to its quality, which he examines and
investigates, by the taste and flavour. The jakes of a protestant
family, who eat gras every day, bears a much higher price than the
privy of a good catholic who lives maigre one half of the year. The
vaults belonging to the convent of Minims are not worth emptying.

The ground here is not delved with spades as in England, but laboured
with a broad, sharp hough, having a short horizontal handle; and the
climate is so hot and dry in the summer, that the plants must be
watered every morning and evening, especially where it is not shaded by
trees. It is surprising to see how the productions of the earth are
crouded together. One would imagine they would rob one another of
nourishment; and moreover be stifled for want of air; and doubtless
this is in some measure the case. Olive and other fruit trees are
planted in rows very close to each other. These are connected by vines,
and the interstices, between the rows, are filled with corn. The
gardens that supply the town with sallad and pot-herbs, lye all on the
side of Provence, by the highway. They are surrounded with high
stone-walls, or ditches, planted with a kind of cane or large reed,
which answers many purposes in this country. The leaves of it afford
sustenance to the asses, and the canes not only serve as fences to the
inclosures; but are used to prop the vines and pease, and to build
habitations for the silkworms: they are formed into arbours, and wore
as walking-staves. All these gardens are watered by little rills that
come from the mountains, particularly, by the small branches of the two
sources which I have described in a former letter, as issuing from the
two sides of a mountain, under the names of Fontaine de Muraille, and
Fontaine du Temple.

In the neighbourhood of Nice, they raise a considerable quantity of
hemp, the largest and strongest I ever saw. Part of this, when dressed,
is exported to other countries; and part is manufactured into cordage.
However profitable it may be to the grower, it is certainly a great
nuisance in the summer. When taken out of the pits, where it has been
put to rot, the stench it raises is quite insupportable; and must
undoubtedly be unwholesome.

There is such a want of land in this neighbourhood, that terraces are
built over one another with loose stones, on the faces of bare rocks,
and these being covered with earth and manured, are planted with
olives, vines, and corn. The same shift