The Crau and the Camargue, lying south of Arles between Aigues-Mortes and the Etang de Berre, is the greatest fête-making pays, one might think, in all the world.
How many times, from January to January, the Provençal "makes the fête" it would be difficult to state—on every occasion possible, at any rate.
The great fête of Provence is the day of the ferrande, a sort of a cattle round-up held on the Camargue plain, something like what goes on in "le Far West," as the French call it, only on not so grand a scale.
Mistral describes it of course:
"On a great branding-day came this throng,
A help for the mighty herd-mustering,
Li Santo, Aigo Marto, Albaron,
And from Faraman, a hundred horses strong
Came out into the desert."
Here we were in the midst of the land of fêtes, and if we could not see a ferrande in all its savage, unspoiled glory, we would see what we could.
We were in luck, as we learned when we put into St. Gilles for the night, and comfortably enough housed our auto in the remise of the company, or individual, which has the concession for the stage line across the Camargue, which links up the two loose ends of a toy railway, one of which ends at Aigues-Mortes, and the other at Stes. Maries-de-la-Mer.
Our particular piece of luck was the opportunity to be present at the pilgrimage to the shrine of the three Marys of Judea, which took place on the morrow.
The poet Mistral sets it all out in romantic verse in his epic "Mirèio," and one and all were indeed glad to embrace so fortunate an opportunity of participating in one of the most nearly unique pilgrimages and festivals in all the world.
We entered the little waterside town the next morning soon after sunrise, en auto. Others came by rail, on foot, on horseback, or by the slow-going roulotte, or caravan; pilgrims from all corners of the earth, the peasant folk of Provence, the Arlésiens and Arlésiennes, and the dwellers of the great Camargue plain.