ming
station it is, with its courtyard and garden, orange trees and flowering
myrtles!

Here is indeed a change of climate; one begins to realize at last the
fact of being in the "sunny south." Although it is mid-winter, and but a
few hours before we were shivering in Paris, here the heat of the sun is
as great as an English June. Overhead a sky of such a blue as we seldom
see in our island home, and which is only matched by the azure waters of
the glorious Mediterranean. The vegetation is almost semi-tropical; palm
trees waving their graceful feathery heads; cacti, aloes, and other
strange-looking plants meeting the eye at every turn. Orange and olive
trees abundant everywhere, the former loading the air with the luscious
fragrance of its blossoms.

But unfortunately, on the Sunday morning following our arrival, there
was a disagreeable dry parching wind blowing from the north-west called
_mistral_; the Italians call it _maestro_, meaning "the masterful." It
is very prevalent along the south coast of Europe at certain times of
the year, drying up the soil, and doing much damage to the fruit trees.
The dust, like sand in the desert, is almost blinding; on one side you
have a cold cutting wind, on the other perhaps scorching
heat--altogether very far from pleasant. This wind sometimes raises a
tumult in the Mediterranean Sea, which is much dreaded by the French and
Italian sailors.

Marseilles, the third city of _la belle France_, enclosed by a
succession of rocky hills, and magnificently situated on the sea, is
almost the greatest port of the Mediterranean. It is a very ancient
town, having been founded in 600 B.C. by the Phoceans, under
the name of Massilia. When ultimately conquered by the Romans, it was
for its refinement and culture treated with considerable respect, and
allowed to retain its original aristocratic constitution. After the fall
of Rome, it fell into the hands of the Franks and other wild northern
tribes; and was subsequently destroyed by the Saracens, but was restored
in the tenth century. In 1481 it was united to France, to which it has
ever since been subject. In 1720 it was ravaged by the plague, which
was memorable not only on account of its wide-wasting devastation, but
also for the heroism of Xavier de Belzunce, Bishop of Marseilles, whose
zeal and charity for the poor sufferers commands our respect and
admiration. Pope, in his "Essay on Man," says--

"Why drew Marseilles' good bishop p