The land, your accustomed friend, recalls you. The pine woods rival the sea in healthful emanations; and theirs have less of harshness. They penetrate all our being, enter by every pore, modify and purify the blood, and perfume us with their subtle aroma. In the Landes behind the pine woods, the herbs and even the coarse grass on which you tread, yield perfumes not enervating or intoxicating as the dangerous roses, but agreeably bitter. Seat yourself among them and you, like them, will be sheltered by this slight slope of land. Might you not, now that you are thus sheltered, fancy yourself a hundred leagues from the sea? Drink in the sweet breathings, the pure spirits, the very soul of these wild flowers--that, in purity, are your very sisters. Gather them if you will, Madame; they ask for nothing better. Somewhat rude, perhaps, and yet so beautiful; and in their virginal perfume they have that singular mystery of calming and strengthening. Do not fear to hide them in your fair bosom and upon your beating heart. Let us not forget that these sheltered landes are, at certain hours, burning hot. They so absorb and concentrate the rays of the sun. The weak woman is wilted there. The young girl, full of vigorous life, feels her pulses boiling and has redoubled power; her brain swims and she has strange and dangerous day dreams. If you wish to go there let it be on some moist and rather cloudy day; or, still better, rise at a very early hour when all is cool, when the wild thyme still keeps somewhat of its dew, and while the Hare is still abroad. But let us return to the Ocean. At ebb-tide he manifests, and, in some sort, presents to you, the rich life that he nourishes. You must follow, step by step, the retiring waves, though the wet sand will sink some little beneath your feet. Fear not. The gentle wave will, at the most, kiss your feet. If you look closely you will perceive that the sand is not, as you at first thought it, dead, but is here and there moved by numerous lingerers that the ebb-tide has left behind. On certain beaches, small fish are thus hidden in the sand. At the mouth of the rivers the Eel's writhing movement, throws up the sand in mimic earthquakes. The Crab, too eagerly engaged in feeding, or fighting, has now to hasten back to the sea, and in his flight he leaves an odd mosaic, a zigzag line marking his oblique travel, and at the end of that line you will find him lying in wait for the coming in of the tide. The Solen (_Manche de Couteau_), that razor-shaped shell fish, has plunged deep into the sand, but betrays himself to you by the breathing holes that he has left. The Venus you can just as certainly trace by the fucus attached to its shell, but floating on the surface; and the undulations of the soil betray to you the covered ways of the warlike annelides, and viewing them with the aid of your microscope you will be charmed with the rainbows of their changing colors.