empted to deviate from that temperance and
impartiality which I would fain hope have hitherto characterised the
remarks of,-- Dear Sir, your faithful, humble servant.

LETTER XVIII

NICE, September 2, 1764.

DEAR DOCTOR,--I wrote in May to Mr. B-- at Geneva, and gave him what
information he desired to have, touching the conveniences of Nice. I
shall now enter into the same detail, for the benefit of such of your
friends or patients, as may have occasion to try this climate.

The journey from Calais to Nice, of four persons in a coach, or two
post-chaises, with a servant on horseback, travelling post, may be
performed with ease, for about one hundred and twenty pounds, including
every expence. Either at Calais or at Paris, you will always find a
travelling coach or berline, which you may buy for thirty or forty
guineas, and this will serve very well to reconvey you to your own
country.

In the town of Nice, you will find no ready-furnished lodgings for a
whole family. Just without one of the gates, there are two houses to be
let, ready-furnished, for about five loui'dores per month. As for the
country houses in this neighbourhood, they are damp in winter, and
generally without chimnies; and in summer they are rendered
uninhabitable by the heat and the vermin. If you hire a tenement in
Nice, you must take it for a year certain; and this will cost you about
twenty pounds sterling. For this price, I have a ground floor paved
with brick, consisting of a kitchen, two large halls, a couple of good
rooms with chimnies, three large closets that serve for bed-chambers,
and dressing-rooms, a butler's room, and three apartments for servants,
lumber or stores, to which we ascend by narrow wooden stairs. I have
likewise two small gardens, well stocked with oranges, lemons, peaches,
figs, grapes, corinths, sallad, and pot-herbs. It is supplied with a
draw-well of good water, and there is another in the vestibule of the
house, which is cool, large, and magnificent. You may hire furniture
for such a tenement for about two guineas a month: but I chose rather
to buy what was necessary; and this cost me about sixty pounds. I
suppose it will fetch me about half the money when I leave the place.
It is very difficult to find a tolerable cook at Nice. A common maid,
who serves the people of the country, for three or four livres a month,
will not live with an English family under eight or ten. They are all
slovenly, slothful, and unco