. A tour through the Pyrenees . CHAPTER II. LES LANDES.—BA YONNE. Around Bordeaux are smiling- hills, varied hori-zons, fresh valleys, a river peopled by incessantnavigation, a succession of cities and villagesharmoniously planted upon the declivities or in theplains, everywhere the richest verdure, the luxuryof nature and civilization, the earth and man vyingwith each other to enrich and decorate the hap-piest valley of France. Below Bordeaux a flat soil,marshes, sand; a land which goes on growingpoorer, villages continually less frequent, ere longthe desert. I like the desert as well. I^ine
. A tour through the Pyrenees . CHAPTER II. LES LANDES.—BA YONNE. Around Bordeaux are smiling- hills, varied hori-zons, fresh valleys, a river peopled by incessantnavigation, a succession of cities and villagesharmoniously planted upon the declivities or in theplains, everywhere the richest verdure, the luxuryof nature and civilization, the earth and man vyingwith each other to enrich and decorate the hap-piest valley of France. Below Bordeaux a flat soil,marshes, sand; a land which goes on growingpoorer, villages continually less frequent, ere longthe desert. I like the desert as well. I^ine woods pass to the right and to the left, silentand wan. Each tree bears on its side the scar of. Chap. II. LES LANDES—BA YONNE. 15 wounds where the woodmen have set flowing theresinous blood which chokes it; the powerful liquorstill ascends into its limbs with the sap, exhales byits slimy shoots and by its cleft skin ; a sharp aro-matic odor fills the air. Beyond, the monotonous plain of the ferns,bathed in light, stretches away as far as the eyecan reach. Their green fans expand beneath thesun which colors, but does not cause them to the horizon a few scattered trees lift theirslender columns. You see now and then the sil-houette of a herdsman on his stilts, inert and stand-ing like a sick heron. Wild horses are grazinghalf hid in the herbage. As the train passes, theyabruptly lift their great startled eyes and standmotionless, uneasy at the noise that has troubledtheir solitude. Man does not fare well here,—hedies or degenerates ; but it is the country of ani-mals, and especially of plants. They abound inthis desert, free, certain of living. Our pretty, cut-up val
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