THE CAMARGUE.
Formation of the delta of the Rhone--The diluvial wash--The alluvium spread
over this--The three stages the river pursues--The zone of erosion--The
zone of compensation--The zone of deposit--River mouths--Estuaries
and deltas--The formation of bars--Of lagoons--The lagoons of the
Gulf of Lyons--The ancient position of Arles between the river and
the lagoons--Neglect of the lagoons in the Middle Ages--They become
morasses--Attempt at remedy--Embankments and drains--A mistake made--The
Camargue now a desert--Les Saintes Maries--No evidence to support the
legend--Based on a misapprehension.
As I said when speaking of the Crau, the whole delta of the Rhone, which
extended in the diluvial epoch from Cette to Fos, consists of a vast
sloping plain of rolled stones from the Alps. What is now a great convexity
thrust into the Mediterranean, perpetually gaining ground on the sea, was
at the commencement of the present geologic epoch a great bay, and the
waves of the Mediterranean broke against the cliffs of les Monts Garrigues,
at Lodève, the heights of Nimes and Beaucaire, against the limestone crags
of the Alpines, and swirled against that calcareous spur that now separates
the lagoon of Berre from the desert of la Crau.
But, at an epoch which it is impossible to fix, which, however, is
posterior to the last geologic dislocations of the soil, two formidable
deluges swept from the Alps down the troughs of the Rhone and the Durance,
carrying with them vast masses of stone torn from the flanks of the
mountains. They were veritable avalanches of water, mud and rubble, that
filled the entire bay and covered the land, wherever they poured, with
the wreckage of the Alps. The stones were broken into a thousand pieces
in their course, their angles rubbed down, and their surfaces polished by
friction, and this vast bed of rubble measures near the mouth of the Rhone
some sixty feet in depth, and extends under the blue surface of the sea to
the distance of many miles.
But, when the diluvium ceased, and the rivers Rhone and Durance assumed
approximately their present character, a change of procedure took place.
The volume of water rolled down was by no means so great, the inclination
of the fall was vastly lessened, consequently the rivers were enabled to
do what they had not been able to do in the diluvial period, chew up their
food of stone, and reduce it to the condition of mud. This is what the two
rivers are engaged upon now, and instead of strewing their _embouchures_
with pebbles, they distribute over them, or would do so, if permitted, a
film of fertilising mud.
Through many ages the Rhone has rambled at its sweet will over the vast
tract of rubble that formed its delta in the diluvial age, changing its
course capriciously, and always, wherever it went, covering up the pebble
bed with a deposit of fertile soil. Other streams helped in the good
work--the Hérault, rich with red mud, the Ley, that flows past Montpellier,
and the Vidourle from Lunel: consequently a very large portion of the
rubble bed is covered with rich soil, that grows vines, mulberries, and
olives. The plough and spade, however, speedily reach the boulders that
lie but slightly buried beneath the surface. The canal of Craponne, that
conveys the charged waters of the Durance over the Crau of Arles, is
effecting artificially over that portion of the rubbly desert, the work
that was done by Nature herself in past ages over the whole region from
Cette to Aiguesmortes.
Now let us examine very shortly the stages through which every
mountain-born river runs.
When young, sprung from eternal snows, gushing from under glaciers, it cuts
its way through mountain gorges, receiving the rocks that fall from above,
and carrying them along in its course, tearing its way round rocky spurs,
and breaking them in its fury, and, as it travels down into the lower
ground, it carries with it a vast mass of stone. Every tributary does the
same. This first stage is called the _zone of erosion_.
But, as the river leaves the Alps, its course becomes less rapid, and the
fall is not so abrupt. The bed widens, and what was a boiling torrent
becomes a rapid river. As it rolls along, it carries down with it the
stones that it has brought from the mountains, turning them over and
over in its course, rubbing down all rough points, and becoming itself
discoloured with the particles it has rubbed off the pebbles. All this
matter thus produced has a tendency to fall to the bottom and form banks of
gravel; but the violence of the stream is constantly altering the shape and
position of these beds, carrying the gravel farther, and throwing down in
their place half-triturated deposits of the same character.
This is called the _zone of compensation_.
Any traveller who has visited the Vallais may see the Rhone at work in its
first stage. In the second he can trace the river from below Lyons, and see
the thousand gravel-banks formed, swept away, and reformed, at every flood,
that mark the course of the river in its second stage.
By the time the Rhone has reached Arles all its gravel has been champed up
and reduced to impalpable mud. That blue crystalline flood that gushed from
the Lake of Leman, unsullied by a particle of earth, is now a river of
brown mud--thick as pea-soup, and as nutritious. The stones that would have
killed all vegetation have been pounded into a condition so attenuated,
that they form rich alluvial matter. The river now seeks to deposit
all this mud. On reaching the sea, the difference in gravity between
the meeting waters, and their variation in temperature, produces rapid
precipitation of all the earthy matter held in suspense by the stream. This
last stage in the river's course is called the _zone of deposit_.
