''^*'«**>*; 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



CHAPTER I. 



ihe early Spring- of 1894, which I spent on the 

 Riviera, is impressed on my memor)' as one of 

 particularly brilliant colouring. For weeks the sk^- was 

 cloudless and shed its golden light upon the earth. The 

 Mistral, that icy wind which comes down from the snow}' 

 slopes of the Alps and the Cevennes, rareh' blew as there 

 was but little snow on the mountains. The sea was calm, 

 and at night when the stars twinkled the^• were as bril- 

 liantly reflected in the still waters as though a second 

 harvest of them had sprung up in the deep. 



We arrived at Il^-eres in the middle of March, inten- 

 ding soon to make our wa-\' westward to the Montagues 

 des Maures. We felt as though we were starting on a 

 voyage of discovery, so little is the western end of the 

 Riviera known. And yet Hyeres could, next to Mont- 

 pellier and Aix-en-Provcncc, once pride herself on being 



