e saw those slender
trunks, that fantastic vegetation shooting up in the white, hot air,
when he felt the blinding dust crunching under the wheels like snow, de
Gery, his eyes partly closed, half-dreaming in that leaden noonday
heat, fancied that he was making once more the tiresome journey from
Tunis to the Bardo, which he had made so often in a strange medley of
Levantine chariots, brilliant liveries, _meahris_ with long neck and
hanging lip, gayly-caparisoned mules, young asses, Arabs in rags,
half-naked negroes, great functionaries in full dress, with their
escorts of honor. Should he find yonder, where the road skirts gardens
of palm-trees, the curious, colossal architecture of the bey's palace,
its close-meshed window gratings, its marble doors, its _moucharabies_
cut out of wood and painted in vivid colors? It was not the Bardo, but
the pretty village of Bordighera, divided like all those on the coast
into two parts, the _Marine_ lying along the shore, and the upper town,
connected by a forest of statuesque palms with slender stalks and
drooping tops,--veritable rockets of verdure, showing stripes of blue
through their innumerable regular clefts.

The unendurable heat and the exhaustion of the horses compelled the
traveller to halt for two or three hours at one of the great hotels that
line the road and, from early in November, bring to that wonderfully
sheltered little village all the luxurious life and animation of an
aristocratic winter resort. But at that time of year the _Marine_ of
Bordighera was deserted, save for a few fishermen, who were invisible at
that hour. The villas and hotels seemed dead, all their blinds and
shades being closely drawn. The new arrival was led through long, cool,
silent passages, to a large salon facing north, evidently a part of one
of the full suites which are generally let for the season, as it was
connected with other rooms on either side by light doors. White
curtains, a carpet, the semi-comfort demanded by the English even when
travelling, and in front of the windows, which the innkeeper threw wide
open as a lure to the visitor, to induce him to make a more extended
halt, the magnificent view of the mountain. An astonishing calm reigned
in that huge, deserted inn, with no steward, no cook, no
attendants,--none of the staff arrived until the first cool days,--and
given over to the care of a native spoil-sauce, an expert in _stoffatos_
and _risottos_, and to two stable-boys, w