mon. Even the ferns are scented! The
Artist looks with apathetic eye on the rocks and ruined castle of
Roquebrune. When we reach Menton we are willing to sink into
cane-seated rockers on the Hotel Bristol porch, call for something in a
tall glass with ice in it, and let the morning walk count for a day's
journey.

The tourists who know Menton only as a mid-day luncheon break have
robbed themselves of an experience that no other Riviera town offers.
The Promenade des Anglais at Nice is interesting in the sense that the
Avenue des Champs-Elysees is interesting. The Mediterranean is
accidental--an unimportant accessory. The Promenade du Midi at Menton
is another world. And this other world, with its other world climate,
reveals itself to you with increasingly keen delight, as you ride (you
do not walk at Menton) around Cap Martin, up the mountain to old
Sainte-Agnes, in the gorge of Saint-Louis, along the Boulevard du
Garavan, and out to the Giardino Hanbury. You say _giardino_ instead
of _jardin_ because Mortola is just across the Italian frontier. The
eccentric Englishman chose this spot, without regard to political
sovereignty present or future, as the best place to demonstrate the
catholicity of the Riviera climate to tropical flora. I simply mention
these drives; for you do not ride at Menton any more than you walk.
The man who wants to keep his energy and work on the Riviera must not
go farther east than Nice.

But why another world? And another world even from that of the rest of
the French Riviera? It is partly the climate and the consequent flora,
but mostly the light. The general aridity of the Riviera, with the
prevalence of everbrowns and evergreens, strikes unpleasantly at first
the visitor from the North. Sunshine and riotous colors of flowers and
blossoming trees do not make up for the absence of water-fed green.
When it rains, the Northerner's depression cannot be fought off. The
chill gets to his soul as well as to his bones. He prays for the sun
he has come south to seek. But when the sun returns, the dust annoys
him. The high wind gets on his nerves.

The casual tourist, whose stay is brief, even if he has come in the
most favorable season, is "not so sure about the Riviera, you know."
He is impatient with himself because, after the first vivid impression,
panoramas and landscapes leave him unsatisfied. There is no
compensation for the absence of water-fed green in the canvas of natu