the opposite side of the river. There are about twelve thousand men in Bayonne, who have been tolerably quiet hitherto.

During my abode here, the master of my house returned. He was very well pleased to find his house as he left it, and thanked me for it, as he expected it to have been plundered. He was a very intelligent man, and was a retired lieutenant-colonel of the 34th French regiment; Buonaparte had given him a civil situation in Bayonne, to make his latter days comfortable. After I had been some time in the house, and when our acquaintance had ripened into familiarity, he told me the history of his life, as follows:

"He had been thirty years in the French army, and not only in Egypt, under Napoleon, but he had served in all his great actions, down to the battle of Austerlitz; but finding himself growing too old for active field service, he applied to the general of his division, who recommended him to Buonaparte for superannuation. On a general field day he was called out, and Buonaparte questioned him on the nature and extent of his services. He asked him, moreover, his native place, and when he replied Bayonne, Buonaparte gave him his present situation. He had held this three years, but on the English advancing to Bayonne, he moved forwards to Bourdeaux, where, hearing how well we treated the French territory, he had now returned. When Bayonne opened its gates, it appears that he again resumed the functions of his office. In a conversation relating to the loss sustained by the French, in the course of the wars in Spain, he said, if it were correctly stated, none would believe it, as the Guerilla bands had created a prodigious loss, in addition to that of the more regular warfare. He told me that in the official situation he held in Bayonne, he was furnished with lists of every man that was sent to reinforce the army in Spain. When his regiment had passed through, in 1808, there were six battalions of a thousand men each, effective, and in the space of five years he had given passports and routes to fifty-four thousand conscripts for his own regiments alone. But when they came and passed Bayonne but a few days before, the whole six battalions could muster only seven hundred and fifty muskets." A fine subject this for such an homicide as Buonaparte to meditate on !

During the time we remained here, we had news of the Moscow army, and that Buonaparte had resigned the crown. The same day that we received this intelligence, we forwarded it into Bayonne, under a flag of truce, and I went over to dine with a friend at Bocaut, on the opposite side of the Adour. I remained there till two o'clock, but on my return was not a little surprised and annoyed with a shower of shells and shot from the town. now on the sands, and compelled to go on. However, I was

I was

fortunate enough to escape all danger. Next morning I heard the detail of the affair. The French had laid a plan to surprise us, to destroy the bridge, and set fire to our stores, but they were gallantly driven in again. Here General Hay was killed, and General Hope wounded and taken prisoner. A number of men fell. It was a disgraceful action on the part of the French, as they well knew peace was at hand. The gazette seems to detail this affair pretty fully.

On my rides across the sands, I observed the way in which the French recovered land from the sea. It was by planting stakes firmly in the ground, when the wind sweeping the sand against it, would cover them. Then another row was fixed above them, in the sanie way, these beds of sand daily accumulating, until it fairly banked the sea out. It seems highly probable that at some former period, Bayonne must have stood close to the sea, and actually appears so in some old maps, but now it lies three miles from it. These sands, after a few years, will cherish the fir, which, in some places, may be seen in a thriving condition. The same plan is adopted all along the coast, as far as the river Garonne. This sort of contexture might also be made use of even to defend the coast, as it rises perpendicular on the sea-side, and goes slanting off towards the land. In case of an enemy landing, a body of infantry might be employed here with great advantage.

On the second of June, the gates of Bayonne were thrown open, and we now had orders to march to Bourdeaux. Our brigade had leave to march through Bayonne, and it was the first that did so.

Bayonne is a very strong town, and, according to report, one' of the master-pieces of Vauban. It was here, no doubt, the bayonette was first invented, and from this place it has taken its name. The citadel here is very strong, and well defended. In three different points twelve or thirteen churches are seen, all of them very neat, but not so resplendent or glittering as some of the churches in Spain. The town contains two theatres, about three thousand houses, and thirty thousand inhabitants. The streets are laid out very regular and neat, and the people appear to be very cleanly. There are many delightful alleys or walks for the promenade, on the banks of the river, with large trees to shelter from the sun. The town is as full of coffee-houses as Lisbon, for its size. There is also a fine bridge over the Adour, which connects the two parts of the town together. We passed this, and entered Gascony, moving through the gate of, or rather to, Paris, called by the French Le Saint Esprit.

