decorative bar T HIS book makes no pretence at being a work of historical or archæological importance; nor yet is it a conventional book of travel or a glorified guide-book. It is merely a record of things seen and heard, with some personal observations on the picturesque, romantic, and topographical aspects of one of the most varied and beautiful touring-grounds in all the world, and is the result of many pleasant wanderings of the author and artist, chiefly by highway and byway, in and out of

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“ À Valence, le Midi commence! ” is a saying of the French, though this Rhône-side city, the Julia-Valentia of Roman times, is in full view of the snow-clad Alps. It is true, however, that as one descends the valley of the torrential Rhône, from Lyons southward, he comes suddenly upon a brilliancy of sunshine and warmth of atmosphere, to say nothing of many differences in manners and customs, which are reminiscent only of the southland itself. Indeed this is even more true of Orange, but a coupl

T HE Pays d’Arles is one of those minor sub-divisions of undefined, or at least ill-defined, limits that are scattered all over France. Local feeling runs high in all of them, and the Arlesien professes a great contempt for the Martigaux or the inhabitant of the Pays de Cavaillon, even though their territories border on one another; though indeed all three join hands when it comes to standing up for their beloved Provence. There are sixty towns and villages in the Pays d’Arles, extending from Ta

S T . R ÉMY DE P ROVENCE is delightful and indescribable in its quiet charm. It’s not so very quiet either—at times—and its great Fête de St. Rémy in October is anything but quiet. On almost any summer Sunday, too, its cafés and terraces, and the numerous tree-bordered squares and places, and its Cours—the inevitable adjunct of all Provençal towns—are as gay with the life of the town and the country round about as any local metropolis in France. The local merchants call St. Rémy “ toujours un pa

W HEN the Rhône enters that département of modern France which bears the name Bouches-du-Rhône, it has already accomplished eight hundred and seventy kilometres of its torrential course, and there remain but eighty-five more before, through the many mouths of the Grand and Petit Rhône, it finally mingles the Alpine waters of its source with those of the Mediterranean. Its flow is enormous when compared with the other inland waterways of France, and, though navigable only in a small way compared

W E arrived at Martigues in the early morning hours affected by automobilists, having spent the night a dozen miles or so away in the château of a friend. Our host made an early start on a shooting expedition, already planned before we put in an appearance, so we took the road at the witching hour of five A. M. , and descended upon the Hôtel Chabas at Martigues before the servants were up. Some one had overslept. However, we gave the great door of the stable a gentle shake; it opened slowly, but

M ARTIGUES is the metropolis of the towns and villages which fringe the shore of the Étang de Berre, a sort of an inland sea, with all the attributes of both a salt and fresh water lake. Around Martigues, in the spring-time, all is verdant and full of colour, and the air is laden with the odours of aromatic buds and blossoms. At this time, when the sun has not yet dried out and yellowed the hillsides, the spectacle of the background panorama is most ravishing. Almond, peach, and apricot trees, a

T HE Bouches-du-Rhône, like the delta of the Mississippi, is a great sprawling area of sandbars and currents of brackish water. For miles in any direction, as the eye turns, it is as if a bit of water-logged Holland had been transported to the Mediterranean, with sand-dunes and a scrubby growth of furze as the only recognizable characteristics. As a great and useful waterway, the Rhône falls conspicuously from the position which it might have occupied had nature given it a more regular and depen

M ARSEILLES has more than once been called the Babylon of the south, and with truth, for such a babel of many tongues is to be heard in no Latin or Teuton city in the known world. At Marseilles all is tumultuous and gay, and the Cannebière is the gayest of all. Mèry perpetuated its fame, or at any rate spread it far and wide, when he said, “ Si Paris avait une Cannebière, ce serait un petit Marseille .” It is not a long thoroughfare, this Cannebière, in spite of its extension in the Rue de Noail

O NE day, something like four hundred years ago, a little colony of Catalans quitted Spain and, sailing across the terrible Gulf of Lions, came to Marseilles and begged the privilege of settling on that jutting tongue of land to the left of Marseilles’s Vieux Port, known even to-day as the Pointe des Catalans. To reach the Pointe and Quartier des Catalans one follows along the quays of the old port and climbs the height to the left. Of course one should walk; no genuine literary pilgrim ever tak

M UCH sentimental and historic interest centres around the world-famed ancient capital of Aix-en-Provence. To-day its position, if subordinate to that of Marseilles in commercial matters, is still omnipotent, so far as concerns the affairs of society and state. To-day it is the chef-lieu of the Arrondissement of the same name in the Département des Bouches du Rhône; the seat of an archbishopric; of the Cour d’Appel; and of the Académie, with its faculties of law and letters. Aix-en-Provence, Aix

T HE coast just east of Marseilles is quite unknown to the general Riviera traveller, although it is accessible, varied, and an admirable foretaste of the beauties of the Riviera itself. Just over the great bald-faced peak of Mount Carpiagne lie Cassis and the Bec de l’Aigle, the virtual beginning of the wonderful scenic panorama of the Riviera. One would have expected that as time went on Carsicus Portus of the Romans, the present Cassis, would have exceeded Marseilles in magnitude, for its sit