regarded as guardians, and which still retain something majestic and
imposing about them. I always expect to see them come to life and start
to walk across the country with the slow and ponderous tread of giants,
or to unfold enormous granite wings and fly toward the paradise of the
Druids.

"Everywhere is the sea, always ready on the slightest provocation to rise
in its anger and shake its foamy mane at those bold enough to brave its
wrath.

"And the men who travel on this terrible sea, which, with one motion of
its green back, can overturn and swallow up their frail barks--they
go out in the little boats, day and night, hardy, weary and drunk. They
are often drunk. They have a saying which says: 'When the bottle is full
you see the reef, but when it is empty you see it no more.'

"Go into one of their huts; you will never find the father there. If you
ask the woman what has become of her husband, she will stretch her arms
out over the dark ocean which rumbles and roars along the coast. He
remained, there one night, when he had had too much to drink; so did her
oldest son. She has four more big, strong, fair-haired boys. Soon it will
be their time.

"As I said, I was living in a little house near Pont-l'Abbe. I was there
alone with my servant, an old sailor, and with a native family which took
care of the grounds in my absence. It consisted of three persons, two
sisters and a man, who had married one of them, and who attended to the
garden.

"A short time before Christmas my gardener's wife presented him with a