Previous to our entrance into this country, the French had driven away all the cattle into the interior, and removed all the

provisions, but the farmers hearing we paid for every thing, came back, and supplied us plentifully with beef. This was doubtless a treat to us, as the French cattle were almost bursting with fat, and very delicious, indeed, not inferior to the best in England; and we found it the more grateful, after the bad meat we had put up with in the winter. The bullocks which we had killed for rations, were all mere skeletons, without an ounce of real fat on a whole carcass. These had come from Spain and Portugal, and were fat enough when first bought, but after a march of some hundreds of miles, their goodness wore away, and the few that arrived were like shadows. Out of one herd sent us from Santillana, consisting of four hundred head, ninety-two reached us, the remainder having died on the road, from fatigue. Great must have been the expense of supplying us with this article. However, as soon as the ports were opened, the fleet poured in salt provisions in abundance, which we highly relished. But this indulgence could not be taken every day, as the men were but in an indifferent state of health, from the hardships they had suffered, with a succession of wet weather.

This day we marched four miles past Bayonne, and encamped on the road side. The country was woody all about. On the 3d of June, we moved on to Castets, through alternate woods and plains. On the 4th we reached La Harie; on the 5th, La Boukere; 6th, La Marets; 7th, Le Barp; 8th, Bellevue; and on the 9th, Bourdeaux, which is reckoned a hundred and fifty miles from Bayonne. I have given these together, as the country is pretty much the same, almost to the gates of Bourdeaux. Nothing particular occurred on the journey.

This whole country was formerly called Gascony, but now the part we travelled had assumed the name of the province of the Landes. It was a perfect flat the whole way, the roads very sandy and deep. We lost some fine scenery by coming this way, which was only a bye-road, the grand one running by Dax and Monte de Marsan.

The woods here are all pine, but in many places there are large plains without any. Plain and wood appeared to succeed, alternately, the whole way. When you first come out of a wood, and look across the plain, you see, at an immense distance, a kind of cloud on the edge of the horizon. On your approach, it becomes more distinct, and, at last, you can distinguish the tops of trees. On a nearer approach, you can see their straight trunks, and so on till you get into the wood. This is a very curious sight; as, when you look into the middle of some of the large plains, the above effect will appear around you in every stage, till lost in distance, growing fainter and fainter till it dies away. From some few parts of this road we had a glimpse of VOYAGES and TRAVELS, No. 2, Vol. III.

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the sea; the shore seemed full of pools left by the tide, and of those there were many thousands, reaching some miles in length. This shore certainly looked the most desolate I had ever seen: it was, for nearly ten miles, all sand and pool.

The language through the whole of this province is Gascon, which is spoken here, I understand, in its original purity. I am told by the natives, a few only of whom speak the genuine French, that in the province of Biscay the same language prevails, and it is unquestionable, that from Bourdeaux to Bilboa, the inhabitants have a language of their own. It is, however, most grating to the ear, and repulsive to the sense. Many who have learned it, say it is very comprehensive.

The inhabitants of this province are very intelligent and clean. Their houses are particularly neat ; in one place we met with an inn that would look well beside a palace. The villages, all our way through, lie close together, nor are they very straggling. The inhabitants derive much of their subsistence from the manufacture of turpentine; they also breed large flocks of sheep, which they sell in the market towns. Their dress not a little. resembles that of the Spaniards; but with a short jacket in place of their great coat. The manner of saving the turpentine is rather curious. They cut a grove of the bark off, for about twenty or thirty feet up the trunk of the pine; this is about two inches wide, and in the summer, the turpentine flies to this grove, and floats to the bottom, where it has the appearance of rosin. This is collected, and it proves a considerable source of revenue. Every year a new grove is cut in the tree, the last year's being of no further service. In this manner the tree is cut every year, till the whole bark has been stripped off, in a circle of rotation. The tree is then left to itself, till it again recovers the bark. This is again cut into; but the product is never so good as at first. Such a process as this must naturally ruin the timber in the course of time, and, in fact, it becomes only fit for fire-wood. After all, it is the branches only that furnish this article, as from the rosin being extracted so often, the trunks will hardly burn when put on the fire.

The shepherds and country people, in this province, all walk on stilts, some of them fifteen or sixteen feet high. When I first observed them, at a distance, on one of the plains, I was completely dumb-founded to think what they could be. I could only see the man, the distance having done away the stilts. These conveniences are adopted, or rather, they are, in a manner, necessaries here. Many of the inhabitants are shepherds, occupied in attending their flocks, and, as the plains, in many places, are full of a high kind of fern, rising to three or four feet in height, should the sheep get in among those places, they