Faces and Places Part 5

It is a pretty, lively scene. For background the long straggling town; in the foreground the motley groups of bathers, the far-reaching smooth surface of the lake; and, beyond, the broad Atlantic, thundering impotently upon the barricade of sandhills that makes possible the peace of Arcachon.

Like all watering-places, Arcachon lives two lives. In summer-time it springs into active bustle, with house-room at a premium, and the shops and streets filled with a gay crowd. It affects to have a winter season, and is, indeed, ostentatiously divided into two localities, one called the winter-town and the other the summer-town. The former is situated on the higher ground at the back of the town, and consists of villa residences built on plots reclaimed from the fir forest.

This is well enough in the winter-time, many English people flocking thither attracted by the shelter and scent of the fir trees; but Arcachon itself--the long unlovely street--is in the winter months steeped in the depths of desolation. The shops are deserted, the pill-boxes have their lids put on, and everywhere forlorn signs hang forth announcing that here is a _maison_ or an _appartement a louer_.

All through the winter months, shut up between sea and sand, Arcachon is A Town to Let.

Deprived in the winter months of the flock of holiday makers, Arcachon makes money in quite another way. Just as suddenly as it bloomed forth a fashionable watering-place, it has grown into an oyster park of world-wide renown. Last year the Arcachon oyster beds produced not less than three hundred million oysters, the cultivators taking in round figures a million francs. The oysters are distributed through various markets, but the greatest customer is London, whither there come every year fifty millions of the dainty bivalve.

"And what do they call your oysters in London?" I asked M. Faure, the energetic gentleman who has established this new trade between the Gironde and the Thames.

"They call them 'Natives'," he said, with a sly twinkle.

The Arcachon oyster, if properly packed, can live eight days out of the water, a period more than sufficient to allow for its transit by the weekly steamers that trade between Bordeaux and London. A vast quant.i.ty go to Marenne in the Charente lnferieure, where they fatten more successfully than in the salt lake, and acquire that green colour which makes them so much esteemed and so costly in the restaurants at Paris.

Oysters have, probably since the time of the Deluge, congregated in the Basin d'Arcachon; but it is only within the last thirty years the industry has been developed and placed on a footing that made possible the growth of today. Up to the year 1860 oysters were left to their own sweet will in the matter of creating a bed. When they settled upon a place it was diligently cultivated, but the lead was absolutely left to the oyster. Dr. Lalanne, in the intervals of a large medical practice at La Teste, a little place on the margin of the Basin, observed that oysters were often found attached to a piece of a wreck floating in the middle of the water far remote from the beds.

This led him to study more closely the reproductive habits of the oyster. He discovered that the eggs after incubation remained suspended in the water for a s.p.a.ce of from three to five days. Thus, for some time after the _frai_ season, practically the whole of the water in the Basin d'Arcachon was thick with oysters' eggs. Dr. Lalanne conceived the idea of providing this vast wealth with other means of establishing itself than were offered by a casual piece of wreck. What was wanted was something to which the eggs, floating in the water, could attach themselves, and remain till they were developed beyond the state of _ova_. After various experiments Dr. Lalanne adapted to the purpose the hollow roof tile in use everywhere in the South of France.

These are laid in blocks, each containing one hundred and twelve tiles, enclosed in a wooden framework. In June, when the oysters lay their eggs, these blocks of tiles are dropped into the water by the oyster beds. The eggs floating about, find the crusty surface of the tiles a convenient resting-place, and attach themselves by millions. Six months later the tiles, being examined, are found to be covered by oysters grown to the size of a silver sixpence. The tiles are taken up and the little oysters sc.r.a.ped off, a process facilitated by the fact that the tiles have in the first instance been coated with a solution of lime, which rubs off, carrying the tender oyster with it.

The infant oysters are next placed in iron network cases, through which the water freely pa.s.ses, whilst the young things are protected from crabs and other natural enemies. At the end of a year or eighteen months, they have so far grown as to be trusted out on their own account. They are accordingly strewn on the broad oyster beds, to fatten for another year or eighteen months, when they are ready for the waiting _gourmet_. Your oyster is fit to eat at eighteen months of age; but there is more of it when it is three years old.

We sailed out from Arcachon across the lake to the oyster park. Here the water is so shallow that the men who tend the beds walk about them in waterproof boots coming up to their knees. This part of the bay is dotted with boats with white canopies. Seen at anchor from Arcachon they look like boats laid up for the winter season; but every one is tenanted night and day. They are the homes of the guardians of the oyster beds, who keep watch and ward through the long winter.

Even more disastrous than possible visits from a male poacher are the incursions of a large flat sea-fish, known at Arcachon as the _there_, with us the ray. This gentleman has a colossal appet.i.te for oysters.

Scorning to deal with them by the dozen, he devours them by the thousand, asking neither for the succulent lemon nor the grosser addition of Chili vinegar. His action with the oyster is exceedingly summary. He breaks the sh.e.l.l with a vigorous blow of his tail, and gobbles up the contents. As it is stated by reputable authorities that the _there_ can dispose of 100,000 oysters in a day, it is clear that the tapping must be pretty persistent.

