to show us around.

"The interest in our arrival at Saint-Paul-du-Var," commented the Artist,
"is all on our side."

Human nature is full of contradictions. We should have been annoyed if
people had bothered us. We were as much annoyed when they paid no
attention to us.

We went up in one of the towers to reach the ramparts. Keeping on the
walls all the way around the town involved an occasional bit of climbing.
We had to forget our clothes. That was easy, however, for every step of
the way was of compelling interest _extra et intra muros_. Outside, the
panorama of the Riviera, sea and mountains, towns and valleys, lay before
us to the four points of the compass. Inside, houses of different
centuries but none post-Bourbon, each crowding its neighbor but none
without individuality of its own, faced us and curved with us. For once,
the Artist failed to single out a subject.

Seaward, beyond the valley through which we had come, were
Villeneuve-Loubet and Cagnes. On the right we could see to the Antibes
lighthouse, and on the left, across the Var, to the point between Nice
and Villefranche. Landward were Vence and the wall of the Alpes
Maritimes. The afternoon sun fell full on the snow and darkened the
upper valleys of the numerous confluents of the Var and Loup rivers.

Sketching was tomorrow's task. There was time only for exploration of
the city before sunset. We came down at the tower opposite the one from
which we had started on our round. On the road to the electric tram, we
saw the _restaurant-hotel_, a cube of whitewash, but we were far from the
temptation of banalities. Tea or something, and a place to spend the
night, could be found within the walls.

Saint-Paul-du-Var caught us in its fascinating maze. We forgot that we
were thirsty. There was just one street. It zigzagged its way across
the town from the gate. You lost the points of the compass and hardly
realized that you were going over the top of a hill. The street curved
every hundred yards, and frequently turned around three sides of a single
building. Fountains were at the bends. One of them, opposite the
market, fed a square pool that was the city laundry. Women, kneeling on
the edge, were at the eternal task. We passed the centers of municipal
life, post-office, _mairie_, _gendarmerie_, school and church.

Churches of Riviera towns, like the character and speech and features of
the people, are a reminder of the recency of