X PREFACE. 



be found at home, but in all amounting to an insignificant 

 number, either made a voyage to Madeira, or a land jour- 

 ney to the then Italian city of Nice, these being almost 

 the only sanitary stations frequented by our countrymen in 

 the winter. But what a change has come over their habits 

 now, and how rapidly that change has been developed I 

 And in order to appreciate to the full the extent of these 

 winter Sittings, let me direct the attention of my readers 

 to the two southern districts nearest home, and most ac- 

 cessible, and therefore most resorted to by English invalids. 

 I allude to the coast of south-eastern France, on the Cor- 

 nice, and the coast of south-western France, at the foot of 

 the Pyrenees ; and let me call particular attention to the 

 extraordinarily rapid increase of the many sanitary stations 

 in both those districts, to which I can bear testimony 

 from my own experience. 



In 1851, I traversed the whole of the Cornice from 

 Genoa, passing a night at the small and wretched inn in 

 the centre of the little town of Mentone, where I saw no 

 indications of the residence of a single Englishman ; 

 and driving through Cannes, where, with the single ex- 

 ception of the villa of Lord Brougham, there was nothing 

 to foreshadow British occupancy. In 1864, I spent the 

 winter at various parts of the Cornice ; even Marseilles 

 was not witliout its quota of British sojourners ; Hyeres 

 sheltered a little colony; but Cannes already boasted 

 eight or ten hotels and pensions, and many villas and 

 lodgings, with its English church and chaplain, and about 

 five hundred English visitors. I say nothing of Nice, and 

 its suburb of Cimies, with their crowds of English, 

 and two English churches, because, tliough very much 