This selfish brute, regardless of the fact that we pay a minimum three shillings a dozen for oysters in London, is happily circ.u.mvented by an exceedingly simple device. Rowing about the oyster beds at Arcachon one notices that they are fringed with small twigs of fir trees. The natural supposition is that these are to mark the boundary of the various oyster beds; but it is in truth designed to keep out the _there_. This blundering fish, bearing down on the oyster bed in search of luncheon, comes upon the palisade of loosely planted twigs. Nothing in the world would be easier than for him to steer between the openings, of which there are abundance. But though he has stomach enough for a hundred thousand oysters, he has not brains enough to understand that by a little manoeuvring he might get at his meal. Repelled by the open network of twigs, he swims forlornly round and round the beds, so near and yet so far, with what anguish of heart only the lover of oysters can fathom.

The oyster beds at Arcachon belong to the State, and are leased to private persons, the leading company, which has created the British trade, having its headquarters at La Teste. The wholesale price of oysters at Arcachon is from a sovereign to forty shillings a thousand, according to size. In the long street they sell retail at from twopence to eightpence a dozen, thus realising what seems to-day the hopeless dream of the British oyster-eater.

CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTMAS EVE AT WATTS'S.

Wandering out of the High Street, Rochester, on the afternoon before Christmas Day, by a narrow pa.s.sage to the left I came upon the old Cathedral. The doors were open, and as they were the only doors in Rochester open to me, except, perhaps, those of the tramp house at the Union, I entered, and sat down as near as befitted my condition. The afternoon service was going on, and even to tired limbs and an empty stomach it was restful and soothing to hear the sweet voices of the surpliced choristers, and the grand deep tones of the organ, echoing through the fretted roof, and rolling round the long pillared aisles.

There were not ten people there besides myself, the clergy and the choir forming the bulk of the a.s.sembly. As soon as the service had been gone through, the clergy and the choir filed out, and the lay people one by one departed.

I should have liked to sit where I was all night. It was at least warm and sheltered, and I have slept on worse beds than may be made of half a dozen Cathedral chairs. But presently the verger came round, and perceiving at a glance that I was not a person likely to possess a superfluous sixpence, asked me if I was going to sit there all night.

I said I was if he didn't mind; but he did, and there was nothing for it but to clear out.

"Haven't you got nowhere to go to?" asked the man, as I moved slowly off.

"Nowhere in particular," I answered.

"That's a bad look-out for Christmas-eve. Why don't you go over to Watts's?"

"What's Watts's?"

"It's a house in High Street, where you'll get a good supper, a bed, and a fourpenny-bit in the morning if you can show you'em an honest man, and not a regular tramp. There's old Watts's muniment down by the side of the choir. A reglar brick he was, who not only wrote beautiful hymns, but gave away his money for the relief of the pore."

My heart warmed to the good old Doctor whose hymns I had learnt in my youth, little thinking that the day would come when I should be thankful to him for more substantial nourishment. I had intended to go in the ordinary way to get a night's lodging in the casual ward; but Watts's was evidently a better game, and getting from the verger minute directions how to proceed in order to gain admittance to Watts's, I left the Cathedral.

The verger was not a bad-hearted fellow, I am sure, though he did speak roughly to me at first. He seemed struck with the fact that a man not too well clad, who had nowhere particular to sleep on the eve of Christmas Day, could scarcely be expected to be "merry." All the time he was talking about Watts's he was fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, and I know he was feeling if he had there a threepenny-bit. But if he had, it didn't come immediately handy, and before he got hold of it the thought of the sufficient provision which awaited me at Watts's afforded vicarious satisfaction to his charitable feelings, and he was content with bidding me a kindly good-night, as he pointed my road down the lane to the police-office, where, it seemed, Dr. Watts's guests had to put in a preliminary appearance.

Crossing High Street, pa.s.sing through a sort of courtyard, and down some steps, I reached a snug-looking house, which I had some difficulty in believing was a police-office. But it was, and the first thing I saw was seven men lounging about the yard. They didn't seem like regular tramps, but they had a look as if they had walked far, and each man carried a little bundle and a stick. The verger had told me that only six men per night were admitted to Watts's, and there were seven already.

"Are you for Watts's?" one of them, a little, sharp-looking fellow, with short light hair pasted down over his forehead, asked me, seeing me hesitate.

"Yes."

"Well, it ain't no go to-night. There's seven here, and fust come, fust served."

"Don't believe him, young 'un," said an elderly man, "it's all one what time you come, so as it's afore half-past five you'll take your chance with the rest of us."

It was not yet five, so I loafed about with the rest of them, being scowled upon by all except the elderly man till the arrival of two other travellers removed to them the weight of the odium I had lightly borne.

At a quarter to six a police-sergeant appeared at the door of the office and said:

"Now then."

This was generally interpreted as a signal to advance, and we stood forward in an irregular line. The sergeant looked around us sternly till his eye lighted upon the elderly man.

"So you're trying it on again, are you?"

"I've not been here for two months, if I may never sleep in a bed again," whimpered the elderly man.

"You was here last Monday week that I know of, and may be since. Off you go!" and the elderly gentleman went off with an alacrity that rather reduced the wonderment I had felt at his disinterested intervention to prevent my losing a chance, suggesting, as it did, that he felt the probability of gaining admission was exceedingly remote.

I was the next upon whom the eye of the police-sergeant loweringly fell.

"What do you want?"

"A night's lodging at Watts's."

"Watts's is for decent workmen on the tramp. You ain't a labourer. Show me your hands." I held out my hands, and the police-sergeant examined the palms critically.

"What are you?"

"A paper stainer."

"Where have you been to?"

"I came from Canterbury last."

"Where do you work?"