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CHAPTER XV

MENTONE

Configuration of the land—Favoured situation of Mentone: suitable for mid-winter—Old and new Mentone—Oranges and lemons—History of Mentone—Roquebrune—Passion Mystery—Castellan—Depredations of corsairs—Open-air ball—Dr. Bennet—The torrent of S. Louis— The Barma Grande—Prehistoric men.

THE traveller by rail from Nice to Mentone is hardly able to appreciate the configuration of the land, and to understand what are the special advantages enjoyed by Mentone over Nice and Cannes.

Let us take a sickle to represent the mountain system from the Swiss Alps to the Abruzzi. If the sickle be held with the point upward and the cutting edge turned away from one, then the great curve of the inner edge represents the vast basin of the Po and its tributaries. At Mont Blanc the Alpine sweep turns south and runs to Monte Viso, forming the Dauphiné Alps. From Monte Viso the ridge curves to the east till it meets the shank above Genoa, and the handle of the sickle is the range of the Apennines.

From Nice one can see the snowy peaks. Les Cimes du Diable are visible, but away to the north-east, for the chain is on the curve there. Above the Riviera di Ponente the chain draws very near to the sea, but throws out spurs and allows of a ledge resting against

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