Part 3

After a while we went on "to Italy," passing the square Italian custom-house perched on its cliff, and following the road by the little Garibaldi inn, and on towards the point of Mortola.

"This is the Italian frontier," said Verney. "In old times, during the Prince's reign, no one could leave the domain without buying a passport; any one, therefore, who wished to take an afternoon walk was obliged to have one. But things are altered now in Menton."

"Are we to call the place Menton or Mentone?" asked Janet. "We might as well come to some decision."

"Menton is correct," said the Professor; "it is now a French town."

"Oh no! let us keep to the dear old names, and say Men-to-ne," said Mrs. Clary.

"_I_ have even heard it pronounced to rhyme with bone," said Verney, smiling. Inness and Baker now looked at each other, and fell behind, but after a few minutes they came forward again, and, advancing to the front, faced us, and delivered the following epic:

Inness:

"What shall we call thee? Shall we give our own Plain English vowels to thee, fair Mentone?"

Baker:

"Or shall we yield thee back thy patrimony, The lost Italian sweetness of Mentone?"

Inness:

"Or, with French accent, and the n's half gone, Try the Parisian syllables--Men-ton?"

We all applauded their impromptu. The Professor, seeing that poetry held the field, walked apart musingly. I think he was trying to recall, but without success, an appropriate Latin quotation.

The view from the point above Mortola is very beautiful. On the west, Mentone with its three spires, the green of Cap Martin; and beyond, the bold dark forehead of the Dog's Head rising above Monaco.

"Do you see that blue line of coast?" said Verney. "That is the island where lived the Man with the Iron Mask."

"Bazaine was confined there also," said the Professor.

But none of us cared for Bazaine. We began to talk about the Mask, and then diverged to Kaspar Hauser, finally ending with Eleazer Williams, of "Have we a Bourbon among us?" who had to be explained to the Englishmen. It was some time before we came back to the view; but all the while there it was before us, and we were unconsciously enjoying it. On the east was, first, the little village of Mortola at our feet; then fortified Ventimiglia; and beyond, Bordighera, gleaming whitely on its low point out in the blue sea.

"Blanche Bordighera," said Mrs. Clary; "it is to me like paradise--always silvery and fair. No matter where you go, there it is; whether you look from Cap Martin or St. Agnese, from Ciotti or Roccabruna, you can always see Bordighera shining in the sunlight. Even when there is a mist, so that Mentone itself is veiled and Ventimiglia lost, Bordighera can be seen gleaming whitely through. And finally you end by not wanting to go there; you dread spoiling the vision by a less fair reality, and you go away, leaving it unvisited, but carrying with you the remembrance of its shining and its feathery palms."

"Is it palmy?" asked Janet.

"There are probably now more palms at Bordighera than in the Holy Land itself," said Verney, who had wound himself into a place beside her. I say "wound," because Verney was so long and lithe that he could slip gracefully into places which other men could not obtain. Lloyd was not with us. He had not left his post of duty beside the phaeton, which was coming slowly up the hill behind us; but I noticed that he had selected Margaret's side of it.

"Palms would grow at Mentone, or at any other sheltered spot on this coast," said the Professor, at last abandoning the obstinate quotation, and coming back to the present. "But the cultivation is not remunerative save at Bordighera, where they own the monopoly of supplying the palm branches used on Palm-Sunday at Rome."

"Excuse me," said Inness; "but I think you did not mention the origin of that monopoly?"

"A monkish legend," said the Professor, contemptuously.

"In those days everything was monkish," replied Inness; "architecture, knowledge, and religion. If we had lived then, no doubt we should all have been monks."

"Ah, yes!" said Miss Elaine, fervently. "Do tell us the legend, Mr. Inness. I adore legends, especially if ecclesiastical."

