And in a while the dominant course of the river itself, the animation
of its steady, downward flow, even amid the sand-shoals and
whispering islets of the dry season, bore his thoughts beyond it, in
a sudden irresistible appetite for the sea; and he determined,
varying slightly from the prescribed route, to reach his destination
by way [80] of the coast. From Nantes he descended imperceptibly
along tall hedge-rows of acacia, till on a sudden, with a novel
freshness in the air, through a low archway of laden fruit-trees it
was visible--sand, sea, and sky, in three quiet spaces, line upon
line. The features of the landscape changed again, and the gardens,
the rich orchards, gave way to bare, grassy undulations: only, the
open sandy spaces presented their own native flora, for the fine
silex seemed to have crept into the tall, wiry stalks of the ixias,
like grasses the seeds of which had expanded, by solar magic, into
veritable flowers, crimson, green, or yellow patched with black.

It was pleasant to sleep as if in the sea's arms, amid the low
murmurs, the salt odour mingled with the wild garden scents of a
little inn or farm, forlorn in the wide enclosure of an ancient
manor, deserted as the sea encroached--long ago, for the fig-trees in
the riven walls were tough and old. Next morning he must turn his
back betimes, with the freshness of the outlook still undimmed, all
colours turning to white on the shell-beach, the wrecks, the children
at play on it, the boat with its gay streamers dancing in the foam.
Bright as the scene of his journey had been, it had had from time to
time its grisly touches; a forbidden fortress with its steel-clad
inmates thrust itself upon the way; the village church had been
ruined too recently to count as picturesque; and at last, at the
meeting-point of [81] five long causeways across a wide expanse of