e and little white cap from the back of the diligence that preceded
us during the first portion of the day, owing to our coach having been
delayed at Ventimiglia by some peculiar arrangement which required the
team that had dragged us up a steep ascent to stop and bait,--merely
resting instead of changing, before we went on again.

The Pont St. Louis, with the picturesque ravine it crosses, had been
passed, and the pretty town of Mentone was full in view, when we caught
sight of the other diligence, some way on the road before us, brought
once more to a stand-still, while a crowd of persons surrounded it, and
its passengers were to be seen, in the distance, descending, with the
baby cap among them. At this instant, an excited French official darted
out from a doorway by the side of the road near us, raising his arms
distractedly, and throwing his sentences up at the conductor, who
understood him to say that there was no going on; that a whole garden
had come tumbling down across the road just at the entrance to Mentone,
and prevented passing.

We drove on to the spot, and found it was indeed so; the grounds of a
villa, skirting the highway on a terrace-ledge, had been loosened by the
many days' rain, and had fallen during the forenoon, a heap of
ruins,--shrubs, plants, garden-walls, flowers, borders, railings,--one
mass of obstruction.

With a glance at the _coupe_ passengers, another French official (the
newly-appointed frontier custom-house being close at hand) stepped
forward to suggest that the "insides" could be accommodated, during the
interim required for the _cantonniers_ to do their work, at a
lately-built hotel he pointed to; but the four agreed to spend the time
in walking round by the path above the obstruction, so as to see its
whole extent.

The wet, percolating and penetrating through the softer soil, gradually
accumulates a weight of water behind and beneath the harder and rockier
portions, which dislodges them from their places, pushes them forward,
and finally topples them over headlong. This is generally prevented
where terrace-walls are built up, by leaving holes here and there in the
structure, which allow the wet to drain through innocuously; but if, as
in the present instance, this caution be neglected, many days'
successive rain is almost sure to produce the disaster in question. It
had a woful look,--all those garden elegances cast there, flung out upon
the high-road, like discarded rubbish;