
thing else, the state of doubt becomes perplex¬ 
ing. It is more so when the diligence or stage 
stops at a miserable hut near a stable, to change 
horses, and one sees several of these creatures, 
all dressed in trousers and jackets of sheep-skin, 
with the same sort of woolen caps upon their 
heads, and the only guess one can make is, that 
that one with a beard on his chin is a man; but 
it may turn out wrong after all, for this is not a 
sure guide amongst these people always. Just 
here a flock of sheep may be seen, too, as rough 
and ragged and wo-begone as their owners, one 
of whom probably looks down upon us from 
above the gable-end nf a house, on the point of 
which he rests his elbows and supports his chin. 
Another will be knitting away, resting himself 
F THE LANDES, 
on his three legs, two of which are long stilts, 
often a dozen feet or more in length, which he 
calls echasscs , and the third is a staff which has 
a hooked handle which he sticks into the belt 
behind him, and thus prevented from toppling 
over, he will stand and jabber away with the 
driver in a strange pafow. When a way at their pro¬ 
fessional duties, tending their ragged flocks, these 
poor people find these long stilts useful to enable 
them to step over the prickly bushes with which 
the landes are thickly studded, also to see their 
sheep, and to point out to their dogs the direc¬ 
tion in which they have gone, when they are to 
be gathered together. Thus mounted, too, they 
don’t get sand or stones in their shoes, and 
walking is more agreeable and the ground is 
got over much more rapidly. The engraviug, 
which represents one of these shepherds, shows 
him and his flock and dogs taking a resting 
spell. But the sheep evidently have had their 
best coats put on to have their picture taken. 
