, whose wheel was a curious combination of metal and wood. The
Artist exclaimed that it would make a bully sketch. He saw its
picturesque possibilities. I wondered, on the other hand, whether it
would work and how it worked. Moss and grass on a millwheel in the Midi
are no surer signs of abandonment and disuse than a dry millrace. Where
things die fast they grow fast. A little water brings forth vegetable
life in a single day. Southern streams are not perennial. On the
Riviera, they are fed from nearby mountains, and are intermittent even in
their season. When the water ceases, the sun quickly bakes a crust of
silt and dries the stones of the river-beds gray-brown.

A dwarf could hardly have said mass in the chapel. Its rear wall was the
rising ground, and there seemed to be a garden on the roof. Burial space
extending no farther than the roots of a sentinel cypress told the tale
of one man's vanity or devotion. The situation of the chapel prompted us
to look over the ground for traces of a lunette bastion on the
counterscarp. We found that the chapel was built upon an earlier
foundation of stone taken from a fortification wall, and that later
builders had made over the chapel into a belvedere. Steps on the side of
the slope led to the roof, upon which two benches had been placed. What
past generations have left us we use for purposes of our own. We talk
sentimentally of our traditions, but we test them by their utility.

Saint-Paul-du-Var fails to satisfy twentieth-century standards. It is
not a thriving, bustling city. It is not a tourist center. The walls
are as they were five centuries ago. The space inside is sufficient for
the population, and one gate serves all needs. The medieval aspect is
not destroyed by buildings outside the walls, and the medieval atmosphere
is undisturbed by hotel touts and postcard vendors. When we presented
ourselves before the gate, not a soul was in sight. A bronze cannon of
Charles-Quint's time stuck its nose out of the ground by the portcullis.
We had to pull off grass and dirt to find the inscription. While we were
examining the towers that flanked the gate, a wagon rattled slowly by.
The driver did not look at us. A woman with a basket of vegetables on
her head met us under the arch. She did not look at us. We found the
same indifference in the town. Even the small boys refrained from
staring or grinning or yelling or asking for pennies. None volunteered