Now and again, coming as almost a relief from the very excess of vivid colour, would show up the welcome contrast given by a stretch of cold lilac slate, and in the middle distance a line of the faintest rose pink, delicate in tone, and indefinite as to outline. Beyond that, the pale blue of the distant pines, far up the rising ground upon the horizon. The stems of the pines are a rich, red brown, flaked in places, and covered, some of them, with various coloured lichens and fungi. These trees are, most of them, seamed and scarred with one slash down the middle for the resin. At a few inches from the ground is fastened a little cup, into which the resin flows, and at certain times men go round to collect the cupfuls. Each résinier has, in order to earn his livelihood, to notch three hundred pines each day; this is done with a sort of hatchet. The little cups were an invention of a Frenchman named Hughes, in 1844, but were never used until some time after his death; so he personally reaped no benefit from the invention.
After the oil is collected, it is subjected to many distillations, some of which, as it is well known, are used medically. Here and there in the woods are stacked, in the shape of a hut, sloped and sloping, little bundles of faggots. Under the trees, white against the sombre shade of the pines, gleam the sandy paths which traverse the wide heathy plains which, alternately with the forests, make up the landscape of this part of the Landes. These are varied, now and again, by roads the colour of rich iron ore. The fences here are all made of the thinnest lath striplings and seem put up more as suggestions than to compel!
On the plains, cows wandered, accompanied always by their own special woman (generally well on in years, with a huge overshadowing hat and large umbrella) in waiting, who paused when the cow paused, moved on when she moved on, ruminated when she ruminated,—"Where the cow goes, there go I," her day's motto. We often saw a solitary cow meandering about up the middle path between two clumps of vines, and nibbling thoughtfully at the leaves of the vines themselves; these last looking like gooseberry bushes. Sometimes a countrywoman would drive three cows in front of her, and besides that would push a wheelbarrow full of cabbages. Other women, again, we noticed working on the line, and some washing in a stream, clad in red knickerbockers and huge boots.
As a rule, unlike our own spoilt meadows, the country is singularly little disfigured by advertisements, but everywhere we went we were confronted by the haunting words, "Amer picon," sometimes in placards on a cottage wall, sometimes in a field, sometimes blazoned up on a platform. At last it became so inevitable and so familiar, that we used to feel quite lost if a day should go by without a trace of its mystical letters anywhere! It occurred as continually before our eyes as the word "gentil" sounds on one's ears from the lips of the French madame. And everyone knows how often that is!
Just before reaching the station of Arcachon, our carriage stopped close beside a line of trucks. French trucks, in this part of the country, have an individuality all their own. They have a little twisting iron staircase, a little covered box seat high above the trucks' business end, and very wonderful inscriptions along their sides. On these we made out that it was etiquette for "Hommes 32, 40," and "Chevaux 8" to travel together! But if it were etiquette for them to do so, it would certainly, in practice, be as cramping and reasonless as are many of the injunctions of etiquette in social matters!
Arrived at Arcachon, we found an array of curious cabs, furnished inside with curtains on rings, of all kinds of flowrery patterns in which very fully-blown roses and enormous chrysanthemums figured largely. In one of these we drove to the hotel among the pines, to which as we thought we had been recommended. It turned out, later, that we had not been directed to that hotel at all, but then it was too late to change. No one in this hotel could speak a word of English intelligibly. We found later on that the concierge could say "va-terre," "Rome," "carrich" and "yes," but as these words had to be said many times before they even approached the distant semblance of any English words one had ever heard, and as, even when understood, they did not convey much information, taken singly and not in connection with any previous sentence, his assistance as interpreter was not to be counted on.
I went the round of the bedrooms accompanied by the manageress. She managed a good deal with her hands in the way of language, and I managed some, with the aid of my little dictionary, which was my inseparable companion throughout our entire trip, always excepting the nights; and even then I am not sure if I did not have it under my pillow!
Somehow the hotel had an empty feeling about its passages and rooms, and the bedroom shutters were all barred and consequently, when opened by the manageress, gave a sort of deserted, half drowsy air to the rooms, which prevented my being at all impressed with them. We descended the stairs again, my companion talking volubly but, to me, (owing to an unfortunate personal disability for all languages except my own), unintelligibly almost.
On our return to the entrance hall I found that an expectant group awaited us, consisting of the hotel proprietor, the concierge, a chambermaid, a daughter of the house, my friend and the coachman of the flowery-papered cab. Our luggage had also put in an appearance and was on the step by the door.
Nothing in the world—as far, of course, as regards minor matters of life—is so difficult or so unpleasant to retreat from, as is hotel, after you have been inspecting it in company with its authorities, when they definitely expect you mean to remain, and when your luggage has been removed from your cab by your too obsequious coachman! I felt my decision weaken, die in my throat. I had fully meant on the way downstairs to declare a negative to mine host's offer of accommodation. Presently I had swallowed it, for on what ground could I now trump up an excuse, and direct the removal of our portmanteaux to an adjoining hotel? and the next thing was to face the thing like a man and order our traps to be taken to our room.