is entered at a level-crossing, beyond which one goes straight on to the last turning to the right before reaching the river (Garonne). This street leads to an open space, where one goes to the left and crosses the river by a suspension bridge.
The church is an interesting building, dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, and has a fine rose-window in the façade. There are three naves and a restored apse of the thirteenth century.
Marmande must have been well defended in the Hundred Years’ War, for when the English took it in 1447 they only succeeded by resorting to a ruse.
The journey from Marmande to Mont-de-Marsan—a distance of nearly sixty miles—is practically level throughout, and nearly the whole time one is passing through an immense forest.
Casteljaloux stands on the edge of this forest, and all the yards are stacked with sawn timber. The town is full of sixteenth-century and earlier houses, and some old hôtels. The most remarkable is the Maison des Xaintrailles, or Château de Jeanne d’Albret, of which only a wing survives.
The road in passing through the town goes to the right, and then to the left, and to the left again at a fork.
South of Casteljaloux great perspectives of yellow road stretch away to a vanishing point among the blue-grey pines. It is not an uncommon thing to pass groups of dark-blue-coated soldiers bivouacking by the roadside, with stacked rifles and their heavy accoutrements deposited on the grass, while the men are lighting fires to cook their field rations.
Pompogne is a pretty hamlet in the forest, with a whitewashed church of the eleventh, thirteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
Houeillès, the next village, has a small thirteenth-century church of dark stone, with a fortified tower. There is a great staircase turret, and the tower opens into the church through a Romanesque arch with a toothed moulding.
At intervals there are large clearings in the forest, with only a tree here and there, and pools of water appear by the roadside. The lake shown on the map, near the modern château of Lubbon, is scarcely visible from the road, which continues to keep for long distances in a perfectly straight line. The white crosses frequently to be seen roughly painted on farmyard gates, where they appear in the forest, suggest that ancient superstitions linger in the dim forest glades of a country still in the thraldom of a religion that encourages belief in supernatural visitations.