Noailes a street worthy of Baron Haussman and Paris. The Préfecture is equal to his genius, too. The Palace of Longchamps is an architectural beauty, in single blessedness. Who will be its first occupant? A Napoleon, an Orleans, or a Bourbon? Rub up your

ancient history, and you will see we are among a people of mixed fame but high antiquity. In Cæsar's days the Massilians were called a "crafty people." Fifty years before the Christian era they were held by one. of Pompey's generals, and Cæsar must, therefore, attack them, and take possession of Marseilles, if possible. The Massilians were Greeks in those times, and cared little for either Cæsar or Pompey, especially Cæsar. They were contented to have remained as they were; but as the master would fight, so must they, and fight they did, for which Cæsar gave them great credit, but "young Brutus" came came as Cæsar's general, and the fleet of Marseilles was utterly dispersed. The town, however, was supplied with other means of defence than ships. Great poles were launched at Cæsar's sailors, but the latter built a tower so high that no weapon could reach its top. They made it fire-proof, and from a passage on its top they cast down all kinds of offensive weapons. The Massilians tried tubs of flaming pitch-petroleum was not then "invented"-but it was no use, the very gods were against them, and they gave way. Cæsar's general, for he was not there in person, spared them for a few days, during which they took the opportunity of rushing upon the tower and burning it to the ground. But Cæsar's men were equal to the occasion. They built another, and built it of brick, and again they fought and conquered the Massilians, who are supposed to have been very contented on the whole, because Cæsar took no unnecessary

vengeance upon them. They were civilized Greeks, and he could make them useful. The nations whose hands he had cut off and whose eyes he had poked out were Gauls, barbarians, whom it was was more necessary to frighten than to pacify.

To-morrow we start by rail for Genoa, past the famed orange groves of Cannes and Nice.

LETTER VI.

GENOA.

GENOA, April 3rd. It is now II p.m., and we are safely housed at Genoa, after a ride of 15 hours. We are in a nice inn-the Hôtel de la Ville--very ancient, very roomy, and very suitable for ghost stories, I fancy, from the rooms and corridors we have gone through. It seems to be all marble-stairs, floors, chimneypieces— and we had to take care and not fall prostrate before a little colony of waiters, who received us with hearty smiles, at an unseasonable hour, because we held "Cook-ee's billets." We have had tea in a splendid room. How Mr. Cook manages to bargain for such inns I know not; but this one, like that at Marseilles, is truly grand.

Our ride to-day has been very fine. We have passed through 200 miles of orange trees, fig trees, and vines, and a hundred miles of other country-the latter chiefly in the dark. With one consent we called it a "glorious ride." We never conceived of such a land. Cannes, where the late Lord Brougham spent the winter for many years, is a little heaven. Orange trees, orange trees everywhere, above it and around it; the Mediterranean at its feet, and the snow-clad mountains behind in the far distance. We would gladly have stayed an

hour at Cannes, and have visited the venerable lawyer's grave. It was at Cannes that Napoleon I. landed on his escape from Elba, and it is so ancient as to figure in Roman history. I forgot to say that we passed Toulon, about 40 miles from Marseilles; but all our combined knowledge consisted in knowing that it was a naval establishment, the Plymouth of France, had extensive arsenals, was known in the days of the Romans, had been besieged by Napoleon I., on the part of the Revolutionary government, and that its capture was the first feather in that young officer's cap. After passing Toulon we entered upon a hilly country. We were all day along the shores of the Mediterranean, and to keep there we had no end of ups and downs, on a single line of rails. Being again by ourselves we had free room to run from one side of the carriage to the other, as the watchmen on either side called special attention to the ever-changing view. Bays, bays, bays were continually before us, round which the railway crept on a dead level for half-an-hour, like running round the promenade from the Great Orme to the Little Orme's Head at Llandudno. Then off the engine would set, dragging us after it up a Great Orme's Head-looking path.

But it is now past midnight, and I must delay more till morning.

LETTER VII.

CANNES AND NICE.

GENOA, April 4th.-I was too sleepy to finish my letter about our yesterday's trip, but the excitement and the bells of Genoa have roused me in time to write a good many pages before breakfast. I finished with an allusion to the Corniche railway as far as Cannes, but I did not do half justice to its romantic ups and downs. The great bay of the Mediterranean is cut up into innumerable small bays, and, as we keep imperceptibly rounding the one, we perceptibly round the other in the most enchanting fashion at times. Riding a cock-horse to Banbury cross, or a dog trying to catch his tail, is nothing to it. Cannes is said to have no fogs, and no thermometers which would fall under 55°; plenty of heliotropes, endless groves of oranges and lemons, and as a background mountains 4,000 feet high.

From Cannes to Nice is a distance of 20 miles; and between them is Antibes, the station where a fearful accident happened a few months ago, resulting in the death of about 20 persons. Antibes station is a very small one close to the seaside, and the bridge which was carried away by the flood must have been a trumpery affair, judging from what they are now putting up,