From the town, we partially floated, in a boat, and partially toiled through swamp and sand to the sea--Auguste constantly preaching on the antiquarian topography of the place, upon old canals, and middle-aged canals--one obliterating the other; on the route which the galleys of St. Louis followed from the walls to the ocean; on a dreary spot between sand-hills, which he called _les Tombeaux_, and where, by his account, the Crusaders who died before the starting of the expedition lie buried in their armour of proof. Then we toiled to a little harbour--a mere fisherman's creek--where it is supposed the ancient canal of St. Louis joined the sea, and which still bears the name of the _Grau Louis_, or the _Grau de Roi_--"grau" being understood to be a corruption of _gradus_. At this spot, rising in the midst of a group of clustered huts, the dwellings of fishermen and aged _douaniers_, one or two of whom were lazily angling off the piers--their chief occupation--there stands a lighthouse, about forty feet high. "Let us climb to the lantern," said Auguste, "and you will then see our silent land, and our poor dear old fading town lying at our feet." Accordingly up we went; only poor Auguste stopped every three steps to cough; and before we had got half way, the perspiration came streaming down his yellow face, proving what might have been a matter of dispute before--that he had some moisture somewhere in his body. From the top we both gazed earnestly, and I curiously, around. On one side, the sea, blue--purple blue; on the other side, something which was neither sea nor land--water and swamp--pond and marsh--bulrush thickets, and tamarisk jungles, shooting in peninsular capes, points, and headlands, into the salt sea lakes; in the centre of them--like the ark grounding after the deluge--the grey walls of Aigues-Mortes. Between the great _mare internum_ and the lagoons, rolling sand-hills--the barrier-line of the coast--and upon them, but afar off, moving specks--the semi-wild cattle of the country; white dots--the Arab-blooded horses which are used for flails; black dots--the wild bulls and cows, which the mounted herdsmen drive with couched lance and flying lasso. "Is it not beautiful?" murmured Auguste; "I think it so. I was born here. I love this landscape--it is so grand in its flatness; the shore is as grand as the sea. Look, there are distant hills"--pointing to the shadowy outline of the Cevennes--"but the hills are not so glorious as the plain." "But neither have they the fever of the plain." "It is God's will. But, fever or no fever, I love this land--so quiet, and still, and solemn--ay, monsieur, as solemn as the deserts of the Arabs, or as a cathedral at midnight--as solemn, and as strange, and as awful, as the early world, fresh from the making, with the birds flying, and the fish swimming, on the evening of the fifth day, before the Lord created Adam." CHAPTER XIV.