"Well," said Inness, "a good while ago--in 1586--the Pope decided to raise and place upon a pedestal an Egyptian obelisk, which, transported to Rome by Caligula, had been left lying neglected upon the ground. An apparatus was constructed to lift the huge block, and with the aid of one hundred and fifty horses and nine hundred men it was raised, poised, and then let down slowly towards its position, amid the breathless silence of a multitude, when suddenly it was seen that the ropes on one side failed to bring it into place. All, including the engineer in charge, stood stupefied with alarm, when a voice from the crowd called out, 'Wet the ropes!' It was done; the ropes shortened; the obelisk reached its place in safety. The Pope sent for the man whose timely advice had saved the lives of many, and asked him what reward would please him most. He was a simple countryman, and with much timidity he answered that he lived at Bordighera, and that if the palms of Bordighera could be used in Rome on Holy Palm-Sunday he should die happy. His wish was granted," concluded Inness, "and--he died."

"I hope not immediately," I said, laughing.

On our way back, Verney showed us a path leading up the cliff. "Let me give you a glimpse of a lovely garden," he said. We looked up, and there it was on the cliff above us, like the hanging gardens of Babylon, green terraces clothing the bare gray rock with beautiful verdure. Margaret left the phaeton and went up the winding path with us, Mrs. Trescott and Mrs. Clary remaining below. The gate of the garden, which bore the inscription "Salvete Amici," opened upon a long columned walk; from pillar to pillar over our heads ran climbing vines, and on each side were ranks of rare and curious plants, the lovely wild flowers of the country having their place also among the costlier blossoms. "Before you go farther turn and look at the tower," said Verney. "It has been made habitable within, but otherwise it is unchanged. It was built either as a lookout in which to keep watch for the Saracens, or else by the Saracens themselves when they held the coast."

"By the Sarrasins themselves, of course--always with two r's," said Janet. "Think of it--a Sarrasin tower! I would rather own it than anything else in the whole world."

Whereupon Verney, Inness, the Professor, Lloyd, and Baker all wished to know what she would do with it.

"Do with it?" repeated Janet. "Live in it, of course. I have always had the greatest desire to live in a tower; even light-houses tempt me."

"I shall tell Dr. Bennet," said Verney, laughing. "This is his garden, you know."

At the end of the columned walk we went around a curve by a smaller tower, and descended to a lower path bordered with miniature groves of hyacinth, whose dense sweetness, mingled with that of heliotrope, filled the air. Here Margaret seated herself to enjoy the fragrance and sunshine, while we went onward, coming to a magnificent array of primulas, rank upon rank, in every shade of delicate and gorgeous coloring, a pomp of tints against a background of ferns. Below was a little vine-covered terrace with thick, soft, English grass for its velvet flooring; here was another paradisiacal little seat, like the one where we had left Margaret, overlooking the blue sea. On terraces above were camellias, roses, and numberless other blossoms, mingled with tropical plants and curious growths of cacti; behind was a lemon grove rising a little higher; then the background of gray rocks from which all this beauty had been won inch by inch; then the great peaks of the mountain amphitheatre against the sky--in all, beauty enough for a thousand gardens here concentrated in one enchanting spot.

"That picturesque village on the height is Grimaldi," said Verney.

"The original home of the clowns, I suppose," said Baker.

"English and Americans always say that; they can never think of anything but the great circus Hamlet," replied Verney. "In reality, however, Grimaldi is one of the oldest of the noble names on this coast--the family name of the Princes of Monaco."

"Who are worse than clowns," said the Professor, sternly. "The Grimaldi who was a clown at least honestly earned his bread, but the Grimaldis of the present day live by the worst dishonesty. Monaco, formerly called the Port of Hercules, may now well be called the Port of Hell."

"Well," said Inness, "if Monaco, on one side of us, represents l'Inferno, Bordighera, on the other, represents Paradiso, and so we are saved."

"It depends upon which way you go, young man," said the Professor, still sternly.

After a while we came back to the bench among the hyacinths where we had left Margaret, and found Lloyd with her, looking at the sea; the lovely garden overhangs the sea, whose beautiful near blue closes every blossoming vista. It had been decided that we were to go homeward by way of the Bone Caverns, and as Mrs. Trescott was fond of bones, and wished to see their abode, I offered to remain and drive home with Margaret.

