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If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield, crossing the marshes, skirting étangs, a solitary figure in the waste, easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings. Aulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October leaves.
Passing a curious roadside cross which bears the date 1741 and a long Latin inscription splashed over with lichen, one arrives at La Ferriere aux Etangs, a quaint village with a narrow and steep street containing one conspicuously old, timber-framed house.
To judge from the site of this ancient town, which tradition describes as the original nucleus of Montpelier, the sea must have made great inroads on the neighbouring coast. The air, it is said, is growing less wholesome than formerly, owing probably to the accumulation of the etangs. From the edge of the coast to Maguelone, the distance cannot be much less than a mile and a half at low water.
M. Des Etangs, the French traveller to whom I have already alluded, agreed to accompany me to the Far East, an arrangement which I welcomed, for he was a very cultivated and interesting man. Unexpectedly he was detained in Ceylon by a business matter, so I went on alone. I regretted this, for on two previous occasions I had found what a pleasant travelling companion an educated Frenchman can be.
One or two houses erected on these ridges, which border the etangs, give to the view, if possible, a still more desolate appearance, being totally unaccompanied by even a tree or a patch of verdure, and only serve to remind you of the nakedness of the land.
Passing a curious roadside cross which bears the date 1741 and a long Latin inscription splashed over with lichen, one arrives at La Ferriere aux Etangs, a quaint village with a narrow and steep street containing one conspicuously old, timber-framed house.
Amongst others invited to see the Devil Dancers was a French traveller, a M. Des Etangs, a singularly cultivated man, who had just made a tour of all the French possessions in India. M. Des Etangs was full of curiosity about the so-called "Sacred Tooth" of Buddha, which is enshrined in the "Temple of the Tooth," and makes Kandy a peculiarly sacred place to the Buddhist world.
And, finally, Des Etangs, adopting, in part, the interpretation of Ragon, adds to it another, which he calls the moral symbolism of the legend, and supposes that Hiram is no other than eternal reason, whose enemies are the vices that deprave and destroy humanity. To each of these interpretations it seems to me that there are important objections, though perhaps to some less so than to others.
It stands on a round sweeping hill, commanding a considerable extent of land and sea; but the sea-coast is chiefly an expanse of low ground and etangs, or salt-water lakes; and the neighbouring hill country, resembling in form a succession of cultivated downs, has neither height nor variety to recommend it.
Beside the works mentioned in the above text, Gustave Droz wrote: 'Le Cahier bleu de Mademoiselle Cibot , 'Auteur d'une Source , 'Un Paquet de Lettres' , 'Babolain' , 'Les Etangs' , 'Tristesses et Sourires , and L'Enfant . He died in Paris, October 22, 1895. CAMILLE DOUCET de l'Academie Francaise. The devil take me if I can remember her name, notwithstanding I dearly loved her, the charming girl!
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