The inclination of the bed of the Rhone between Tarascon and Arles is four
feet three inches in the mile; but at Arles the elevation of the bank is
but three feet six inches above the level of the sea; and the river has
to run sixty-two miles before it reaches salt waves. Consequently the bed
widens, the river branches, and the rapidity of its movement diminishes
progressively. The alluvium is deposited, banks multiply, the mouths are
encumbered with submarine islets, locally called _theys_, which the waves
and currents of the sea displace and remodel continuously, and render the
entrance to the river impracticable. [1]
[Footnote 1: Lenthéric: 'Les Villes Mortes du Golfe de Lyon,' Paris, 1883.]
River mouths vary greatly; they are either estuaries, like those of the
Thames, the Seine, and the S. Lawrence, or they are deltas, like those
of the Nile, the Po, and the Rhone. Very generally in tidal seas we have
estuaries; but in those that are tideless, as the Mediterranean and the
Black Sea, they are deltas. Where there is a tide, the mouth of the river
is washed out and kept open by the flux and reflux of the sea; but where
there is no tide there is nothing to interfere with the river choking its
mouth with its deposits. In such a case, after a while, the mass of deposit
becomes so great as to interfere with the course of the river. The sea
beating against this bar throws up sand and gravel upon it, and at every
storm raises it higher. Then the river divides into two or more branches,
and forms for itself new beds, which are destined in turn to undergo the
same process.
Now, when a river has formed its bar choking its mouth, and is then forced
to make a fresh mouth, it leaves a lagoon behind this bar. At every flood
its waters overflow, and are unable to escape to the sea when left behind
the bar. Sometimes, in like manner, in a gale of wind on shore, the waves
are carried over the bar, and there are left as a brackish pool, unable to
return to the sea.
Thus the whole of the Bay of the Gulf of Lyons is masked by a false
coastline of old bars, behind which lie lagoons all formed in the way
indicated. Between Rousillon and Leucate is the Etang de Salses; Narbonne
anciently was seated in the lap of another great inland lake or lagoon. The
vast Etang de Tau has a barrier between it and the sea on which is planted
Cette. Lagoons behind bars extend thence the whole way to Aiguesmortes; and
between the mouths of the Rhone, as they flow at present, is the Etang de
Valcarès.
After the river has deserted its old bed, and the lagoon has been formed
behind the bar, or littoral cord, wave and storm working upon this long
line of mud and sand succeed in breaking through; then, as the inclination
of the land is but 0'm, 01 in the metre--almost nothing, the sweet and salt
water mingle in these lakes, they never run dry, though in many cases not
three feet deep.
A look at the map of the Gulf of Lyons will show the reader that its
special characteristic is the chain of lagoons separated from the sea by
a narrow ribbon of sand. It may have caused perplexity in the mind of
many that the Gulf should bear the name it does. It cannot take its name
from the city of Lyons--the ancient Lugdunum--which is two hundred and
twenty miles inland. It certainly cannot derive it from the wild
beasts--lions--for there are none nearer than Africa.
The fact is, that the Gulf takes its title from the Keltic word for a
lagoon, lôn or lyn, a name that recurs in Maguelonne--the Dwelling on the
Pool--in the Canal des Lonnes, a channel connecting the ponds and lagoons
of the Durance and Rhone, and, indeed, in our own London (Londinium) the
Dinas, Castle on the Lon, or pool of the Thames and the Essex marshes.
Anciently, in historic times, Arles, that lies near the apex of the
triangle formed by the branches of the Rhone, was bathed on one side by the
river, by which she received merchandise from the north; and, on the other
side by the _lones_, or submerged land, that extended to the sea; and after
Marius had connected these lones with his canal, she exported and imported
merchandise over the Mediterranean through the lagoons, as the sea could
not be reached by the river on account of its bars.
Moreover, the Greek and Roman cities along the coast are not found on the
actual coast, on the bars, but were planted on the lagoons, which afforded
them perfect harbourage for their merchant vessels. These lagoons, through
which flowed salt and fresh water, were always healthy, and remained
healthy as long as communication was maintained with the sea and the river.
But wind and wave and alluvium working together choke these communications,
and directly the mouth seawards of a lagoon is closed it is converted into
a stagnating marsh that exhales malaria.
During the Middle Ages no attention was paid to this fact, and those
stations which had been perfectly wholesome in the Classic Epoch were
rendered pestilential, and dwindled from populous cities to a cluster of
fever-smitten peasants' hovels. In later times this desperate condition
of affairs called for remedy. Louis XIV. sent engineers to examine and
report on the state of this region, and works were begun which have been
maintained and extended annually, the raising of dykes against overflow by
the Rhone and by the sea. Drains have been cut in all directions to carry
off the stagnant water, opening by traps into the sea. The extent of
dyke now reaches two hundred and thirty miles. The banks of the two main
branches of the Rhone are protected, as well as the sea-face of the
Camargue, the triangle between them, and the annual cost to the country to
keep them in repair is one hundred and twenty thousand francs. A flood,
however, often breaks through the banks, and submerges a large district. On
such occasions the additional expense is heavy.
Now, what is the result of all this outlay? The engineers and scientific
authorities of the coast-works and dykes are pretty unanimous in saying
that a great mistake was made in the beginning by Louis XIV. The Rhone
ought never to have been embanked. What should have been done was to keep
open the mouths of the lagoons, to preserve them from festering.
