Autumn Impressions of the Gironde

To go to Arcachon
in autumn is to have spread before one's eyes, for almost the entire journey, a
perfect feast of colour. I never in my life saw such a magnificent revel of
tints massed together in profusion, scattered broadcast over the country so
lavishly and unstintingly, as passed rapidly before my eyes that day. 

The vivid yellow
of dwarf acacias; the brilliant crimson of some of the vines; the dazzling gold
of others; the dark sombre, olive green of the dwarf pine-trees flecked here
and there with splashes of vivid chrome yellow from the embroidery on their
bark of some lichen; here and there a high ledge of thorn trees of pronounced
terra-cotta. The prevailing note of colour everywhere was a deep russet; in
some places merging into brilliant orange, picked out in sharp contrast with
the pale yellow leaves of the acacia, and the fainter speckling of those of the
silver birch, clear against the white glare of its trunk. 

The whole of
Nature's paint-box seemed flung into one passionate last declaration of colour
on the canvas of the dying year. Flaming red, soft carmine, deepening into
vermilion; rich orange fading to darker crimson; soft lilac changing swiftly to
purple. The whole atmosphere, as far as the eye could reach, seemed flaming,
shimmering with a glow as of a gorgeous sunset; red seemed literally painted
deep into the air; it seemed pulsing with flame colour. High on the banks were
piled the ferns in huge masses of crimson and rich chocolate brown; here and
there turning to brick red the dying fronds carpeting thickly the ground all
around and beneath the trees.