72 Mr Arnotfs Tour to the South of' France 



not do it under a month. One of the first places to which Buo- 

 naparte proceeded on his escape from Elba, was to Lyons ; and 

 a great proportion of the inhabitants are still Buonapartists in 

 their hearts." 



9nth March. — " Left Lyons yesterday morning at 5 o'clock. 

 Mules now began to be more generally used for drawing loads. 

 At Vienne (where died Pope Pius VI.) the country becomes 

 liner : both hills and dales were now covered with vines, and 

 the almond trees began to show forth their blossoms. The en- 

 virons abound in Roman rehcs. A little below this is a remark- 

 able ancient monument : it is a huge pyramid on four high 

 supports or arches ; but, what is singular, the base of the py- 

 ramid is plain, not arched, and, with the large flag-stones 

 which constitute it, seems ready to fall upon one's head. — 

 Many plants now begin to make their appearance ; indeed the 

 difference between the vegetation of Paris, and that to the south 

 of Lyons, is very great : the crops are here far above the ground, 

 and the lambs were already several weeks old. On a hill to the 

 south of Vienne that we walked up, I saw the Buxus semper- 

 virens, the common box, in flower. I collected some of the 

 Grimmia qfricana (Dicranum pulvinatum /3, Hedw.) : this has 

 a hemispherical operculum, and is certainly to be distinguished 

 from the Grimmia pulvinata. By some, the south of France 

 plant is considered as different from that of the Cape of Good 

 Hope; but I can detect no difference, although I carefully 

 examined the latter in the herbarium of Mr Burchell at Ful- 

 ham. It appears, although unnoticed till met with at the 

 Cape by Thunberg, to be even more common in the region of 

 the olives in France, and probably also in Spain and Italy, than 

 at the Cape. The hill on which we were was of puddingstone, 

 and is quarried for gravel to the roads : the mine is carried in 

 nearly a horizontal direction, pillars being left of the material 

 to prevent the roof falling in. The hills still continue along the 

 west side of the Rhone.'"* 



"- Peage de RoussUhn. St Vallon. — The hills now begin 

 to get small, and are covered with vines : they are terraced, and 

 seem of a red gravelly rock. Cote-roti, and several other of the 

 fine Rhone wines are produced in the neighbourhood of St Val- 

 lon, below which the view gets more beautiful as we arrive at 



