The simple folk of the Morbihan, who have crowded into Vannes for the day, are as interested and amused with a hurdy-gurdy Punch and Judy show, a travelling circus, or a merry-go-round as if they were the latest distractions of Paris. Meanwhile one seeks his hotel, and there comes another surprise.
CHAPTER III.
THE MORBIHAN—VANNES AND THE “GOLFE”
THE “Golfe” or Bay of Morbihan is one of those great landlocked havens in which the whole Breton coast abounds; its islands are as many as the days of the year, as the natives have it.
Morbihan itself is as much sea as land. The tides rise to a great height along this whole southern coast of Brittany, and in the Bay of Morbihan they have full play.
The metropolis of Lower Morbihan is Vannes, which the railway porters shout out at you, as you descend from the train, as Va-a-a-nnes.
Leaving the station, one threads his way through whole batteries of laundresses, their gull-winged head-dress nodding in rhythm with the beating of their paddles, a most picturesque sight, but a process which works disaster to one’s clothes, destroying pearl buttons, and causing mysterious small holes to appear in the most inconvenient places. An accompaniment of song always goes with these shattering and battering exercises. At Vannes, according to Theodore Botrel, it runs like this:
“Pan! pan! pan!
Ma Doué!
Comme la langue maudite
Marche bien au vieux lavoit.
Pan! pan! pan!
Vite! vite!
Plus vite que le battoir!”
It is the day of the local fair, the chief article of commerce being, it would seem, pigs, as at Limerick. At any rate, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of little porkers, who have just put foot to earth, as their venders tell one; their own voices, too, strident and high pitched, announce the same thing.
Vannes, truth to tell, is not much of a capital, but it is a highly interesting and picturesque old town, with manners and customs quite different from those of any of its neighbours.
The chief characteristics of the place seem to be pointed roofs of red and moss-grown tiles and walls of blue granite. One can almost imagine that Botrel chose it as the scene of the stanza: