By far the most interesting village in the neighbourhood of Arcachon, is Gujan-Mestras.

Gujan-Mestras is the centre of the oyster fishery, and that of the royan, which is a species of sardine. Nearly all royans indeed are caught there. The patois of the parcheurs and parcheuses (oyster catchers) we were told, is partly Spanish. They can talk our informant said, very good French, but when any strangers are present they talk a sort of Spanish patois. "For instance, une fille would be la hille," he explained. "The Spaniards talk very slowly, as do the Italians; it is only les Anglais qui, je trouve, parlent trÈs vite." The oysters of Gujan-Mestras are of worldwide renown. Among others, it will be remembered, Rabelais praised highly the oysters of the Bassin d'Arcachon. And indeed, it cannot fail to be one of the most important places for oyster-culture and the breeding ground of the young oyster, considering what the annual production is—more than a million of oysters, young, middle-aged, and infants under age.

The day I first saw Gujan-Mestras there was a grey, lowering sky, and everything was dun-coloured. But the port was alive with activity, interest, and excitement. The huts, which face the bay, are built all on the same pattern—of one story, dark brown in colour, wooden-boarded, and roofed with rounded, light yellow tiles, which look in the distance like oyster shells. Over the doors of some are little inscriptions: over some a red cross is chalked, or a fleur de lys. The parcheurs do not sleep here; they live in the village above, but these huts are simply for use while they are at work during the day.

A road leads up from the station lined with these huts, and a long row of them faces the bay and skirts one side of it. Beside the water are many clumps of heather tied up at the stalks, which are for packing purposes: and there are also many wooden troughs, sieves, and trestles. The boats used for fishing are mostly long and narrow, black or green as to colour, and with pointed prows. Most of them had the letters "ARC," and a number painted on them: for instance, I noticed "ARC. 4S 47" upon one name-board. All the boats have regular, upright staves placed all along the inner sides, and are planked with the roughest of boarding.

The first day I saw Gujan-Mestras, as I came up to the landing stage, the boats were all rounding the corner of the headland, which is crowned by the big crucifix, and crowding into the little harbour. As they swung rapidly round, down came the sails with a flop, and in a moment the gunwales bent low to the surface of the water. A moment later still, they grounded on the little beach, and were instantly surrounded by a great crowd of excited, jabbering parcheurs, gesticulating and arguing energetically. They seemed to be expecting some one who had failed to put in an appearance.

The baskets were soon full of glistening, steely fish, their greenish, speckled backs in strong contrast to the grey, oval baskets in which they lay, heap upon heap.

The women helped unlade the boats, and also in cleaning and sorting the fish. One woman whom I noticed, in an enormous overhanging, black sun-bonnet, slouched far over her face, her dress, made of some material like soft silk, tucked up and pinned behind her, went clattering along in her wooden sabots, wheeling the fish before her in a rough wheelbarrow. They shone literally with a dazzling centre of light. Then came slowly lumbering along the road, one of the typical waggons of the neighbourhood, which are disproportionately long for their breadth, with huge wheels; at either end two upright poles, and on each side a sort of fence of staves, yellow for choice.

Presently this was succeeded by a diminutive donkey cart, loaded with marchandise, and covered over in front with a wide tarpaulin. Inside, I caught sight of a large pumpkin (presumably), sliced open, its yellow centre showing up vividly against its dark background, some cauliflowers, watercress, etc., while its owner, a burly countryman in a full blue blouse and cap, excitedly gesticulated and called out, "En avant! Allez!" to the meek and diminutive one in front.

Under a sort of open shelter were rows of barrels; some arranged in blocks, some arranged all together in one position. The whole effect against the glaring yellow of the vine leaves being a strongly effective contrast, the barrels being the palest straw colour.

We were told that the parcheuses cannot make as much as the men: perhaps three francs a day would be their outside wage. Indeed sometimes they found it impossible to earn more than thirty centimes; and, notwithstanding the low wage, the life of a parcheuse is every bit as hard as that of her countrywoman in the fields.

At most of the street corners the groups of peasant women sit and knit behind their wares, wearing flounced caps, (ye who belong to the sex that needleworks these garments, forgive it, if I have appropriated to the use of the headgear the adjective that of right belongs to the petticoat!) and many coloured neckerchiefs. Sometimes they sit in little sentry boxes, their wares by their side, but oftener they sit, in open defiance of the weather, with no shelter above their heads.

As for the boys, it is almost impossible to see them without the inevitable short golf cape, with hood floating out behind, which is so much affected in that Order! It is difficult to understand quite why this particular costume has had such a "run," for one would imagine it to be rather an impeding garment for a boy.

Before I came away that afternoon the fishing nets were being hung up to dry, and, as we went along, we could see groups of men and women cleaning, sorting, and chopping oysters, and placing them in the characteristic shallow baskets that one sees all over the Landes, and some, on other trestles, were packing them up for transport. One woman near by was loading a cart with manure, while her companion—one of that half of mankind which possesses the most rights, but does not always (in France) do the most work—was calmly watching the process, without attempting to help! It is true that, in their dress, there was not much to distinguish the one sex from the other, as most of the women wore brilliant blue, or red, knickerbockers, no skirt, and coats, aprons, and big sabots. Some of the latter had very striking faces, though weather-beaten. Anything like the vivid contrast afforded by the arresting colours of their knickerbockers, backed by the cold, even grey of the huts, against which the parcheuses were standing, as they worked, it would be difficult to imagine.

I believe at La Hume, the adjoining village to Gujan-Mestras, which appeared to be dedicated to the goddess of laundry work, even as this place was dedicated to pisciculture, the women go about in the same gaudy leg gear, but I only saw it from the train, as we had not time to make an expedition to the spot.

As we were coming back to the train we came upon a line of bare tables and chairs, looking empty, forlorn, and forsaken (the rain had apparently driven the oyster workers to the shelter of the huts) beside the plage. Somehow they suggested to me an empty bandstand, and indeed the parcheurs and parcheuses are the factors of the entire local "music" of the place. Without them it were absolutely characterless—devoid of life and meaning.

At the station a number of parcheuses were waiting. Suddenly, without any note of warning, a sudden storm of discussion, heated and menacing, swept the humble, bare little waiting-room. It arose with simply a puff of conversation, but it spread in a moment to thunder clouds of invective, gesticulations of threatening import, lightning flashes of anger from eyes that, only an instant previously, had been bathed in the depths of phlegm. It seemed to be concerned (as usual!) with a matter affecting both sexes, for the facteur, and a young man who accompanied him, kept suddenly turning round on the women, and literally flinging impulsive shafts of fiery retort, beginning with, "Pourquoi? Vous Êtes vous-mÊme," etc., etc. The dispute raged with terrific force for a few minutes, then it was suddenly spent, and, as unexpectedly as it had begun, it fell away into a complete silence.