They on one hand,
the bridge on the other, protect, with a double line, the port where
the vessels are crowded together like a flock of gulls; those graceful
hulls, those tapering masts, those sails swollen or floating, weave
the labyrinth of their movements and forms upon the magnificent purple
of the sunset. The sun sinks into the river; the black rigging, the
round hulls, stand out against its conflagration, and look like jewels
of jet set in gold.
Around Bordeaux are smiling hills, varied horizons, fresh valleys,
a river people by incessant navigation, a succession of cities and
villages harmoniously planted upon the declivities or in the plains,
everywhere the richest verdure, the luxury of nature and civilization,
the earth and man vying with each other to enrich and decorate the
happiest valley of France. Below Bordeaux a flat soil, marshes,
sand; a land which goes on growing poorer, villages continually less
frequent, ere long the desert. I like the desert as well.
Pine woods pass to the right and to the left, silent and wan. Each
tree bears on its side the scar of wounds where the woodmen have set
flowing the resinous blood which chokes it; the powerful liquor still
ascends into its limbs with the sap, exhales by its slimy shoots and
by its cleft skin; a sharp aromatic odor fills the air.
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