in a straight
line dividing the town into two parts. We turned off to the right,
towards the stately quarter which Vernet has represented in his
celebrated view from the inner harbour; and took up our abode at the
Hotel de Beauveau, which we found in every way deserving the rank which
it holds among the number of excellent hotels in this place. We rose
soon after day-light the next morning, to walk to the fort and signal
post of Notre Dame de la Garde, the most conspicuous object in a distant
view of Marseilles, and which we had observed rearing its flag-staff at
the end of almost every vista of street, like the castle of St. Elmo at
Naples. In our walk we picked up a species of locust, the sauterelle of
this country, of a pale, dirty brown, and somewhat more than three
inches in length. Thanks to the great cleanliness of the Hotel de
Beauveau, this was the first insect which we had as yet met with at
Marseilles. In a climate, indeed, of a certain degree of heat, perpetual
scouring and sweeping becomes absolutely necessary in all comfortable
establishments, and these little evils are more completely eradicated
than in those places where they are less natural. The simple precaution
of shutting the windows before candles are brought, is commonly
sufficient to keep off the mosquitos; and as for the scorpions, this
formidable bug-bear exists only in the imaginations of travelling
ladies, in glass jars at apothecaries' shops, and occasionally in the
poorer houses of the old town, where the dirt and rubbish afford it a
shelter.

On ascending the hill of Notre Dame de la Garde, we found reason to
approve our choice of it as a point of general survey. It commands not
only the whole bay, but also the flat space of land encircled by
mountains, in which Marseilles is enclosed as between hot walls, and the
town itself lies like a map under it. As a point, however, for a general
sketch, I should prefer the island of Ratoneau, which possesses
sufficient elevation for all purposes of the picturesque, and brings in
the sea and the Chateau d'If as a front ground, grouping at the same
time the masses of building of Marseilles better than a mere bird's eye
view would do.

The chapel of this fort, like that of Notre Dame de Fourvieres at Lyons,
possesses a great reputation for sanctity, and much resembles it also in
its steep ascent, which one would suppose that some austere monk had in
both cases contrived as a penance to short breathe