"Let me accompany Miss Severin," said Lloyd. "I have seen the caverns, and do not care to see them again."

I looked at Margaret, thinking she would object; she seldom cared for the society of strangers. But in some way Mr. Lloyd no longer seemed a stranger; he had crossed the numerous little barriers which she kept erected between herself and the outside world, crossed them probably without even seeing them. But none the less were they crossed.

So we left them in the sunny garden to return homeward at their leisure, and, descending to the road, went eastward a short distance, and turned down a narrow path leading to the beach. It brought us under the enormous mass of the Red Rocks, rising perpendicularly three hundred feet from the water. Inness, who was in advance, had paused on a little bridge of one arch over a hollow, and was holding it, as it were, when we came up. "Behold a fragment of the ancient Roman way, Via Julia Augusta," he began, introducing the bridge with a wave of his cane. "When we think of this road in the past, what visions rise in the mind--visions like--like mists on the mountain-tops floating away, which--which merge in each other at dawning of day! In comparison with the ancient Romans, the builders of this bridge, Hercules, the Lascaris, even the Sarrasins (always with two r's), are _nowhere_. Roman feet touched this very archway upon which my own unworthy shoes now stand."

We looked at his shoes with respect, the Professor (who had gone onward to the Bone Caverns) not being there to contradict.

"The Romans," continued Inness, "never stayed long. They dropped here a tomb, there an aqueduct, and then moved on. They were the first great pedestrians. We cannot _see_ them, but we can imagine them. As Pope well says,

"'While fancy brings the vanished piles to view, And builds imaginary Rome anew.'"

"Ah, yes," said Mrs. Trescott, "the Romans, the Romans, how dreamy they were! They always remind me of those lines:

"'Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound, The primal sympathy, Which, having been, must ever be!'"

This finished the bridge. As we had no idea what she meant, even Inness deserted it, and we all went onward to the Bone Caverns. The caverns were dark hollows in the cliff some distance above the road. From the entrance of one of them issued a cloud of dust; the Professor was in there digging.

"Let us ascend at once," said Mrs. Trescott, enthusiastically. "I wish to stand in the very abode of the primitive man."

But it was something of a task to get her up; there was always a great deal of loose drapery about Mrs. Trescott, which had a way of catching on everything far and near. With her veil, her plumes, her lace shawl, her long watch-chain, her dangling fan, her belt bag and scent bottle, her parasol and basket, it was difficult to get her safely through any narrow or bushy place. But to-day Verney gallantly undertook the feat: he knew the advantages of propitiating the higher powers.

Men were quarrying the face of the Red Rocks at a dizzy height, hanging suspended in mid-air by ropes in order to direct the blasting; below, the patient horses were waiting to convey the great blocks of stone to the town, and destroy, by their daily procession, the last traces of the Julia Augusta.

"I hope these rocks are porphyry," said Janet, gazing upward; "it is such a lovely name."

"Yes, they are," said the unblushing Inness. "The Troglodytes, whose homes are beneath, were fond of porphyry. They were very aesthetic, you know."

We now reached the entrance of one of the caverns and looked in.

"The Troglodytes," continued Inness, "were the original, _really_ original, proprietors of Mentone. They lived here, clad in bear-skins, and their voices are said to have been not sweet. See Pliny and Strabo. The bones of their dinners left here, and a few of their own (untimely deaths from fighting with each other for more), have now become the most precious treasures of the scientific world, equalling in richness the never-to-be-sufficiently-prized-and-investigated kitchen refuse of the Swiss lakes."

But the Professor, overhearing something of this frivolity at the sacred door, emerged from the hole in which he had been digging, and, covered with dust, but rich in the possession of a ball and socket joint of some primeval animal, came to the entrance, and forcibly, if not by force, addressed us:

"At a recent period it has been discovered that these five caverns in this limestone rock--"

"Alas, my porphyry!" murmured Janet.

