348 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



object on the horizon to visitors to Cannes. He sought the 

 services of the hermit of the Sainte Baume as a guide. Of his 

 home he gives a pleasant description : 



' I was agreeably surprised to find two beautiful fountains which 

 throw out full jets of a clear and cool water under the shade of a group 

 of fine trees chestnuts, nuts, cherries, and figs. The gardens gave 

 me no less pleasure, and though modern taste despises all that is formal, 

 yet a little art and symmetry make an agreeable contrast with the 

 wild and melancholy aspect of these mountains, and the straight 

 alleys of the gardens laid out in terraces covered with trellises of vines 

 and ended by niches cut in the rock created in me a most agreeable 

 impression. The last hermit but one had by his labour brought his 

 little property into the most flourishing condition. The grapes and 

 fruit which he gathered served not only for his own needs, but also by 

 exchange to procure him all he wanted.' [Voyages, 1456.] 



The garden, when I visited the spot in 1877, had disappeared, 

 and I experienced the same difficulty as de Saussure in finding 

 and forcing a way through the thick scrub of southern growths 

 to the highest crest of the porphyry crags, whence the view extends 

 over the coast lands to the snowy peaks of the Maritime Alps. 



From Toulon de Saussure made another excursion to the 

 Montagne de Caume (2856 feet) to ascertain if M. de Lamanon, 

 the geologist, whose manifold mistakes he was often called on to 

 correct, had any grounds for thinking the rocks volcanic. They 

 proved to be limestone. Apart from its technical interest, de 

 Saussure 's account of his day's walk may serve as a specimen of 

 the human side of his character. 



He drove out from Toulon as far as the village of Revest. 



* I had need of a guide. The open door of a cottage showed me 

 a family of peasants at their breakfast. I entered and told them what 

 I wanted. My air of a foreigner and my plan of going over the moun- 

 tains instead of along the high road, my curiosity about worthless 

 stones, all seemed to them suspicious. All the same, the master of 

 the house, an honest labourer, said, " Sit down, eat a bit of haddock 

 with us, after that we will see what we can do." I accepted his offer, 

 we had a friendly conversation, and he ended by saying he knew the 

 country very well, and even something about stones, and though he 

 had at first thought of finding me another giude, he would come with 

 me himself. This was a most lucky meeting, for I found him an ex- 

 cellent guide.' [Voyages, I486.] 



