The landlord of the _auberge_, seeing that we were poor wayfaring strangers, and most charitably wishing to take us in, was equally against our proceeding, either backwards or forwards, assuring us that we should be murdered if we went on, and frozen if we went back. The country before us, he said, was all under water, and filled with carniverous savages, who lived upon mutton and woodcocks, and if we returned it would be midnight before we arrived at Bourdi-ou, as he called it in his Gascon jargon. All this tremendous description induced our fellow-travellers to return whence they came, but De B---- and myself, animated with the ancient spirit of chivalry, and fully prepared to encounter windmills and giants, procured a couple of guides, and proceeded on our journey on foot. The first thing which excited my companion's attention, was the face of one of our guides, which, if it would not have furnished Salvator with a bandit, would have served Mrs. Radcliff very well for an assassin, which name we instantly bestowed upon him. De B---- pointed out to me also, that this good gentleman, with his dogged scowl and averted look, had a trick of whispering to the other guide the moment our eyes were off him, and ceased the moment we looked at him. Now as my friend had a considerable sum upon his person, which he had not thought fit to leave at his lodgings, all this made him regard the guides with a jealous eye; nor were his uncomfortable sensations at all diminished by our friend the assassin entering into conversation with us and entertaining us with a most terrific account of the robbers, murderers, troglodytes, and barbarians inhabiting the Landes. About four o'clock we came to the last house we were to meet with, and having gone in to get some refreshment, I took out one of my pistols, made the guide admire its exquisite workmanship, and boasted that I could kill a sparrow with it at twenty yards distance. This had rather an odd effect, his note was instantly changed. He told us that they were all honest people in the Landes, and swallowed all he had said before with wonderful facility. The night was beginning to fall when we quitted this house, the country wilder and more deserted than before; and shortly after, our guide quitted every vestige of a path and led us into the depth of the forest, which consists entirely of enormous pines raising themselves singly out of the light sand, without any underwood whatever, except some scattered knots of heath, the only shrub which will grow in that ungrateful soil.