BY THE MEDITERRANEAN. 51 



ing out very sharp and clear against the horizon, until they appear- 

 ed to be melted away by the rays of the rising sun. 



A few hours later I took the train to Nice. In passing I 

 noticed considerable changes had taken place at Beaulieu. It 

 was such a pretty place twelve years ago, and now it is much built 

 over ! From Nice I started back to Mentone by the Route de 

 la Corniche. The road, immediately after crossing the nearly 

 dried up bed of the Paillon, begins to ascend the side of Mont- 

 Gros, and soon gets clear of the town. Here I saw a plant of 

 Caifipanula macrorhiza in flower high up out of reach, and several 

 of the pretty pink Anemone stellata, just coming out. Where the 

 road makes a wide bend I took a short cut over the hill behind 

 the observatory, and here a child from a cottage brought out 

 flowers of the purple Anemone coronaria and A. stellata, for which 

 I gave her a sou. Regaining the road after a stiff climb, there 

 was a fine view over the long line of snow-clad Maritime Alps, up 

 the valley of the Paillon. A turn of the road brought us to a 

 view over Beaulieu and the long promontory of St. Jean, stretching 

 out into the sea many hundreds of feet below. To the far west 

 the point of Antibes, the Lerins islands off Cannes, and the 

 Esterel mountains were lit up by a blazing sun. A little further 

 on a wall of jagged rocks, far below, forms the back of a red cliff 

 facing the sea, and called the Petite Afrique. The road winds in 

 and out of the mountains at a height of about 1,700 feet, but the 

 telegraph wires take short cuts, and fall in a catenary across one 

 of the depressions. 



Several fortresses have been built on the adjoining eminences. 

 A little further on the quaint village of Eza is seen, perched on a 

 rock crowned by the remains of a Saracenic stronghold, at a great 

 height above the sea, but far below the road. Near this point I 

 found one piece of the yellow broom i^Spartium juricewn) in 

 flower, although its proper time of flowering is not till about May. 

 In a wet place by the roadside grew the pretty bog pimpernel 

 {Anagallis tenella), and on the Jurassic rocks further on grew 

 Lavatera maritima, Cneorum tricoccon^ and fine bushes of 

 Euphorbia characias. From this point La Turbia is seen, with 

 the remains of its fine Roman tower, built by Augustus Caesar, 

 but which was partially blown up by Napoleon. After passing the 



