Senez?" A man stepped up in answer to his inquiry. "Certainly there
was a way to get there, the mail-coach started in an hour. And a hotel?
A very good hotel--not Parisian perhaps, but hot food, a bottle of good
wine, and a clean bed. Could one desire more on this earth?"

The traveller thought not, and left the station--to stand transfixed
before the most melancholy conveyance that ever bore the high-sounding
name of "mail-coach." A little wagon in whose interior six thin persons
might have crowded, old windows shaking in their frames, the remains of
a coat of yellow paint, and in front a seat which a projecting bit of
roof protected from the sun,--this was the mail-coach of Senez, drawn by
a dejected, small brown mule, ragged with age, and a gaunt white horse
who towered above him. To complete the equipage, this melancholy pair
were hitched with ropes.

In due course of time the driver came, hooked an ancient tin box marked
"Lettres" to the dash-board, threw in a sacking-bag, and cap in hand,
invited the traveller to mount with him "where there was air." The long
whip cracked authoritatively, the postilion, a beautiful black dog,
jumped to the roof, and the mail-coach of Senez, with rattle and creak,
started on its scheduled run.

"Houp-la, thou bag of lazy bones done up in a brown skin! Ho-la, thou
whited sepulchre, thinkest thou I will get out and carry thee? Take this
and that."

[Illustration: "THE MAIL-COACH OF SENEZ."]

On either side the whip hit the road ferociously, but the old beasts of
burden shook their philosophic heads and slowly jogged on, knowing well
they would not be touched.

The hot sun of Provence, which "drinks a river as man drinks a glass of
wine," shone on the long, white "route nationale" that stretched out in
well-kept monotony through a valley which might well have been named
"Desolation." On either hand rose mountains that were great masses of
bare, seared rocks, showing the ravages of forgotten glaciers; the soil
that once covered them lay at their feet. Scarcely a shrub pushed out
from the crevices, and even along the road, the few thin poplars found
the poorest of nourishment.

Crossing a small bridge, there came into view an ancient village, a mere
handful of clustered wooden roofs, irregular, broken, and decayed.

"It was a city in the days when we were Romans," said the Courier, "and
they say that there are treasures underneath our soil. But who can tell
when people talk so