The man with the blouse, who was clearly the champion of the Landes, then turned indignantly from the Bordeaux man and addressed himself to me. "The language which the poor people here speak, monsieur, is a fine and expressive language, and liker the Spanish than the French. The people are poor, and very ignorant. They believe, monsieur, in ghosts, and witches, and sorceries, just as all France did two or three hundred years ago. Very few of them can read, monsieur, and they have bad food and no wine. But nevertheless, monsieur, they are _bons enfants--braves gens_, monsieur. They love their pine-woods and their sands as much as other people do their corn-fields and their vines, monsieur. They would die, monsieur, if you took them away from the sand and the trees. They are not like the Auvergnats, who go in troops to Paris to carry water from the fountains, and who are _betes--betes--bien betes_! They stay at home, monsieur. They wear their sheep-skins and walk upon their stilts, like their forefathers before them, monsieur; and if you are coming here to see the Landes, and if you lose yourself in the woods, and see a light glimmering through the trees, and rap at the cottage door, monsieur, you will be welcomed, monsieur, and have the best they can offer to eat, and the softest they can offer to sleep on. _Tenez, tenez; nous sommes pauvres et ignorants mais nous sommes, loyals et bons!_" The tears fairly stood in the keen black eyes of the Landes man as he concluded his harangue, of which I have only reported the main points; for, truth to tell, the poor fellow's vehemence was so great, and his utterance so rapid, that I lost nearly as much as I caught. The Bordeaux gentleman hammered the floor with his umbrella in satirical approbation, the rest of the passengers looked curiously on, and, the engine whistling, we pulled up again at a station similar to the first--a shed--a clearing, and black pine all around. There were just three persons on the rough platform--the station-master in a blouse, and two yellow-breeched _gens-d'armes_. What could they find to occupy them among these drear pine-woods? What thief, who had not made a vow of voluntary starvation, or who had not a morbid taste for living upon resin, would ever have ventured among them? But the authorities! Catch a bit of France without an "authority!" As they certainly are omnipotent, and profess to be omniscient, it is only to be supposed that they should be omnipresent. One man left the train at the station in question--a slouching, stupid, swarthy peasant, the authorities pounced upon him, evidently in prodigious glee at catching somebody to be _autoritised_ over, and we left them, spelling and squabbling over the greasy-looking "papers" presented by the profoundly respectful Jacques or Pierre.