tracked along the surface of the marsh-lands, marked to this day by the names of Walsoken, Walton, and Walpoole. In the Middle Ages, however, it returned to its primeval desolateness-a waste and wilderness, haunted by the foul legends of an unwholesome superstition. In the immediate neighbourhood of the great monasteries of Crowland and Ely, and of the thriving towns, the good work of drainage went on slowly; but elsewhere the land was given up to the bittern and the heron."

By Dukes of Bedford much was accomplished in the earlier half of the seventeenth century, and by Rennie, the great engineer, some hundred and fifty years later, to fit these fens for agricultural operations. "Works are now in progress," says the writer from whom, in furtherance of my work, I have quoted so largely, "for rescuing a further portion of the basin of the Wash, to be formed into a new county, and named after the Queen. So that now, in tracts once covered by the sea, or knee-deep in reedy, slushy, pestilential slime, the grass grows luxuriantly, the crops wave in golden abundance, or the breeze takes up and carries afar—

'The livelong bleat

Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds.'

"But the dominion of labour has not yet been established over the the whole Fen-districts. There are still dreary nooks, and gloomy corners, and unproductive wastes; wild scenes there are, which few Englishmen have any conception of as contained within the boundaries of their own 'inviolable isle.' Romantic scenery, remarks Mr. Walter White, must not be looked for on the Lincolnshire coast. In all the journey from the Wash till you see the land of Yorkshire, beyond the Humber, not an inch of cliff will your eyes discover. Monotonous is the prospect of—

'A level waste, a rounding gray'

of sand-hills, which vary but slightly in height, and bristle with marum. 'But tame though it be,' continues our authority, the scene derives interest from its peculiarity. Strange perspective effects appear in those irregular hills: yonder they run out and form a low dark, purple headland, against which the pale green and yellow of a nearer tongue look bright by contrast. Here for a few furlongs the range rises gray, cold, and monotonous; there it has a warmth of colour relieved by deep shadows, that change their tint during the hours that accompany the sun while he begins and ends his day. Sitting on the summit of those dry hills, you will remark the con

trasted landscape: on the one side, the level pasture land, league after league of grassy green, sprinkled with villages, farms, churches, and schools, where work and worship will find exercise through ages yet to come; on the other, league after league of tawny sand, sloping gently outwards to meet the great sea that ever foams or ripples thereupon. On the one hand, a living scene bounded by the distant wolds; on the other, a desert, sea and shore alike solitary, bounded only by the overarching sky. More thoughts come crowding into the mind in presence of such a scene than are easy to express.""

Such as are these English Dunes and Moors and Fens are the Landes, with which the sand dunes which have been reclaimed to man are associated, and of which they form a part. The special characteristic of them is the sand of which they are composed; the second characteristic of them is the superficial aspect which the hilllike accumulation of the sand gives to the contour of the country; a third characteristic is the constant onward movement of the sand landward, covering up valuable fertile land with sterile sand and stagnant waters; and the last, but not least remarkable characteristic is the forests which now wave over extensive areas thus recovered.

Of these the writer I have quoted,—I am unable to say whether M. Mangin or his translator,-for the latter states that he has made copious additions to the original work, with the view of rendering its scope more comprehensive and complete, and of adapting it specially to the requirements of the English reader-says: "The works of Charlemagne, on which he employed his veterans to preserve imperilled cities, have been resumed, and with greater success, by a skilful agriculturist, M. Desbiey, of Bordeaux, and an able engineer, M. Bremontier, who have called in nature herself to assist man in his war against nature. Their system consists of sowing in the driest sand the seeds of the sea-pine, mixed with those of the broom (genista scoparia), and the psamma arenaria. The spaces thus sown are then closely covered with branches to protect them from the action of the winds. These seeds germinate spontaneously. The brooms,, which spring up rapidly, restrain the sand, while sheltering the young pines, and thenceforth the Dune ceases to move, because the wind can no longer unsettle its substance, and the grains are held together by the roots of the young plants. The work is always begun on the inland side, in order to protect the farmer and the peasant, and to withdraw the infant forest from the unwholesome influence of the ocean-winds. And, in order that the sown spaces

shall not themselves be buried under the sands blown up from the shore, a palisade of wicker-work is raised at a suitable distance, which, reinforced by young plants of sandwort (psamma arenaria), check the moving sands for a sufficiently long time to favour the development of the seeds. Finally, the work is completed by the construction of a substantial wall, or rather an artificial cliff, which effectually prevents the further progress of the flood, or directs it seaward, to be arrested on its course by the barrier of the sand-hills. Unable to force a passage through these natural ramparts, they have excavated certain basins, more or less extensive, and more or less deep, which have formed inland seas, communicating with the Atlantic by one narrow issue.

