France’s Wild and Moody Camargue ---- Like America’s Old, Old West

It is a strange and wild and wonderful land that fills the mind and soul with images and scenes like some startling flashback to the early American West.

The region is called the Camargue, and it is a mood, a vast and lonely territory that takes in marshes and wild birds, wild horses and rampaging bulls and immense stretches of emptiness that are framed by the horizon itself.

Nowhere in all of Europe is there a region to compare with the Camargue with its soggy wide plains, brackish lagoons, thatched cottages and the mournful wail of that forbidding wind, the mistral, that screams through the valley of the Rhone, numbing and searing, depending on the season.

Stes. Maries is the unofficial capital of the Camargue, a small village of little inns and sunny sidewalk cafes and a magnificent beach that draws thousands of vacationers during the searing summers when the French turn south to spend their holidays.

Stes. Maries is but a speck, though, on the Camargue plain with its salt marshes and lagoons, a delta hemmed in by the Grand Rhone and the Petit Rhone which satisfy the thirst of the Mediterranean west of Marseille.

Reeds blow with the wind and wild white horses gallop with the speed of the mistral across the endless flat plain. It is here that cowboys of the Camargue ride and rope and round up bulls for the arenas of Provence. Sometimes mosquitoes swarm and the sun seems unbearable, but the Camargue lures the curious who arrive to ride and to breathe its freedom and to stand in awe of this mysterious and sometimes forbidding corner of France.

Spread across the Camargue are dozens of ranches for the pleasure of vacationers and the raising of bulls, for Provence is as popular for the bloodless bullfight as Portugal is. In a Provencal bullfight a rosette is worn between the animal’s horns, and it is this tiny object that is snatched by the razeteur, which is the name given to the brave one who faces the bulls.

What’s more, it is the bull--not the razeteur-- who gets top billing in the arenas of the Camargue and other regions of Provence. The razeteur is a nonentity. It is the bull who makes the headlines and whose name is spread on posters across the land. Famous bulls have been known to pack the arena to overflowing at Arles, and in the Camargue itself hundreds of bullfights draw thousands annually.

While bloodless for the bull, the encounter can be risky for the razeteur. On special occasions the bulls are allowed to rampage through the streets of Stes. Maries, pursued by gardians on horseback--much as it’s done during the running of the bulls in Pamplona. It is an exercise that is called the abravado. In the ensuing melee bulls have been known to chase onlookers into trees and to rip into sidewalk cafes, scattering tables and chairs as well as the crowds.

Spectators watch from the rooftops of their cars. Others cheer from the safety of open windows above the scene.

Arles is the gateway to the Camargue and its marshes, and this day as we drove north, reeds were burning beside the highway, the smoke rising in sharp contrast to the translucent sky that had lured Van Gogh and other Impressionists to this land.

From the marshes, wild birds peered as we passed. Flamingos showed off their pink plumage and white herons wheeled overhead, riding thermals far above the earth.

As a sanctuary for these and other birds, the Camargue is invaded annually by plovers, ospreys, the purple heron, avocets and swallows, and in winter the marshes serve as a refuge for ducks winging in from the chilly climes of Northern Europe.

Throughout these plains graze thousands of bulls along with the famous white horses of the Camargue. Scattered across the land are the cabanes belonging to the herdsmen, small white cottages with thatched roofs and rounded walls that curve into an apse as protection against the wind--for the mistral is a frequent and capricious companion in the Camargue.

Cowboys like those of the American West ride, rope and brand like figures out of a Louis l’Amour novel. Until the ‘50s the Camargue was a depressed region, even for the rough-and-tumble riders who chose it over the curse of the cities.

While the northern sector was supported by rice and other agriculture, the south suffered. Fishing and the raising of bulls was barely rewarding. Then tourism took off and visitors swarmed to the Camargue.

Now inns and ranches like those in Arizona and Colorado host French dudes who ride through the marshes, silhouetted by the land’s fiery sunsets, and there are others who take off in four-wheel Jeeps to photograph the bulls and the wild horses that race beside them, their magnificent manes blowing in the wind.

A couple of miles outside Stes. Maries, on the road to Aigues-Mortes, vacationers settle in at Mas de la Fouque, which features a lake with flamingos, Roman-style baths and lawns surrounded by casuarina. Non-riders sunbathe by the swimming pool, and on chilly nights fires are lit in the lobby.

Dozens of other ranches appear across the plains of the Camargue. It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at L’Etrier, which is a carbon copy of ranches familiar to the eye back home in Tucson and Wickenburg. Only instead of jeans and a cowboy shirt, blonde, statuesque Francoise Brouzet, the boss at L’Etrier, wore a T-shirt and a bikini bottom and was slugging down Campari instead of bourbon. Few would disagree that she’s the most glamorous ranch boss in the entire Camargue.

Cowhide rugs cover the floors at L’Etrier and guest rooms feature beam ceilings and picture windows that frame the marshes. Saddles are scattered about the bar and the walls are lined with sketches of riders. None of this is a coincidence, since this tanned Linda Evans look-alike travels regularly to Arizona to visit its dude ranches.

At L’Etrier, Francoise Brouzet has incorporated other atmosphere of the American Southwest--pictures of Indians that greet guests in a lounge crowded with leather sofas and a lineup of spurs.

And there’s the bartender who is decked out in chaps and a cowboy hat and who pours everything from a glass of Perrier to a healthy slug of London gin. Yes, tres dry.

Beyond the door, guests repose beside a swimming pool while a young girl in a bikini fetches them drinks from the French dude with the cocktail shaker.

From L’Etrier, wranglers lead vacationers on rides through marshes and into pine forests and to the sea itself. Later they dine family-style in a lounge with a beamed ceiling and a huge fireplace while candles glow at each table.

Well beyond the sprinkling of cottages, so as not to disturb older guests, L’Etrier operates a disco for the young crowd--an incongruous attraction in the startling darkness of this empty land where crickets are heard along with the croaking of frogs.

To the sophisticated Parisian journeying down to the Camargue, the experience is one of total surrender to the harmony of this marshy land with its wild birds and haunting silence. The stillness is disturbed only by the voice of the wind that whispers through the

reeds.

This lagoon-laced delta with its guest ranches is a choice staging area for journeys to Arles, Nimes, Aix-en-Provence where Cezanne was born, Les Baux, St. Remy and Avignon. Or for doing a little sightseeing through the Camargue itself. The brackish lagoon, which is called the Etang de Vaccares, is the heart of the zoological and botanical reserve that provides shelter for more than 300 species of birds. While we watched silently from the marsh samphire, purple herons bathed in the murky waters and flamingos preened nearby.

The mistral was on holiday and the sun warmed the earth and the sky was the color of faded jeans. Nothing stirred. Not even the reeds. The cry of a gull was as startling as thunder. As evening approached, the lagoons took on the sun’s dying rays. Then total darkness enveloped the land.

The world seemed blissfully at peace.

L’Etrier, Chemin bas des launes, 13460 Saintes Maries de la Mer, France.

For other information about the Camargue, contact the French Government Tourist Office, 9401 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills 90212, or telephone (213) 271-6665 or 272-2661.