, like Egyptian tombs, in the heart of the mountain.
The proprietor, an eccentric English bachelor, never inhabits this
fantastic mansion, but lives in a second-rate hotel, spending thousands
annually in adding embellishments to his astonishing castle, where,
notwithstanding its magnificent suites of apartments, no human being has
ever slept a night or eaten a meal.

"Smith's Craze," as I have said, closes in the view to our right. To the
left, beyond the torrent Paillon, is situated modern Nice, with its
quays, leviathan hotels, and an almost interminable line of villas
marking the celebrated Promenade des Anglais. The background of the
scene is filled up by a semicircle of well-wooded hills, verdant with
vines, fig, orange, olive and pomegranate trees, and sparkling with
white country-seats, convents, and campanili. Towering over these hills
appears another range, of rocky and bold outlines, and then another, of
lofty mountains whose peaks lose themselves in clouds, and by their
fantastic figures form as delightful an horizon as the eye can behold.
In the centre rises the conical peak of Monte Cao, an extinct volcano,
exactly resembling Vesuvius in conformation, and only wanting a curl of
smoke issuing from its crater to make the illusion perfect. Alongside of
Monte Cao is another extinct volcano, on which are seen the ruins of the
ancient and deserted village of Chateauneuf, while between the two
summits (thirty-five hundred feet high) are distinctly visible the peaks
of some of the ever-snowy Alps. The foreground of the picture is formed
by the deep indigo waters of the Mediterranean, diversified by a hundred
sunny sails, and overhead hangs the cloudless Italian sky.

Let us now put back to port and walk through the city, visiting first
Old Nice, then the modern Pompeii, as Alphonse Karr pleasantly calls
the new town. Old Nice resembles Genoa on a small scale, and has very
narrow streets of lofty (and in some cases really fine) houses, no end
of churches, gloomy-looking convents, and one or two palaces. In the
narrow streets surrounding the cathedral--a large and showy building,
formerly a parish church--is a market supplied with native
fruits--oranges, lemons, grapes, figs, and many varieties of melons and
nuts. The streets, which are in places so narrow that you can almost
stretch your arms across them, are full of bright-looking shops, with
all their varied goods displayed at the open, unglazed windows. Here and