ountervail the advantage of several degrees of latitude. From the
first olive fields of Pierrelatte, to the orangeries of Hieres, has
been continued rapture to me. I have often wished for you. I think you
have not made this journey. It is a pleasure you have to come, and an
improvement to be added to the many you have already made. It will be a
great comfort to you, to know, from your own inspection, the condition
of all the provinces of your own country, and it will be interesting to
them at some future day, to be known to you. This is, perhaps, the only
moment of your life in which you can acquire that knowledge. And to do
it most effectually, you must be absolutely incognito, you must ferret
the people out of their hovels as I have done, look into their kettles,
eat their bread, loll on their beds under pretence of resting yourself,
but in fact, to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure
in the course of this investigation, and a sublimer one hereafter, when
you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their
beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their kettle of vegetables.

You will not wonder at the subjects of my letters; they are the only
ones which have been presented to my mind for some time past; and the
waters must always be what are the fountains from which they flow.
According to this, indeed, I should have intermixed, from beginning to
end, warm expressions of friendship to you. But according to the ideas
of our country, we do not permit ourselves to speak even truths, when
they may have the air of flattery. I content myself, therefore, with
saying once for all, that I love you, your wife and children. Tell them
so, and adieu. Yours affectionately.

TO WILLIAM SHORT.

NICE, April 12, 1787.

DEAR SIR,--At Marseilles, they told me I should encounter the rice
fields of Piedmont soon after crossing the Alps. Here they tell me
there are none nearer than Vercelli and Novarra, which is carrying me
almost to Milan. I fear that this circumstance will occasion me a
greater delay than I had calculated on. However I am embarked in the
project, and shall go through with it. To-morrow, I set out on my
passage over the Alps, being to pursue it ninety-three miles to Coni,
on mules, as the snows are not yet enough melted to admit carriages to
pass. I leave mine here, therefore, proposing to return by water from
Genoa. I think it will be three weeks before I get back to Nice.