Nismes 43 



some very large. Montpellier, with the air rather of a great 

 capital than of a provincial town, covers a hill that swells 

 proudly to the view. — But on entering it, you experience a 

 disappointment from narrow, ill-built, crooked streets, but full 

 of people, and apparently alive with business; yet there is no 

 considerable manufacture in the place; the principal are verdi- 

 gris, silk handkerchiefs, blankets, perfumes, and liqueurs. The 

 great object for a stranger to view is the promenade or square, 

 for it partakes of both, called the Perou. — There is a magnificent 

 aqueduct on three tiers of arches for supplying the city with 

 water from a hill at a considerable distance; a very noble work; 

 a chateau d'eau receives the water in a circular basin, from which 

 it falls into an external reservoir, to supply the city and the jets 

 d'eau that cool the air of a garden below, the whole in a fine 

 square considerably elevated above the surrounding ground, 

 walled in with a balustrade and other mural decorations, and 

 in the centre a good equestrian statue of Louis XIV. There is 

 an air of real grandeur and magnificence in this useful work that 

 struck me more than anything at Versailles. The view is also 

 singularly beautiful. To the south, the eye wanders with 

 delight over a rich vale, spread with villas, and terminated by 

 the sea. To the north, a series of cultivated hills. On one side, 

 the vast range of the Pyrenees trend away till lost in remoteness. 

 On the other, the eternal snows of the Alps pierce the clouds. 

 The whole view one of the most stupendous to be seen, when a 

 clear sky approximates these distant objects. — 32 miles. 



26th. The fair of Beaucaire fills the whole country with 

 business and motion; meet many carts loaded; and nine 

 diligences going or coming. Yesterday and to-day the hottest 

 I ever experienced; we had none like them in Spain — the flies 

 much worse than the heat. — 30 miles. 



21th. The amphitheatre of Nismes is a prodigious work, 

 which shows how well the Romans had adapted these edifices 

 to the abominable uses to v/hich they were erected. The 

 convenience of a theatre that could hold 17,000 spectators with- 

 out confusion; the magnitude; the massive and substantial 

 manner in which it is built without mortar, that has withstood 

 the attacks of the weather, and the worse depredations of the 

 barbarians in the various revolutions of sixteen centuries, all 

 strike the attention forcibly. 



I viewed the Maison Quarre^ last night; again this morning, 

 and twice more in the day; it is beyond all comparison the most 

 * Maison Carree : now a museum. 



