from that city. I would
not willingly pass for a false enthusiast in taste; but I cannot help
observing, that from the first distant view of this noble monument,
till we came near enough to see it perfectly, I felt the strongest
emotions of impatience that I had ever known; and obliged our driver to
put his mules to the full gallop, in the apprehension that it would be
dark before we reached the place. I expected to find the building, in
some measure, ruinous; but was agreeably disappointed, to see it look
as fresh as the bridge at Westminster. The climate is either so pure
and dry, or the free-stone, with which it is built, so hard, that the
very angles of them remain as acute as if they had been cut last year.
Indeed, some large stones have dropped out of the arches; but the whole
is admirably preserved, and presents the eye with a piece of
architecture, so unaffectedly elegant, so simple, and majestic, that I
will defy the most phlegmatic and stupid spectator to behold it without
admiration. It was raised in the Augustan age, by the Roman colony of
Nismes, to convey a stream of water between two mountains, for the use
of that city. It stands over the river Gardon, which is a beautiful
pastoral stream, brawling among rocks, which form a number of pretty
natural cascades, and overshadowed on each side with trees and shrubs,
which greatly add to the rural beauties of the scene. It rises in the
Cevennes, and the sand of it produces gold, as we learn from Mr.
Reaumur, in his essay on this subject, inserted in the French Memoirs,
for the year 1718. If I lived at Nismes, or Avignon (which last city is
within four short leagues of it) I should take pleasure in forming
parties to come hither, in summer, to dine under one of the arches of
the Pont du Garde, on a cold collation.

This work consists of three bridges, or tire of arches, one above
another; the first of six, the second of eleven, and the third of
thirty-six. The height, comprehending the aqueduct on the top, amounts
to 174 feet three inches: the length between the two mountains, which
it unites, extends to 723. The order of architecture is the Tuscan, but
the symmetry of it is inconceivable. By scooping the bases of the
pilasters, of the second tire of arches, they had made a passage for
foot-travellers: but though the antients far excelled us in beauty,
they certainly fell short of the moderns in point of conveniency. The
citizens of Avignon have, in this particu