the long procession of vehicles, of which our carriage
was a part, all obviously filled with pleasure-seekers and all
inexplicable. Pretty girls, without stopping to wonder, accepted with
satisfaction so joyous an outburst of merrymaking and unhesitatingly
gave us their smiles.

We crossed the little river Ouveze, and as we mounted from it to the
northward the tower of the ruined Chateauneuf-du-Pape came into view. A
new key was struck in the landscape. The broad white road ran through a
brown solitude: a level upland broken into fields of sun-browned stubble
and of grey-brown olive-orchards; and then, farther on, through a high
desolate plain tufted with sage-brush, whence we had outlook to wide
horizons far away. Off to the eastward, cutting against the darkening
sky, was the curious row of sharp peaks called the Rat's Teeth. All the
range of the Alpilles was taking on a deeper grey. Purple undertones
were beginning to soften the opalescent fire of Mont Ventour.

Presently the road dipped over the edge of the plain and began a
descent, in a perfectly straight line but by a very easy grade, of more
than a mile. Here were rows of plane-trees again, which, being of no
great age and not meeting over the road, were most noticeable as
emphasizing the perspective. And from the crest of this acclivity--down
the long dip in the land, at the end of the loom of grey-white road
lying shadowy between the perspective lines of trees--we saw rising in
sombre mass against the purple haze of sunset, dominating the little
city nestled at its base and even dwarfing the mountain at its back, the
huge fabric of the theatre.

Dusk had fallen as we drove into Orange--thronged with men and beasts
like a Noah's ark. All the streets were alive with people; and streams
of vehicles of all sorts were pouring in from the four quarters of the
compass and discharging their cargoes on the public squares to a loud
buzzing accompaniment of vigorous talk--much in the way that the ark
people, thankful to get ashore again, must have come buzzing out on
Ararat.

I am sorry to say that the handling of a small part of this crowd by the
railway people, and of the whole of it by the local management, was
deplorably bad. The trains were inadequate and irregular; the great
mistake was made of opening only three of the many entrances to the
theatre; and the artistic error was committed (against the protest of M.
Mounet-Sully, who earnestly desired to maintain