their strength. Honor for this is due almost alone to one man, a M.
Brémontier. Before his time, forest-making had here been deemed
impossible; pine seeds planted in the lax hold of these sands had
hitherto been unable even to take root, against the unbroken sweep of
the winds. M. Brémontier, after many experiments, conceived the idea of
planting with the pine seeds the seeds of the common broom, whose hardy
tuft should protect the tiny sapling until it could stand by itself.
The result surpassed hope; pine forests, protecting in their turn, have
sprung up and endured throughout the Landes; they have broken forever
the power of the wind-storms; and their pitch and timber are even a
source of some riches to the Department.

Still it remains a region unsmiling and melancholy. A monochrome of
sand, darkened everywhere by long blotches of sickly undergrowth or the
dull reach of the pines; here and there are cork-trees and alders. The
sheen of some slow lagoon is caught in the distance. There is a charm in
the very charmlessness of the scene, as in some sombre-toned etching.

One striking specialty this district has, however; and from the train
windows we watch closely for a specimen. This is the shepherd on stilts,
the _Xicanque_, immortalized by Rosa Bonheur and mentioned by many
travelers. He is peculiar to this region; perched on these wooden
supports, at a perilous height above the ground, he stalks gravely over
the landscape, enabled to behold a horizon of triple range and to
outstride the fleetest of his vagrant flock. When so inclined, he is
quite able, it is said, to skillfully execute a _pas seul_ or even a
jig,--with every appropriate flourish of his timber limbs and with
surprising grace and _abandon_. His stilts are strapped to the thigh,
not the knee, for greater freedom, and he mounts from his cabin-roof in
the early morning and lives in the air throughout the day. A third stilt