"--contain bones of animals mixed with flint instruments imbedded in sand. The animals were the food and the flint instruments the weapons of a race of men who must have existed far back in prehistoric times. This was a rich discovery; but a richer was to come. In 1872 a human skeleton, all but perfect, a skeleton of a tall man, was discovered in the fourth cavern, surrounded by bones which prove its great antiquity--which prove, in fact, almost beyond a doubt, that it belonged to--the--_Paleolithic epoch_!" And the Professor paused, really overcome by the tremendous power of his own words.

But I am afraid we all gazed stupidly enough, first at him, then into the cave, then at him again, with only the vaguest idea of "Paleolithic's" importance. I must except Verney; he knew more. But he had gone inside, and was now digging in the hole in his turn to find flints for Janet.

Mrs. Trescott, who was our bone-master (she had studied anatomy, and highly admired "form"), asked if the skeleton had been "painted in oils."

Miss Elaine hoped that they buried it again "reverently," and "in consecrated ground."

The Professor gazed at them in turn; he literally could not find a word for reply.

Then I, coming to the rescue, said: "I am very dull, I know, but pity my dulness, and tell me why the skeleton was so important, and how they knew it was so old."

The poor man, overcome by such crass ignorance, gazed at his ball and socket joint and at our group in silence. Then, in a spiritless voice, he said, "The bones surrounding the skeleton were those of animals now extinct--animals that existed at a period heretofore supposed to have been before that of man; but by their presence here they prove a contemporary, and we therefore know that he existed at a much earlier age of the world's history than we had imagined."

Verney now gave Janet the treasures he had found--some pieces of flint about an inch long, rudely pointed at one end. "These," he said, "are the knives of the primitive man."

"They are very disappointing," said Janet, surveying them as they lay in the palm of her slender gray glove, buttoned half-way to the elbow.

"Did you expect carved handles and steel blades?" I said, smiling.

"And here are some nummulites," pursued Verney, taking a quantity of the round coin-like shells from his pocket. "You might have a necklace made, with the nummulites above and the flints below as pendants."

"And label it prehistoric; it would be quite as attractive as preraphaelite," said Inness. "I don't know what _you_ think," he continued, turning to Verney, "but to me there is nothing so ugly as the way some of the girls--generally the tall ones--are getting themselves up nowadays in what they call the preraphaelite style--a general effect of awkward lankness as to shape and gown, a classic fillet, hair to the eyebrows, and a gait not unlike that which would be produced by having the arms tied together behind at the elbows. If your Botticelli is responsible for this, his canvases should be demolished."

Verney laughed; he was at heart, I think, a strong preraphaelite both of the present and the past; but how could he avow it when a reality so charming and at the same time so unlike that type stood beside him? Janet's costumes were not at all preraphaelite; they were American-French.

We left the Red Rocks, and went slowly onward along the sea-shore towards home. Miss Elaine, having first taken me aside to ask if I thought it "quite proper," had challenged Inness to a rapid walk, and soon carried him away from us and out of sight. On our way we passed the St. Louis brook, where the laundresses were at work in two rows along the stream, each kneeling at the edge in a broad open basket like a boat, and bending over the low pool, alternately soaping and beating her clothes with a flat wooden mallet. It was a picturesque sight--the long rows of figures in baskets, the heads decked with bright-colored handkerchiefs. But to a housewifely mind like my own the idea which most forcibly presented itself was the small amount of water. Of a celebrated trout fisherman it was once said that all he required was a little damp spot, and forthwith he caught a trout; and the Mentone laundresses seem to consider that only a little damp spot is needed for their daily labors.

But in truth they cannot help themselves; the crying fault of Mentone is the want of water. A spring is more precious than the land itself, and is divided between different proprietors for stated periods of each day. The poor little rills do a dozen tasks before they reach the laundresses and the beach. The beautiful terrace vegetation which clothes the sides of the mountains is supported by an elaborate and costly system of tanks and watercourses which would dishearten an American proprietor at the outset. The Mentone laundresses work for wages which a New World laundress would scorn; but there is one marked difference between them and between all the French and Italian working-people and those of America, and that is that among these foreigners there seems to be not one too poor to have his daily bottle of wine. We saw the necks of these bottles peeping from the rough dinner-baskets of the laundresses, and afterwards from those also of the quarry-men, vine-dressers, olive-pickers, and lemon-gatherers. It was an inexpensive "wine of the country"; still, it was wine.

