Rambles on the Riviera

by M. F. Mansfield

It is not a wholly unlovely thing, a cabanon, but it gets the full benefit of the glaring sunlight on its crude outlines, and, though sylvan in its surroundings, it is seldom cool or shady, as a country house, of whatever proportions or dimensions, ought to be.

Some figures concerning the Étang de Berre are an inevitable outcome of a close observation, so the following are given and vouched for as correct. It is large enough to shelter all the commercial fleet of the Mediterranean and all the French navy as well. For an area of over three thousand hectares, there is a depth of water closely approximating forty feet. Between the Étang and the Mediterranean are the Montagnes de l’Estaque, which for a length of eight kilometres range in height from three hundred to fifteen hundred feet, and would form almost an impenetrable barrier to a fleet which might attack the ships of commerce or war which one day may take shelter in the Étang de Berre. This, if the naval powers-that-be have their way, will some day come to pass. All this is a prophecy, of course, but Elisée Reclus has said that the non-utilization of the Étang de Berre was a scandale économique, which doubtless it is.

In spite of the name “Étang,” the “Petite Mer de Berre” is a veritable inland harbour or rade, closed against all outside attack by its narrow entrance through the elongated Étang de Caronte. That its strategic value to France is fully recognized is evident from the fact that frequently it is overrun by a practising torpedo-boat fleet. What its future may be, and that of the delightful little towns and cities on its shores, is not very clear. There is the possibility of making it the chief harbour on the south coast of France, but hitherto the influences of Marseilles have been too strong; and so this vast basin is as tranquil and deserted as if it were some inlet on the coast of Borneo, and, except for the little lateen-rigged fishing-boats which dot its surface day in and day out throughout the year, not a mast of a goélette and not a funnel of a steamship ever crosses its horizon,—except the manœuvring torpedo-boats.

The Marseillais know this “Petite Mer” and its curious border towns and villages full well. They come to Martigues to eat bouillabaisse of even a more pungent variety than they get at home, and they go to Marignane for la chasse,—though it is only “petits oiseaux” and “plongeurs” that they bag,—and they go to St. Chamas and Berre for the fishing, until the whole region has become a Sunday meeting-place for the Marseillais who affect what they call “le sport.”

Istres

On the western shore of the “Petite Mer,” on the edge of the dry, pebbly Crau, with a background of greenish-gray olive groves, is Istres, a chef-lieu not recognized by many geographers out of France, and known by still fewer tourists. Istres is in no way a remarkable place, and its inhabitants live mostly on carp taken from the Étang de l’Olivier, moules, and such poissons de mer as find their way into the “Petite Mer.” Fish diet is not bad, but it palls on one if it is too constant, and the moule is a poor substitute for the clam or oyster. Istres makes salt and soda and not much else, but it is a town as characteristic of the surrounding country as one is likely to find. It grew up from a quasi-Saracen settlement, and down through feudal times it bore some resemblance to what it is to-day, for it numbers but something like three thousand souls. There are remains of its old ramparts which, judging from their aspect, must once have borne some relationship to those of Aigues Mortes.

Truly the landscape round about is weird and strange, but it is superb in its very rudeness, although no one would have the temerity to call it magnificent. There are great hillocks of fossil shells which would delight the geologist, and there are “petits oiseaux” galore for the sportsman.

Twilight seems to be the time of day when all Istres’s strange effects are heightened,—as it is on the Nile,—and it will take no great stretch of the imagination to picture the shores of the Étang as the banks of Egypt’s river. The aspect at the close of day is strange and unforgettable, with the great plain of the Crau stretching away indefinitely, and the blue “nappe” of the Étang likewise indefinitely hazy and tranquil. In spite of its lack of twentieth-century comforts, the seeker after new sensations could do worse than spend a night and a part of a day at Istres’s Hôtel de France, and, if he is a painter, he may spend here a week, a month, or a lifetime and not get bored.