Formerly, the large island of the Camargue, occupying nearly twenty
thousand acres, was periodically inundated by the Rhone, and when the
waters fell, a film of the richest deposit was left behind, just as in
Egypt the Nile overflows and fertilises its delta. At every overflow
eighteen thousand cubic yards of alluvium was deposited over this district,
all of which is now carried into the Mediterranean and thrown down in the
construction of new bars; utterly wasted.
In the time of the Roman domination the Camargue was a second Egypt,
and was called "The granary of the Roman army;" and Arles was given the
designation of "The Breasts," so flowing with plenty was it held to be.
At the initial cost of millions of pounds, and an annual outlay of five
thousand pounds, the Camargue has been reduced to absolute sterility.
The protected lands, deprived of the sweet water which would have washed
from them the salt that now spoils their fertility, and of the natural
dressing that Providence sends down to them every spring and autumn, are
now productive of only a little coarse wiry grass and thistles, and the
dried soil is white with saline efflorescence. At the present day the
value of land in the neighbourhood of Arles that is subject to periodic
inundation is three times that of the land guarded by costly embankments
against the bounties of the river.
On descending the sinuous course of the lesser Rhone the hills disappear,
the horizon is level as the sea, and all around is desert. Then the current
of the Rhone seems to fail wholly, the waters of the river and of the
lagoons on both sides of its bed mingle, and become confounded in one
sheet. All nature is dead. The dull and sluggish water, streaked with lines
of ooze, extend on all sides as far as the eye can reach. The effects of
the mirage add bewilderment. One can hardly distinguish water from sky.
Nothing can be more dreary than this naked surface, hushed into silence,
where vegetation is reduced to a few tufts of rushes and tamarisks.
But, suddenly, out of the marshy, submerged plain, a strange pile of
buildings is seen cutting the horizon, half a castle, half a cathedral,
imposing in a mass as it towers above the fragile and squalid hovels
crouched at the feet. This building is _Les Saintes Maries_.
[Illustration: Les Saintes Maries.]
Probably nowhere in the world is to be seen a spot so desolate and so
wretched. The village is planted at the extreme west angle of the Camargue.
It can be reached by one road only, rough to travel over, and impracticable
in winter. This road leaves Arles, or rather Trinquetailles, opposite
Arles, traverses the marsh of the Grand Mar, follows the dyke of the river,
and then threads its way among morasses, and over soil white with salt, and
burning under the rays of the sun. Once in the year this route is crowded
with pilgrims, who come to pay their devotions at the spot where it is
supposed that the Three Marys, Mary, the mother of James, Mary Salome, and
their servant Sara, landed. The legend is somewhat mixed. According to one
version, those who came to Provence, flying from the persecution raised by
the Jews, were Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and Martha. Lazarus, as we have
seen, has been appropriated by Marseilles as its apostle; Martha has been
settled at Tarascon, and Mary Magdalene has been given a cell in La Sainte
Baume. Here, at Les Saintes Maries, however, the apostolic three are
said to be Mary, mother of James, Mary, wife of Cleopas, and Sara, their
servant; but a concession to the other tradition is made, in that it is
allowed that these three brought with them Lazarus and Martha.
Nothing was known of all this till the time of good King René. The church
at this point was called in the sixth century S. Maria de Ratis, S. Mary of
the Boats, by S. Cæsarius, Bishop of Arles. William, Count of Provence, in
his will, A.D. 992, gives it the same designation; so Raimbald, Archbishop
of Arles in A.D. 1061, "The Church of the Ever Virgin Mother of God, Mary
of the Boats." So also Bertrand II., Count of Provence, at the same date.
Two bulls of popes in 1123 and 1200 speak of the church as that of S. Mary
on the Sea. So does Gervais of Tilbury. In 1241 Raymond Berengarius, Count
of Provence, entitles it Notre Dame de la Mer. And so it continued to be
called in documents down to 1395. If not Our Lady of the Sea, it was S.
Maria de la Mar, of the Mere, the Lagoon.
However, in 1448, King René took it into his head that Mary and the Mere
were distinct persons, that Mary was not, could not be, the Virgin, she
must be one of the other Marys; so with a little putting together of heads
and puzzlement, he and his advisers decided that the two Marys were Mary,
the mother of James, and Mary Salome. The next thing to be done was to find
their bodies there, but that naturally presented no difficulty. There were
bones there--from Pagan times. Since that date a great pilgrimage has taken
place annually to Les Saintes Maries; and the curé of Les Baux, being very
satisfied that the Trémaïé in his parish must be the Three Marys, erected
a chapel under the rock sculptured with the figures of Marius, Martha, and
Julia.
The Magdalen is probably a personation of the perished city of Maguelonne,
as one of the Marys is the Mar or Mere; and Martha, there can hardly be
a question, is the Syrian prophetess who accompanied Marius, but who in
her place inherited the attributes and cult of Martis, the Phoenician
goddess, venerated, doubtless, at all the settlements of these mercantile
adventurers along the coast.