"It is a noteworthy fact that, owing to the encroachment of the Dunes, these lakes have been constantly forced back upon the inland country. Fortunately, this menacing invasion of the sands has been checked by the great engineering works executed a few years ago; which, on the one hand, have fixed, and, as it were, solidified the Dunes, and, on the other, have provided for the regular outflow of the waters. The Landes have thus been opened to the persevering labours of the cultivator. The culture of the pine, and the manufacture of resinous substances, have largely extended, and the time, perhaps, is not far distant when these deserts will almost completely disappear; when these desolate and unproductive plains will pleasantly bloom, transformed into shadowy woods or verdurous meadows.

"To so fortunate a result nothing will more powerfully contribute than the embankment of the Dunes. These have been, in reality, the true scourge of this country; these were the moving desert, the constantly ascending sea, which had already engulfed forests, villages, even towns, under its billows of sand, and driven before it the terrified inhabitants of the coast."

The expressions employed in this intimation of what is expected remind a Scotsman of his Scottish paraphrase of the predictions of Isaiah

"With joy and peace shall then be led

the glad converted lands;

The lofty mountains then shall sing,

the forests clap their hands.

Where briers grew 'midst barren wilds,
shall firs and myrtles spring;

And nature, through its utmost bounds,
eternal praises sing."

I have not seen these plantations, but I have in France had much conversation in regard to them with others of similar tastes who have resided in the midst of them. The accounts given to me were vague, but not more so than conversational statements in general are. They left on my mind the impression that on the sea margin there is a pretty broad beach, and some 100 yards or more from this—200 it may be, or 300—the trees have been planted in a belt following, to some extent, the line of the coast, and extending in breadth irregularly from half a mile to a mile, it may be, or more, beyond which the plantations are continued in strips of some breadth, crossing each other at right angles, and thus euclosing quadrangular patches or fields, which have been brought under cultivation. Upwards of 100,000 acres of land were reported to me as having been reclaimed, and to a considerable extent covered with trees.

CHAPTER III.

LEGISLATION IN REGARD TO THE PLANTING OF THE LANDES

WITH TREES.

THE planting of the Landes with trees was begun in 1789, under the direction of the Minister, M. Necker, (father of Madame de Stael).

On the 13th Messidor an IX (2nd July, 1801), there was issued the following Arrêté, or Order, relative to the plantation with wood of the Dunes on the coast of Gascony.

"The Consuls of the Republic on the report of the Minister of the Interior, the Council of State having been heard, order:

"Art. 1. Measures shall be taken to continue to fix and to plant in wood the Dunes of the coasts of Gascony-beginning with those of La Teste-according to the plans presented by the citizen Bremontier, engineer, and the Prefect of the department of the Gironde.

"2. To this effect there shall be established a commission, composed of the chief engineer of the department, who shall preside, a forest administrator, and three members taken from the agricultural section of La Société des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Bourdeaux, who shall be appointed by the Prefect on presentation by the society.

"The said commission shall direct and superintend the execution of the works, together with the employment of the funds which shall be appropriated thereto. The whole under the authority, and with the approval of, the Prefect."

By another order, issued under date of the 3rd Jour complémentaire, an IX, it was ordered :

"Art. I. The measures prescribed under Order of the 18th Messidor, an IX, for the fixation and plantation of the Dunes on the coasts of Gascony shall, in what relates to wicker hurdles and other artificial works which they shall require, be discussed on the plans of the citizen Bremontier, Engineer-in-chief, and approved by the Prefect of the department of the Gironde; and in what relates to sowings and plantations these must be arranged with the Administration of Forests.

"2. The expenses for hurdles and other artificial works shall be made from the funds of the department of the Interior, and those for the plantations and the salaries of forest agents from the funds appropriated to forests."