SUNSHINE AND SHADE. 



CHAPTER XXXYI. 



"Nobis placeant ante omnia sylvre." 



DURING the greater part of the year shade is 

 sorely needed on the Eiviera. To increase the amount 

 of shade would lengthen the period during which it is 

 possible for us to remain on the coast. But these 

 seaside towns lay themselves out for the Winter 

 visitors, and make little effort to attract or to retain 

 more permanent residents. People who linger beyond 

 the conclusion of the season must take their chance 

 of sunstroke, and are compelled to suffer other serious 

 discomforts. 



Of course many of the landlords cannot help 

 themselves. The strangers who come out only for 

 the Winter months want every ray of sun. If the 

 garden contains anything higher than a hollyhock, 

 they grumble. The unlucky proprietor must roast all 

 Summer in order that he may have a chance of letting 

 his house in Winter. In the end a race of human 

 salamanders will be evolved in Nice, whose skulls 

 will be sunproof, as the nose of a Neapolitan is smell- 

 proof. 



Some years ago one of the local papers com- 

 plained of the want of shade, and likened Nice to a 

 calcareous desert sprinkled with enormous barrack- 

 like buildings painted a blinding white and exposed 



