more plentiful on the coast of
Brittany than the common, but these rocky shores abound in both sorts. The
village of Ploumanach is built nearly into the sea, in the midst of rocks
overhanging the harbour. It is almost exclusively frequented by fishermen;
in the front is a group of rocks or islands called Les Sept Iles; the Ile
aux Moines, the most important among them, is strongly fortified, and is
directly opposite Ploumanach. At the inn we found a German artist employed
in making sketches in oil of this strange coast. It was late when we
reached Lannion, a town prettily situated in the valley of Leguer; it
contains no remarkable buildings except a few houses of the period of
Henry IV. and Louis XIII. in the market-place. The mackerel and other
fisheries are carried on from here, the grande and petite peche, the
"lieu" is taken in shoals and salted. The seaweed or wrack (_Fucus
vesiculosus_) called goemon, is extensively collected along the coasts of
Brittany for fertilising the lands and also for fuel, which last is so
scarce that even cow-dung is collected and dried against the walls for the
same use. The gathering of goemon takes place in March and September, and
employs the whole population of the district. Souvestre says, that on the
appointed day for gathering the crop, horses, oxen, cows, dogs, every
animal, and every machine, is put into requisition. Women and children all
are assembled in the bays, sometimes to the number of 10,000 persons; but,
to allow the poor to have the full advantage, the custom is, on the first
day, to admit only the necessitous of the parish. These borrow their
neighbours' vehicles, and collect a good crop. It is called "the day of
the poor." The goemon grows on rocks at a distance from the shore, and the
peasants not having sufficient boats to collect it tie the heaps together
with cords on to branches of trees and form a raft, on which the whole
family is launched; a barrel is attached at the end, and the unsteady
craft often rolls over and its cargo is precipitated into the water. The
fine sands of the sea shore are also carted and laid on the heavy lands to
divide the soil. Ascending the valley of the Leguer, about eight miles
from Lannion, on the opposite side of the river, we turned down a muddy
lane, and getting out into a field saw in front of us the imposing castle
of Tonquedec, perhaps the finest remains in Brittany of military
architecture, dating from the fourteenth century. I