Few and
far between the natives may be seen from the railway, seemingly hung
high in air, till on nearer approach you find them to be stalking
along on stilts, or standing knitting on the same, a sheepskin over
their shoulders, an umbrella strapped to their side, and, stuck into
the small of the back, a long crutch, which serves, when resting, as
a third wooden leg.
So run on the Landes, mile after mile, station after station, varied
only by an occasional stunted cork tree, or a starved field of barley
or maize. But the railroad is bringing to them, as elsewhere,
labour, civilization, agricultural improvement. Pretty villages,
orchards, gardens, are springing up round the lonely 'gares.' The
late Emperor helped forward, it is said, new pine plantations, and
sundry schemes for reclaiming the waste. Arcachon, on a pine-fringed
lagoon of the Atlantic, has great artificial ponds for oyster
breeding, and is rising into a gay watering-place, with a
distinguished scientific society. Nay, more: it saw a few years
since an international exposition of fish, and fish-culture, and
fishing-tackle, and all things connected with the fisheries, not only
of Europe, but of America likewise.
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