nothing is wrong with your equipages, and your harness; for no assistance is to be met with there. If they see that you are in difficulties, they laugh; if that you are in danger, they pass by on the other side of the way. Should a parched traveller venture to pluck a bunch of grapes, it is well for him if this slight indiscretion does not bring on him blows of a cudgel, a stone, or a shot from the gun of the owner. The cries of the peasants are those of the tiger, and like the tiger is their vivacity and their fury. Quarrels lead to insults, and insults are met with a blow of a stick, a stone, or the stab of a knife, often enough mortal in its effects. He who has committed such a crime thinks nothing of its consequences, save how they may affect himself. He abandons his victim, or else puts him out of the way of deposing against him. He runs away. Watching for his prey either in the ravines of Ollioules or in the depths of the forests of the Estérel, he waylays the traveller. He begins as a robber, and speedily becomes an assassin by trade. This is how the brigands are recruited who infest the roads of Provence."
Now all that is of the past. The French Tourists' Club has made paths and roads in all directions, and the Estérel may be traversed even more safely than Regent Street.
The Estérel can be visited from Cannes or S. Raphael, but the real centre for excursions is Agay, an ideal nook for a winter resort. The Mornes Rougés, a hemicycle of heights, curves about the harbour, and cuts off every huffle of the Mistral. The Cap Dramont intercepts the winds from the west. It possesses good hotels, and if a visitor for the winter could tear himself away from the gaieties of Cannes, he would spend a month here with perfect comfort, in a warmer climate, and with any number of delightful excursions to be made from it. Agay and Anthéor are two settlements
