Winter in the Riviera. 359 



We don't talk much about it, but he is determined to have 



his time out, and thinks it will be best for me to stick to it 



also, and I should agree with him if the weather were 



favourable for improvement. 



I have now quite given up hearing anything from home, 



and content myself with the consciousness that no news is 



good news. 



Mentone, January jo, iSjg. 



My dear Mother: It is a magnificent morning, but 1 

 am so tired from yesterday's jaunt that I shall not go out 

 with Spencer to tramp ; and although I am writing but little, 

 and not reading at all, I will use the interval to send you a 

 few words. 



The weather has changed, the clouds are gone, and now 

 everybody begins to cry out from the heat. And at mid- 

 day it is tremendous — that is, the sun has immense power, 

 and in walking one sweats as if mowing. We went on a 

 four hours' tramp yesterday afternoon. The first three 

 hours I suffered much from the heat, but at four o'clock 

 the sun went behind the clouds, and the temperature 

 dropped instanter, so that the cold penetrated and chilled 

 me despite all efforts at brisk walking, and I, moreover, 

 got a cold, which kept me coughing durmg the night. We 

 have to exercise great care here from the extremes of the 

 weather ; not that they are greater than at home, but that 

 we are easier thrown off our guard. We yesterday clam- 

 bered up a mountain to an old village of stone houses, with 

 narrow, steep streets, and everything tumbling down, so that 

 it looked as if people could not possibly stay in it. The 

 village is probably fifteen hundred years old, if not more, 

 was built by the Romans, and occupied by the Saracens, 

 who ravaged all this coast. There are the remains of an 

 old ruined, tumble-down castle, which many people come 

 up to visit, but it did not interest me. The squalor and 

 wretchedness of the inhabitants, however, was dreadful, and 

 yet in the midst of it there was a Catholic church all gilt 



