leaving some space between them and the sea. This space is hilly, reddish, gravelly, and of middling quality, in olives, vines, corn, almonds, figs, and capers. The capers are planted eight feet apart. A bush yields, one year with another, two pounds, worth twelve sous the pound. Every plant then yields twentyfour sous, equal to one shilling sterling. An acre containing six hundred and seventy-six plants, would yield thirty-three pounds sixteen shillings sterling. The fruit is gathered by women, who can gather about twelve pounds a day. They begin to gather about the last of June, and end about the middle of October. Each plant must be picked every day. The plants grow equally well in the best or worst soil, or even in the walls, where there is no soil. They will last the life of a man, or longer. The heat is so great at Toulon, in summer, as to occasion very great cracks in the earth. Where the caper is in a soil that will admit it, they plough it. They have peas here through the winter, sheltering them occasionally; and they have had them ever since the 25th of March, without shelter.

April 6. Hieres. This is a plain of two or three miles diameter, bounded by the sea on one side, and mountains of rock on the other. The soil is reddish, gravelly, tolerably good, and well watered. It is in olives, mulberries, vines, figs, corn, and some flax. There are also some cherry trees. From Hieres to the sea, which is two or three miles, is a grove of orange trees, olives, and mulberries. The largest orange tree is of two feet diameter one way, and one foot the other, (for the section of all the larger ones would be an oval, not a round,) and about twenty feet high. Such a tree will yield about six thousand oranges a year. The garden of M.Fille, has fifteen thousand six hundred orange trees. Some years, they yield forty thousand livres, some, only ten thousand; but generally about twenty-five thousand. The trees are from eight to ten feet apart. They are blossoming, and bearing, all the year, flowers, and fruit, in every stage, at the same time. But the best fruit, is that which is gathered in April and May. Hieres is a village of about five thousand inhabitants, at the foot of a mountain which covers it from the north, and from which extends a plain of two or three miles to the sea shore. It has no port. Here are palm trees twenty or thirty feet high, but they bear no fruit. There is also a botanical garden kept by the King. Considerable salt ponds here. Hieres is six miles from the public road. It is built on a narrow spur of the mountain. The streets in every direction are steep, in steps of stairs, and about eight feed wide. No carriage of any kind can enter it. The wealthier inhabitants use chaises a porteurs. But there are few wealthy, the bulk of the inhabitants being laborers of the earth. At a league's distance in the sca, is an island, on which is the

Chateau de Geans, belonging to the Marquis de Pontoives: there is a cause-way leading to it. The cold of the last November killed the leaves of a great number of the and some of the trees themselves.

orange trees,

From Hieres to Cuers, Pignans, Luc, is mostly a plain, with mountains on each hand, at a mile or two distance. The soil is generally reddish, and the latter part very red and good. The growth is, olives, figs, vines, mulberries, corn, clover and lucerne. The olive trees are from three to four feet in diameter. There are hedges of pomegranates, sweetbriar and broom. A great deal of thyme growing wild. There are some inclosures of stone; some sheep and goats.

April 9. From Luc to Vidauban, Muy, Frejus, the road leads through vallies, and crosses occasionally the mountains which separate them. The vallies are tolerably good, always red and stony, gravelly or gritty. Their produce as before. The mountains are barren.

Lesterelle, Napoule. Eighteen miles of ascent and descent, of a very high mountain. Its growth, where capable of any, two-leaved pine, very small, and some chene vert.

Antibes, Nice. From Napoule, the road is generally near the sea, passing over little hills or strings of vallies, the soil stony, and much below mediocrity in its quality. Here and there, is a good plain.

There is snow on the high mountains. The first frogs I have heard, are of this day (the 9th.) At Antibes are oranges in the open ground, but in small inclosures; palm trees also. From thence to the Var, are the largest fig trees and olive trces I have seen. The fig trees are eighteen inches in diameter, and six feet, stem; the olives, sometimes six feet in diameter, and as large heads as the largest low ground apple trees. This tree was but a shrub where I first fell in with it, and has become larger and larger to this place. The people are mostly in villages. The several provinces, and even cantons are distinguished by the form of the women's hats, so that one may know of what canton a woman is, by her hat.

Nice. The pine bur is used here for kindling fires. The people are in separate establishments. With respect to the orange, there seems to be no climate on this side of the Alps, sufficiently mild in itself to preserve it without shelter. At Olioules, they are between two high mountains; at Hieres, covered on the north by a very high mountain; at Antibes and Nice, covered by mountains, and also within small high inclosures. Quere. To trace the true line from east to west, which forms the northern and natural limit of that fruit? Saw an

elder tree (sambucus) near Nice, fifteen inches in diameter, and eight feet stem. The wine made in this neighbourhood is good, though not of the first quality. There are one thousand mules, loaded with merchandise, which pass every week between Nice and Turin, counting those coming as well as going.

April 13. Scarena. Sospello. There are no orange trees after we leave the environs of Nice. We lose the olive after rising a little above the village of Scarena, on Mount Braus, and find it again on the other side, a little before we get down to Sospello. But wherever there is soil enough, it is terraced, and in corn. The waste parts are either in two-leaved pine and thyme, or of absolutely naked rock. Sospello is on a little torrent, called Bevera, which runs into the river Roia, at the mouth of which is Ventimiglia. The olive trees on the mountain, are now loaded with fruit; while some at Sospello are in blossom. Firewood here and at Scarena, costs fifteen sous the quintal.

saw.

