Alpine range come so close to the town as to cut off all the view
inland, but the opposite side is open to the far-reaching Mediterranean,
which curves gracefully in crescent form to make the beautiful bay of
Nice. Lying so very close to the Italian frontier, the people are as
much of that nationality as of France, and both languages are spoken.
The old portion of the town is Roman in many of its characteristics, and
here those former masters of the world had an important naval station in
the days of Augustus. Dirty as this portion of Nice is, one lingers here
a little to study the quaint architecture, and the aspects of humble
life. The peculiarities of dress, habits, and general appearance of the
people differ materially from other continental towns. Half-clad,
bare-footed boys and girls of twelve or fourteen years of age abound,
many of them with such beauty of face and form as to make us sigh for
the possibilities of their young lives probably never to be fulfilled.
Under favorable auspices what a happy future might fall to their share!
A year or two more of wretched associations, idle habits, and want of
proper food and clothing will age them terribly. What a serious social
problem is presented by such lives!

All strangers who come hither visit Cimies, about three miles from Nice,
upon a lofty hillside, where there are some remarkable Roman ruins,
among which is a spacious amphitheatre, once capable of seating eight or
ten thousand spectators. This place, like the neighboring Convent of
Cinieres, is more than a thousand years old, and so well built that the
intervening centuries have not been able to disintegrate its masonry to
any great extent. It is upon a Sunday afternoon that we visit the
amphitheatre and convent. The Franciscan monks, who alone inhabit the
terrace, seem to be rather a jolly set of men, notwithstanding their
coarse dress, shaven heads, and bare feet. The Sabbath does not
interfere with their game of tennis, which a group of them pursue with
great earnestness in the pleasant old garden of the monastery, now and
then disputing a little rudely as to the conduct of the game. One of the
brethren is our guide; he explains intelligently what we desire to
understand, and gives us a drink of water out of the old well from which
the Romans drank so many hundred years ago, and which he assures us has
never been known to fail of yielding pure water.

Mentone, the border town between France and Italy, is