_Aubagne_ to _Cuges, Beausset, Toulon_. The road, quitting the
Veaune and its wealthy valley, a little after Aubagne, enters those
mountains of rock, and is engaged with them about a dozen miles. Then it
passes six or eight miles through a country still very hilly and stony,
but laid up in terraces, covered with olives, vines, and corn. It
then follows for two or three miles a hollow between two of those
high mountains, which has been, found or made by a small stream.
The mountains then reclining a little from their perpendicular, and
presenting a coat of soil, reddish, and tolerably good, have given place
to the little village of Olioules, in the gardens of which are oranges
in the open ground. It continues hilly till we enter the plain of
Toulon. On different parts of this road there are figs in the open
fields. At Cuges is a plain of about three fourths of a mile diameter,
surrounded by high mountains of rock. In this the caper is principally
cultivated. The soil is mulatto, gravelly, and of middling quality, or
rather indifferent. The plants are set in _quincunx_, about eight feet
apart. They have been covered during winter by a hill of earth a foot
high. They are now enclosing, pruning, and ploughing them.

_Toulon_. From Olioules to Toulon the figs are in the open fields. Some
of them have stems of fifteen inches diameter. They generally fork near
the ground, but sometimes have a single stem of five feet long. They
are as large as apricot trees. The olive trees of this day's journey
are about the size of large apple trees. The people are in separate
establishments. Toulon is in a valley at the mouth of the Goutier, a
little river of the size of the Veaune; surrounded by high mountains of
naked rock, 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 twenty-four 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. These plants grow equally
well in the best or worst soil, or e