THE OLIVE. 29 



O vile commercialism ! You would sow these sunny 

 slopes with stink-weed if Dives breathed a wish 

 for it ! 



Dr. E. Sauvaigo, author of a useful Riviera 

 gardener's book, thus eloquently pleads for the Olive : 

 " Ne desesperons jamais de cet arbre precieux : sa 

 disparition constituerait pour notre zone une veritable 

 calamit^." 



The following verse is from a poem written at 

 Cimiez on this subject by a poet whose name I cannot 

 remember : 



" As gladly, gluttonous for gain, 



Man digs the flowers and fells the trees, 

 So would he foul the sapphired main 

 Or tear the heavenly tapestries ! " 



But however the commercial value of the crop may 

 vary, the oil is to these natives no luxury, but a 

 necessity of life. The regular dinner of a labourer is 

 a lump of bread, covered with slices of tomato, and 

 smeared with Olive oil. Butter is not to be had in 

 the villages which lie even a short distance from the 

 coast. " Corn, wine, and oil " : the blessing holds 

 good here as in the East, for on these hills, up to an 

 elevation of some 2.400 feet, the Olives alternate with 

 narrow strips of wheat and rows of vines. The 

 three crops grow together on the same hillside : 



" The mystic floating grey 

 Of Olive trees, with interruptions green 

 From Maize and Vine." 



Some persons are able to eat, and even to digest 

 (dura ilia !) the Olive fruits. The Eomans would 

 seem to have packed their dinner, so to speak, 

 between two layers of Olives : 



" Inchoat atque eadem finit Oliva dapes." 



