less to our fine Caucasian race than to a breed of herbivorous animals.
The total absence of all the usual characteristics of the social man
made that bare head still more remarkable. The face, bronzed by the sun
(its angular outlines presenting a sort of vague likeness to the granite
which forms the soil of the region), was the only visible portion of
the body of this singular being. From the neck down he was wrapped in
a "sarrau" or smock, a sort of russet linen blouse, coarser in texture
than that of the trousers of the less fortunate conscripts. This
"sarrau," in which an antiquary would have recognized the "saye," or
the "sayon" of the Gauls, ended at his middle, where it was fastened
to two leggings of goatskin by slivers, or thongs of wood, roughly
cut,--some of them still covered with their peel or bark. These hides
of the nanny-goat (to give them the name by which they were known to
the peasantry) covered his legs and thighs, and masked all appearance
of human shape. Enormous sabots hid his feet. His long and shining
hair fell straight, like the goat's hair, on either side of his face,
being parted in the centre like the hair of certain statues of the
Middle-Ages which are still to be seen in our cathedrals. In place of
the knotty stick which the conscripts carried over their shoulders,
this man held against his breast as though it were a musket, a heavy
whip, the lash of which was closely braided and seemed to be twice as
long as that of an ordinary whip. The sudden apparition of this
strange being seemed easily explained. At first sight some of the
officers took him for a recruit or conscript (the words were used
indiscriminately) who had outstripped the column. But the commandant
himself was singularly surprised by the man's presence; he showed no
alarm, but his face grew thoughtful. After looking the intruder well
over, he repeated, mechanically, as if preoccupied with anxious
thought: "Yes, why don't they come on? do you know, you?"