The Desultory Man / Collection of Ancient and Modern British Novels and Romances. Vol. CXLVII.

by G. P. R. James

"If I was a goddess, I'd have roast duck."

treated us with roast ducks for breakfast; dinner, and supper.

Here, in this secluded nook of earth, live about five hundred souls, cut off from free communication with their fellows by the broad sands on one side, and by the Bay of Biscay on the other; and yet I never saw a happier looking race. English gentlemen, it may easily be supposed, are rather rare animals in the famous city of Guizan, and, consequently, during the three days we stayed, at all our meals we had a large congregation to see the wild beasts eat. Our landlord set himself down at a small distance to tell us stories and amuse us between mouthfuls; his son and daughter lingered round with their fingers in their mouths; the pippin-faced landlady and the cocoa-nut-headed chambermaid bustled about with plates and dishes, while a whole host of Landois poked in their heads through the half-open door.

Strange to say, that amongst a people who thus crowded round two strangers with the curiosity of Esquimaux, were yet to be found a billiard-table and a ball-room--and stranger still; the village possessed both players and dancers who would not have disgraced the first city in Europe.

The original place of our destination, La Teste, lay at the distance of a few miles, and having procured horses and a guide, we set out the next day to pay it a visit. The way lay through a tract which seemed to consist of nothing but pathless wilds, but on looking nearer, we found that even here the careful hand of man was to be traced. The sand was in many places propped up with hurdles to give a fastening for the roots of trees; and we observed that large slips had been cut out from the bark of the various pines, to draw the turpentine, which was suffered to collect in little tanks at the foot of each tree.

Meeting with nothing at La teste particularly worthy of attention, we returned to our auberge at Guizan, and it being Sunday evening, we found all the villagers assembled in the ball-room to conclude the day with a dance. It was really a delightful sight. In one corner of the room was a mountain of sabots and stilts, and, in the centre, all the young people of the village were dancing in their wooden socks to the sound of a most infamous fiddle, with a degree of grace and agility that would have done credit to the opera. In the meantime, the elder persons were sitting round, holding back the children, and dandling the infants to the time of the dance. There was nothing harsh in the picture: it was all smiling good-nature and untaught native propriety of demeanour.

Our next day's trip was to explore the shores of the Basin d'Arcachon, which is a large inlet from the Bay of Biscay, of about thirty-eight leagues in circumference, joined to the main sea by a narrow channel less than a league in width. Nothing very curious presented itself, except the immense quantity of wild fowl by which the place is literally infested. The view, however, as the mist cleared away, became wild and singular. The indented shores of the bason--sometimes rising into high hills of light yellow sand, sometimes entered down to the very water's edge with large forests of black pine, over whose dark masses appeared occasionally glimpses of some far blue mountains--made up altogether a strange and sombre scene, which was not without the beauty of sublimity. Sailing on along the bason, we passed the end of a long avenue, cut in the heart of one of the deepest forests, which displayed at the extreme of its perspective a small white chapel, dedicated to Notre Dame d'Arcachon. This is a place of pilgrimage to which the deep-sea fishermen repair to offer up prayers for their success, before setting out on their voyage. If their fishing prove good, the Virgin probably hears no more of it, but if they meet with a bad cast, they come back and curse our Lady for her pains. We extended our excursion to the Bay of Biscay, and having enjoyed for a few minutes the contemplation of the vast unbounded ocean, we returned to Guizan, with a grand storm coming on from the north-west.

Such is an account of my first visit to that desolate tract of sand called the Landes, extending along the shores of the Bay of Biscay, from the mouth of the Gironde to Bayonne. Upon different occasions I have since crossed it in every direction; from Bordeaux to the Teste de Buch, from La Teste to Mont de Marson, and from Guizan to Bayonne.

It happened that I had once taken up my abode for a few days in one of the small cottages near the ford of Lubie, in the very heart of the Landes, where a few poor huts are huddled together, as if they sought protection, in their near companionship, against the encroaching enmity of the solitary desert. The occasion of my being there matters not to my present object--suffice it, that by a little kindness I had gained the good-will of the shrivelled old Parens and his wife, who owned the tenement, and that the said good-will had been mightily increased by a small donation of money, which, though a trifle to me, was more than they could have gained in many a month by their unprofitable occupation of gathering the resin or goudron from the pines in the forest round about. From their youth to their age they had dwelt in the desolation, and withered in the solitude, of the bleak wastes that surrounded them; nor did they seem to have ever entertained a wish beyond the confines of that cheerless place, which, however solitary, however desert, had seen the birth and extinction of all their hopes and passions; had been the scene of all their cares and happiness, and was the spot where all their treasure of memory lay, now that Hope had spread her wings and fled to a world beyond.

Seldom had either of them visited Bordeaux, which they seemed to consider as the ultima Thule. Yet the old man was looked upon as a kind of oracle by the few Landois in the neighbourhood, many of whom were indeed the offspring of his own loins; and others, a second race beyond. But kindred was not his only right to reverence; he was learned in all the ancient superstitions of the Landes, and the depository of all the old customs and habits of his race--customs and habits always most sacred to people who live thus separate from their fellow-men.