But here, the rail runs along a narrow strip of sand, covered with
straggling vines, and tall white iris, between the sea and the great
Etang de Thau, a long narrow salt-lake, beyond which the wide
lowlands of the Herault slide gently down, There is not a mountain,
hardly a hill, visible for miles: but all around is the great sheet
of blue glassy water: while the air is as glassy clear as the water,
and through it, at seemingly immense distances, the land shows purple
and orange, blue and grey, till the landscape is one great rainbow.
White ships slide to and from far-off towns; fishermen lounge on the
marshes, drying long lines of net. Everywhere is vastness, freedom,
repose gentle and yet not melancholy; because with all, under the
burning blue, there is that fresh wholesome heat, which in itself is
life, and youth, and joy.
Beyond, nearer the mouths of the Rhone, there are, so men say,
desolate marshes, tenanted by herds of half-wild horses; foul mud-
banks, haunted by the pelican and the flamingo, and waders from the
African shore; a region half land, half water, where dwell savage
folk, decimated by fever and ague.
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