Twenty leagues of country is immense, is it not?
Twenty leagues, monseigneur, all covered with water and herbage, and reeds of the most luxuriant nature; the whole studded with islands covered with woods of the densest foliage.

These large marshes, covered with reeds as with a thick mantle, sleep silently and calmly beneath the sun's soft and genial rays.

A few fishermen with their families indolently pass their lives away there, with their great living-rafts of poplar and alder, the flooring formed of reeds, and the roof woven out of thick rushes.

These barks, these floating-houses, are wafted to and fro by the changing winds.

Whenever they touch a bank, it is but by chance; and so gently, too, that the sleeping fisherman is not awakened by the shock.