well preserved that it
presents its occasional bull-fight for the delectation of the
bloodthirsty), its antique theatre, its museums, its cathedral and
its cloister, or among the tombs of the Aliscamps.

We did all these things, indeed we had done them before, but they
were ever marvellous just the same, and in the museum we were always
running on Mistral himself, who, in his waning years, finds his
greatest delight in arranging and rearranging the exhibits of his
newly founded Musee Arletan.

The hotels of Arles are a disappointment. The Hotel du Nord, with a
portico of the old Forum built into its walls, and the Hotel du
Forum, on the Place du Forum, are well enough in their way,--they are
certainly well conducted,--but they lack "atmosphere," and instead of
the _cuisine du pays_, you get ham and eggs and _bifteck_ served to
you. This is wrong and bad business, if the otherwise capable
proprietors only knew it.

One does better in the environs. At St. Remy, at the Grand Hotel de
Provence, you will get quite another sort of fare: _hors d'oeuvres_
of a peculiarly pungent variety, not forgetting the dark purple,
over-ripe olives, a _ragout en casserole_, a _filet d'agneau_ with a
_sauce Provencale_, and a _poulet_ and a salad which will make one
dream of the all but lost art of Brillat-Savarin. They are good
cooks, the _chefs_ of Provence, of the small cities and large towns
like St. Remy, Cavaillon, Salon, and Carpentras, but everybody will
not like their liberal douches of oil any more than they will the
penetrating garlic flavour in everything.

We took a turn backward on our route from Arles and went to Les Baux,
the now dismal ruin of a once proud feudal city whose seigneurs held
sway over some sixty cities of Provence.

To-day it is a Pompeii, except it is a hill town worthy to rank with
those picturesque peaks of Italy and Dalmatia. Its chateau walls have
crumbled, but its subterranean galleries, cut three stories down into
the rock itself, are much as they always were. Everywhere are grim,
doleful evidences of a glory that is past and a population that is
dead or moved away. The sixteen thousand souls of mediaeval times have
shrunk to something like two hundred to-day--most of them shepherds,
apparently, and the others picture post-card sellers.

It is a very satisfactory little mountain climb from the surrounding
plain up to the little plateau just below the peak at Les Baux,
though the entire distance f