Description of the Landes of Acquitania. oF 
almost instantaneously dry, and are swept more or less directly 
onwards, accumulating and forming hills of various magnitude. 
In some cases, these first hills are almost immediately in the vici- 
nity of the line of high water. 
A range of hills follows the southern side of the basin of Arca- 
chon, forming a cape, which advances close upon the waters of the 
sea; but on turning round this promontory of moving hills, a large 
plain of sand fixes the eye, extending for about 20 miles along the 
coast, and from 3 to 4 miles inwards. In one spot is a range of 
huts, inhabited during a few months in the summer by the fisher- 
men of the Teste, and further inland, upon arise of the sand, a 
building of wood, for the preventive service, whose occupation on 
the coast is principally to guard the property of the shipwrecked 
from the plundering hand of the natives. * 
_ The sand of the first hills are carried onwards by the same con- 
tinued action, forming other hills, and thus two, three, or more 
ranges, divided by longitudinal vallies, are found; while winds 
from opposite points of the compass, sweep at intervals along their 
acclivities, bearing sands before them, through the entrance of the 
vallies over the plains below. 
_ These chains of hills, as they occur on the shore of the Gulf of 
Gascony, embrace, from the mouth of the Gironde to that of the 
Adour, an extent of 75 leagues, or 189 miles. Sometimes they are 
disposed in a regular and continuous chain, sometimes they form 
elevated plateaux and plains, and sometimes isolated mounts, leav- 
ing between one another vallies frequently moist and marshy, de- 
nominated Létes, which have oftentimes from seven to ten miles 
uninterrupted extent, and which may be followed, in the interior, 
as far as the crest of mountainets which domineer over the vallies 
of the Garonne and the Adour. The elevation of these hills is also 
remarkable. We are accustomed to form our opinion of the height 
of downs, from the descriptions we meet with of those of Scotland, 
Holland, and the north of France; but while at Newport and at 
Calais they scarcely attain an elevation of 30 feet, nor at Dunkerque 
above 20, along the coast of the Landes the culminating points of 
these mountains of sand, rise to more than 380 English feet above 
the level of the sea. : 
It is a magnificent spectacle to see hills, whose origin and pro- 
gress lie before the eye, following the same order, and presenting 
the same phenomena of configuration as mountain chains, with 
transverse and longitudinal vallies, with a crest of unequal eleva- 
tion, and with transverse and lateral chains. Nor is the shape of 
the hills which border a valley constantly uniform from the crest to 
the base, but, on the contrary, frequently interrupted by plains and 
escarpments, which have not, however, their representatives on 
the opposite side. 
* These are sometimes the only places of shelter to be met with for miles on 
the coast, and in them the writer has ever met with the kindest and most hos- 
pitable reception. 
