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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



kneeling at his feet — but they allowed 370 

 years to go by before they could bring 

 themselves to honor the intrepid mariner 

 whose real monument is no bit of lifeless 

 stone, but a living, breathing, creative 

 New World. 



THE "GARDEN WALL OF EUROPE" 



Along the coast in either direction from 

 Genoa runs the sunniest, loveliest, most 

 popular strand in the world, the "garden 

 wall of Europe," the Riviera, place of a 

 thousand delights. It is a sinuously se- 

 ductive shore, whose iron ribs, pierced 

 through and through with innumerable 

 smoky little tunnels, curve down to the 

 sea; a coast of inexpressibly beautiful 

 indentations, bays and inlets whose shores 

 rise in sheer rock or gleam with the rich 

 verdance of heavy foliage, relieved by 

 the color of myriad blossoms. 



Quaint towns gem it like beads of 

 parti-colored glass upon a silver thread. 

 Sheltered behind by their granite hills 

 from the tempestuous and icy "Mistral 

 that goes roaring out to sea far over- 

 head, and warmed by the generous 

 southern sun, these towns — most of 

 them, like Genoa, half old, half new — are 

 favorite resorts of pleasure and health 

 seekers from every clime. 



And to the west, looking away toward 

 the blue shore of beautiful France, for 

 miles one superb vista after another un- 

 folds of the intervening coast-line, with 

 its ragged contours. Olive groves and 

 old castle ruins, picturesquely situated 

 towns and tenth century pirate watch- 

 towers, make preparation for San Remo, 

 upon terraced slopes whose gray-green 

 olives shade into the differing hues of the 

 agaves, oranges, and pomegranates at the 

 edge of the bay (see page 359). 



THE GIETED MOTHER OF MEN 



Beyond lies Bordighera of the exqui- 

 site flowers and the date palms, and at 

 the French frontier, hilltop Yentimiglia, 

 walled about loftily, as if to keep it from 

 being blown into the sea by the first mis- 

 chievous zephyr. They are all so lovely, 

 all so rich with one or another gift, so 

 mild, so perfumed — with the thousands 

 of acres of flowers of every description 

 raised for sale and to supply the perfume 

 distillers — so productive, that here, in- 



deed, is "Paradise enow." And all along 

 the coastal hills are dotted with the bold 

 and striking ruins of mighty castles and 

 strongholds, tombstones of the great and 

 noble families who once upon a time 

 dwelt here in lordly state. 



As we stand at this western end of the 

 Riviera and look back and down through 

 Nature and the years at all the loveliness 

 and wisdom and fascination of Italy, 

 what does it all mean ; what does it con- 

 vey? To what extent is the modern the 

 product of those great periods developed 

 in "Italia . . . who hast the fatal 

 gift of beauty"? History and education 

 answer alike: Italy has pioneered and 

 passed on her discoveries for the benefit 

 of all mankind. Within her borders de- 

 veloped the two greatest forces of civil- 

 ization : that Christianity to which, more 

 or less directly, we owe all our material 

 and spiritual progress, and the liberation 

 of human thought and spirit in the tre- 

 mendous uplift of the Renaissance. Had 

 Italy never produced aught but these, the 

 world would still owe her an incalculable 

 and unpayable debt of gratitude. 



If Italy failed to go on with the great 

 work so nobly begun, our debt is none 

 the less great. She gave the impulse that 

 others were able to carry on. And after 

 a period of quiescence, what is she doing 

 today ? Ask of the bitter, bloodied snows 

 of the southern Alp ; peer into those mist 

 and cloud-shrouded heights where, as one 

 man, united Italy is fighting with des- 

 perate valor for what she and her allies 

 conceive to be their duty, not merely to 

 themselves, but to all civilization for all 

 posterity. 



And in peace, as in war, she is alert, 

 full of high purpose and the conviction 

 of service. In her civil life and domestic 

 affairs we must recognize in her again 

 those beauties and qualities and charms, 

 those stern, enduring virtues, as well as 

 those bewitching coquetries, that so pre- 

 eminently characterize her as a noble 

 mother of men, winning as her own bril- 

 liant skies, patient with the maternal 

 patience that neither swerves nor falters, 

 and progressive once more in the en- 

 deavor to reach the ideals she herself 

 promulgated so many centuries ago, or 

 even to go beyond the limits her appar- 

 entlv inexhaustible genius set. 