April 14. Ciandola. Tende. In crossing Mount Brois, we lose the olive tree after getting to a certain height, and find it again on the other side at the village of Breglio. Here we come to the river Roia, which, after receiving the branch on which is Sospello, leads to the sea at Ventimiglia. The Roia is about twelve yards wide, and abounds with speckled trout. Were a road made from Breglio, along the side of the Roia, to Ventimiglia, it might turn the commerce of Turin to this last place instead of Nice; because it would avoid the mountains of Braus and Brois, leaving only that of Tende; that is to say, it would avoid more than half the difficulties of the passage. Further on, we come to the Chateau di Saorgio, where a scene is presented the most singular and picturesque I ever The castle and village seem hanging to a cloud in front. On the right, is a mountain cloven through, to let pass a gurgling stream; on the left a river, over which is thrown a magnificent bridge. The whole forms a basin, the sides of which are shagged with rocks, olive trees, vines, herds, &c. Near here, I saw a tub wheel without a ream; the trunk descended from the top of the water fall to the wheel, in a direct line, but with the usual inclination. The produce along this passage, is most generally olives, except on the heights as before observed; also corn, vines, mulberries, figs, cherries and walnuts. They have cows, goats and sheep. In passing on towards Tende, olives fail us ultimately at the village of Fontan, and there the chesnut trees begin in good quantity. Ciandola consists of only two houses, both taverns. Tende is a very inconsiderable village, in which they have not yet the luxury of glass windows;

nor in any of the villages on this passage, have they yet the fashion of powdering the hair. Common stone and limestone are so abundant, that the apartments of every story are vaulted with stone, to save wood.

pas

April 15. Limone. Coni. I see abundance of limestone as far as the earth is uncovered with snow; i. e. within half or three quarters of an hour's walk of the top. The snows descend much lower on the eastern than western side. Wherever there is soil, there is corn quite to the commencement of the snows, and I suppose under them also. The waste parts are in two-leaved pine, lavender and thyme. From the foot of the mountain to Coni, the road follows a branch of the Po, the plains of which begin narrow, and widen at length into a general plain country, bounded on one side by the Alps. They are good, dark-colored, somewhat tinged with red, and in ture, corn, mulberrries and some almonds. The hill sides bordering these plains, are reddish, and where they admit of it, are in corn; but this is seldom. They are mostly in chesnut, and often absolutely barren. The whole of the plains are plentifully watered from the river, as is much of the hill side. A great deal of golden willow all along the rivers, on the whole of this passage through the Alps. The southern parts of France, but still more the passage through the Alps, enable one to form a scale of the tenderer plants, arranging them according to their several powers of resisting cold. Ascending three different mountains, Braus, Brois, and Tende, they disappear one after another; and descending on the other side, they shew themselves again one after another. This is their order, from the tenderest to the hardiest. Caper, orange, palm, aloe, olive, pomegranate, walnut, fig, almond. But this must be understood of the plant; for as to the fruit, the order is somewhat different. The caper, for example, is the tenderest plant, yet being so easily protected, it is the most certain in its fruit. The almond, the hardiest plant, loses its fruit the oftenest, on account of its forwardness. The palm, hardier than the caper and the orange, never produces perfect fruit in these parts. Coni is a considerable town, and pretty well built. It is walled.

April 16. Centale. Savigliano. Racconigi. Poerino. Turin. The Alps, as far as they are in view from north to south, show the gradation of climate, by the line which terminates the snows lying on them. This line begins at their foot northwardly, and rises, as they pass on to the south, so as to be half way up their sides on the most southern undulations of the mountain, now in view. From the mountains to Turin, we see no tree tenderer than the walnut. Of these, as well as of almonds and

mulberries, there are a few: somewhat more of vines, but most generally, willows and poplars. Corn is sowed with all these. They mix with them also clover and small grass. The country is a general plain; the soil dark, and sometimes, though rarely, reddish. It is rich, and much infested with wild onions. At Racconigi, I see the tops and shocks of maize, which prove it is cultivated here: but it can be in small quantities only, because I observe very little ground, but what has already something else in it. Here and there, are small patches prepared, I suppose, for maize. They have a method of planting the vine, which I have not seen before. At intervals of about eight feet, they plant from two to six plants of vine in a cluster. At each cluster they fix a forked staff, the plane of the prongs of the fork at a right angle with the row of vines. Athwart these prongs they lash another staff, like a handspike, about eight feet long, horizontally, seven or eight feet from the ground. Of course, it crosses the rows at right angles. The vines are brought from the foot of the fork up to this cross piece, turned over it, and conducted along over the next, the next, and so on, as far as they will extend, the whole forming an arbor eight feet wide and high, and of the whole length of the row, little interrupted by the stems of the vines, which being close around the fork, pass up through hoops, so as to occupy a space only of small diameter. All the buildings in this country are of brick, sometimes covered with plaister, sometimes not. There is a very large and handsome bridge of seven arches, over the torrent of Sangone. We cross the Po, in swinging batteaux. Two are placed side by side, and kept together by a plank floor, common to both, and lying on the gunwales. The carriage drives on this, without taking out any of the horses. About one hundred and fifty yards up the river, is a fixed stake, and a rope tied to it, the other end of which is made fast to one side of the batteaux, so as to throw them oblique to the current. The stream then acting on them, as on an inclined plane, forces them across the current in the portion of a circle of which the rope is the radius. To support the rope in its whole length, there are two intermediate canoes, about fifty yards apart, in the heads of which are short masts. To the top of these the rope is lashed, the canoes being free otherwise to concur with the general vibration, in their smaller arks of circles. The Po is there, about fifty yards wide, and about one hundred in the neighbourhood of Turin.

April 17, 18. Turin. The first nightingale I have heard this year, is to-day, (18th.) There is a red wine of Nebiule made in this neighborhood, which is very singular. It is about as sweet as the silky Madeira, as astringent on the palate as