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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



any other in provincial France, and glory- 

 ing in the finest Roman ruins outside 

 Italy itself. Right through the smiling, 

 scented heart of the city runs the little 

 walled stream whose source is the cool 

 spring at the foot of Mont Cavalier, that 

 feeds the ancient Roman baths. Every 

 art that man could wield has toiled to 

 make the park and baths lovely beyond 

 compare — landscape architecture, sculp- 

 ture, hydraulic engineering, horticulture, 

 and all the rest. With its formal eigh- 

 teenth century urns, balustrades, statuary, 

 and arrangement, it is not Roman now 

 in anything save memory ; but it is per- 

 fect (see page 464). 



The great, shattered amphitheater tells 

 more truly of Roman days, with its ter- 

 rific masses of masonry and its sugges- 

 tion of cruel sports ; and where two busy 

 streets cross, among the scanty remains 

 of the forum, rises the most brilliant of 

 all the ruins in France, the little "temple 

 of the fortunate princes of youth." It is 

 exquisite — a jewel so rare that not even 

 its brummagem setting can dim the luster 

 of the Greek spirit that infuses every de- 

 tail of it, Roman though it be. To this 

 day it reveals the breadth and scope of 

 the architectural genius which found one 

 of its loftiest expressions in the valley of 

 the Gardon, a few miles away, when it 

 threw across the gorge the tremendous 

 three-storied aqueduct that is so beauti- 

 ful because it so perfectly expressed the 

 purpose of its builders (see page 463). 



THE FRENCH COLORADO 



To the north and west of the great 

 cities and fertile plains lie the wild 

 Jurassic limestone plateaux — from 2,500 

 to 3,700 feet above sea-level — barren and 

 treeless and almost uninhabited, where 

 the rivers Tarn, Tot, Jonte, Dourbie, 

 Herault, and their tributaries have hewn 

 themselves deep beds. Most impressive 

 of these is a gorge of the Tarn, a chasm 

 from 800 to 1,000 feet deep and from 

 half to three-quarters of a mile wide, 

 comparable only to our own Canon of 

 the Colorado. 



The walls rise here in sheer precipices, 

 there in beetling heights that sullenly 

 overhang the rushing stream, again in re- 

 treating terraces. The eroded rock has 



been shattered and splintered into a thou- 

 sand uncouth shapes and gleams in pink, 

 brown, yellow, white, black; now it is 

 veiled with rich purple shadows, now it 

 is cold and gray. Rank verdure adds its 

 delicate greens to the colors of the rock. 

 For 30 miles the canon twists and bends 

 and winds, now apparently blocked com- 

 pletely by a towering mass, now seeming 

 to slip under a ponderous natural bridge, 

 where an overhanging cliff looks as if it 

 touched the opposite precipice. Then 

 around an angle the little town of Ste. 

 Enimie appears, at the bottom of an 

 astonishing chasm 1,600 feet deep. 



A "city not made with hands" 



In this same region is Montpellier-le- 

 Vieux, a phantasmal, ruinous city, "not 

 made with hands." In a vast stony am- 

 phitheater Nature has reared, or eroded, 

 the weirdest rock forms imaginable, cut 

 into spires and obelisks, streets and" blocks 

 and a citadel, as though giants had built 

 and deserted their savage town within 

 the ramparts of the circumambient hill. 



The valley of the Rhone — and Pro- 

 vence ! For how many centuries have they 

 not been pathways for conquering nations 

 and an avenue where the world flowed 

 to and fro, leaving its mark in many a 

 stately monument and city? One exam- 

 ple is Orange, with its memories of the 

 high tide of Gallo-Roman culture in the 

 beautiful triumphal arch and the most 

 impressive Roman theater in the world 

 (see pages 466 and 467). 



THE CITY OE THE POPES 



Avignon juts boldly up from the plain 

 on a great isolated rock, from which 

 springs the huge fourteenth century papal 

 palace, a wonderful mixture of prison 

 and fortress and pontifical residence. 

 All about the town the sunny, battle- 

 mented walls seem entirely appropriate, 

 and the clattering trolley-cars that dart 

 through the now always opened gates an 

 anachronism. The town is lively with 

 color, and from the attractive park atop 

 the rock the view along the great river, 

 300 feet below, and across the outlying 

 country is broad and brilliant — wide 

 fields under cultivation, olive orchards 

 and flower-spangled meads that roll up- 



