silver gray on the inner, lends them a very fascinating
appearance, especially on a moonlight night, when the arching boughs
of an olive grove look exactly as if covered with shawls of rich black
lace. The leaf of the olive tree, which is an evergreen, is attached
to the bough by a very slender stalk, so that the slightest wind
sets it in motion, as it does that of the quivering aspen. The fruit
resembles an acorn without its cup, and is brown and dingy. The flower
is very insignificant.

The olive trees at Nice are cultivated on terraces cut like deep steps
up the mountain-side. All the earth which fills these terraces
has been placed there by human labor; and when it is taken into
consideration that many hundreds of miles of mountain-side have been
thus redeemed from waste, that the work dates back at least fifteen
centuries, and was performed at a period when agricultural implements
were of the rudest, they must be acknowledged as among the most
gigantic of undertakings. They are from ten to twenty feet high, about
a quarter of a mile long, and from fifteen to twenty-five feet wide.
In order to form them the rock had to be cut away, blasting being of
course unknown at the time, and every handful of earth brought up from
the plain below, often to a height of two thousand feet. The Provencal
writers consider them the work of the Moors, but it is probable that
they were commenced under the Phoceans and the Romans and continued by
the Arabs. I have been shown several terraces the masonry of which
was undoubtedly Roman, and coins bearing the effigies of the earlier
Caesars have been often found in the brick work. Corn is grown on them
under the shadow of the olive trees, to whose branches the vine is
frequently twined. I have seen two wheat-harvests gathered in one year
on these narrow terraces, and nothing can be imagined more charming
than their appearance late in autumn. Then the golden corn waves
beneath garlands of vine heavily laden with luscious fruit, the olive
tree, emblem of peace, waves its silvery foliage overhead, the peach
is ripe, and so are the bright green October figs, and there is a
mellowness in the air that makes one almost inclined to believe that
the age of gold has returned to earth.

As the summit of the mountain is approached vegetation becomes less
luxuriant, and finally disappears altogether. Mont Borron, for so is
the mountain in question called, is about two thousand five hundred
feet high,