Cavalero 2 1 7 



cultivation to change the colour of the mountains^ I should have 

 imagined that this coast must have borne a near resemblance 

 to those of New Zealand or New Holland — dark, gloomy, and 

 silent; — a savage sombre air spread over the whole. The pines 

 and evergreen shrubs, that cover the greatest part, cover it with 

 more gloom than verdure. Landed at night at Cavalero, which 

 I expected to have found a little town; but it consists only of 

 three houses, and a more wretched place not to be imagined. 

 They spread a mattress on a stone floor for me, for bed they had 

 none; after starving all day, they had nothing but stale eggs, 

 bad bread, and worse wine; and as to the mules which were to 

 take me to Frejus, there was neither horse, ass, nor mule in the 

 place, and only four oxen for ploughing the ground. I was thus 

 in a pretty situation, and must have gone on by sea to Antibes, 

 for which also the wind gave tokens of being contrary, if the 

 captain had not promised me two of his men to carry my baggage 

 to a village two leagues off, where mules were certainly to be had, 

 with which comfort I betook myself to my mattress. — 24 miles. 

 i^ih. The captain sent three sailors ; — one a Corsican, another 

 a mongrel Italian, and the third a Proven9al: among the three, 

 there was not French enough for half an hour's conversation. 

 We crossed the mountains, and wandered by crooked unknown 

 paths, and beds of torrents, and then found the village of 

 Gassang on the top of a mountain, which, however, was more 

 than a league from that to which we intended to go. Here the 

 sailors refreshed themselves, two with wine, but the third never 

 drank anything except water. I asked if he had equal strength 

 with the others that drank wine. Yes, they replied, as strong 

 for his size as any other man : I rather think that I shall not soon 

 find an English sailor who will make the experiment. No milk; 

 I breakfasted on grapes, rye bread, and bad wine. Mules were 

 reported to abound at this village, or rather that which we missed, 

 but the master of the only two we could hear of being absent, I 

 had no other resource than agreeing with a man to take my 

 baggage on an ass, and myself to walk a league further, to St. 

 Tropes, for which he demanded 3 li\'Tes. In two hours reached 

 that town, which is prettily situated and tolerably well built 

 on the banks of a noble inlet of the sea. From Cavalero hither, 

 the country is all mountain, eighteen-twentieths of it covered 

 with pines, or a poor wilderness of evergreen shrubs, rocky and 

 miserable. Cross the inlet, which is more than a league wide; 

 the ferrymen had been on board the king's ship and complained 

 heavily of their treatment — but said that now they were free- 