The sun was now sinking into the water, and exquisite hues were stealing over the soft sea. The picturesque Mediterranean boats with lateen-sails were coming towards home, and one whose little sail was crimson made a lovely picture on the water. At the sea-wall we met Miss Graves gloomily taking a walk, and presently the phaeton with Margaret and Lloyd stopped near us as we stood looking at the hues. Two ships in the distance sailed first on blue water, then on rose, on lilac, on purple, violet, and gold. Over the sea fell a pink flush, met on the horizon by salmon in a broad band, then next above it amber, then violet edged with rose, and higher still a zone of clear pale green bordered with gold. At the same moment the Red Rocks were flooded with rose light which extended in a lovely flush up the high gray peaks behind far in the sky, lingering there when all the lower splendor was gone, and the sea and shore veiled in dusky twilight gray.

"It is almost as beautiful at sunrise," said Mrs. Clary; "and then, too, you can see the Fairy Island."

"What is that?" I asked.

"Never mind what it is in reality," answered Mrs. Clary. "I consider it enchanted--the Fortunate Land, whose shores and mountain-peaks can be seen only between dawn and sunrise, when they loom up distinctly, soon fading away, however, mysteriously into the increasing daylight, and becoming entirely invisible when the sun appears."

"I saw it this morning," said Miss Graves, soberly. "It is only Corsica."

"Brigands and vendetta," said Inness.

"Napoleon," said all the rest of us.

"My idea of it is much the best," said Mrs. Clary; "it is Fairy-land, the lost Isles of the Blest."

After that each morning at breakfast the question always was, who had seen Corsica. And a vast amount of ingenious evasion was displayed in the answers. However, I did see it once. It rose from the water on the southeastern horizon, its line of purple mountain-peaks and low shore so distinctly visible that it seemed as if one could take the little boat with the crimson sail and be over there in an hour, although it was ninety miles away; but while I gazed it faded slowly, melted, as it were, into the gold of the awakening day.

The weeks passed, and we rode, drove, walked, and climbed hither and thither, looking at the carouba-trees, the stiff pyramidal cypresses, the euphorbias in woody bushes five feet high, the great planes, the grotesque naked figs, the aloes and oleanders growing wild, and the fantastic shapes of the cacti. We searched for ferns, finding the rusty ceterach, the little trichomanes, and _Adiantum nigrum_, but especially the exquisite maiden-hair of the delicate variety called _Capillus veneris_, which fringed every watercourse and bank and rock where there is the least moisture with its lovely green fretwork. There is a phrase current in Mentone and applied to this fern, as well as to the violets which grow wild in rich profusion, starring the ground with their blue; unthinking people say of them that they are "so common they become weeds." This phrase should be suppressed by a society for the cultivation of good taste and the prevention of cruelty to plants. Ivy was everywhere, growing wild, and heather in bloom.

Miss Graves was brought almost to tears one day by finding her old friend the wild climbing smilax of Florida on these Mediterranean rocks, and only recovered her self-possession because Lloyd would call it "sarsaparilla," and she felt herself called upon to do battle. But the profusion of the violets, the pomp of the red anemones, the perfume of the white narcissus, the hyacinths and sweet alyssum, all growing wild, who shall describe them? There were also tulips, orchids, English primroses, and daisies. Even when nothing else could grow there was always the demure rosemary. Of course, too, we made close acquaintance with the olive and lemon, the characteristic trees of Mentone, whose foliage forms its verdure, and whose fruit forms its commerce. The orange groves were insignificant and the oranges sour compared with those of Florida; but the olive and lemon groves were new to us, and in themselves beautiful and luxuriant. Our hotel stood on the edge of an old olive grove climbing the mountain-side slowly on broad terraces rising endlessly as one looked up. After some weeks' experience we found that we represented collectively various shades of opinion concerning olive groves in general, which may be given as follows: