ion. Let us suppose
it a fine morning late in spring, and that we stand upon the deck of a
yacht about a mile and a half distant from the shore. Nice, we see,
surrounds a steep and rugged rock which rises almost perpendicularly
from the Mediterranean to the height of about six hundred feet, and is
crested by the ruins of the ancient castle, and covered with terraced
gardens forming a delicious promenade. Groves of cypresses and sycamores
hang on the declivities of this rock, which in places is rough with
cactuses and aloes and with the Indian fig, whose bright orange flowers,
when the sun's rays fall on them, have a magic splendor of color. A
group of palm trees at the extremest elevation, standing out on a high
crag, add not a little to the picturesque appearance of this singular
urban hill. On one side of this rock the rapid torrent Paillon,
traversed by several handsome bridges, some of them adorned with
statues, separates the "old" from the "new" town. On the other is the
port, filled with steamers and innumerable fishing-craft. Beyond the
port stretches the Boulevard de l'Imperatrice, inaugurated a few years
since by the late empress of Russia, with its fine villas, notably the
splendid Venetian Palace, an exact reproduction of the celebrated
Moncenigo Palace at Venice, belonging to Viscount Vigier, whose wife was
once a popular idol of the musical world of Paris and London--Sophie
Cruvelli--and the extraordinary Moresque-looking castle of Mr. Smith,
which is well called the _Folie d'un Anglais_--the "craze of an
Englishman." The latter stands on the end of a promontory, and with its
lofty towers and domes closes in the view. It is perhaps the most
curious residence in the world, being built on a barren rock, and its
apartments literally hewn out of the marble of which it is composed. On
the top of the hill is a long building, with two curious twin towers and
a dome, built of red brick faced with white marble. Here is situated the
chief entrance. You descend from the spacious entry-hall a long well
staircase cut in the rock and lighted from above, until you reach a
superb octagonal chamber of white marble ornamented with
statues and Oriental divans covered with Persian silk. This is the great
saloon, and leading out of it are other fine chambers, all of them lined
with polished marble and furnished with Eastern magnificence.
Externally, there is no trace of these chambers visible. They are, as I
have said, excavated