Hotel du Louvre, Marseilles,
_December 18_.

My dear Montie,

We have just been passing through some of the most interesting parts of
France, therefore in the world, and I have derived a certain rarefied
enjoyment from it all, as I should have been only half a man not to do.
But Brown stock has gone down a little since Carcassonne, why, I know
not, though I suspect; and there is depression, if not panic in the
market. Jimmy, having made his peace and promised caution, has again
been promoted to the post of driver, and from the Jehu point of view I
must confess that during a large part of the journey he has covered
himself with as much credit as dust. This is saying a good deal, for,
owing to the slight rainfalls in these southern departments, the roads
are often buried inches deep under a coating of grey, pungent dust,
enveloping all passing vehicles in a noisome cloud. They have also, set
in their surface at irregular intervals, large pans or dishes with
perpendicular walls from an inch to three inches in depth. These dishes
being concealed by the all-pervading dust, it is impossible--at least
for a Jimmy Payne--to know where they are until the wheels bump into
them. Sometimes one of our wheels would drop in, sometimes all four. You
may imagine the strain of this sort of work upon the tyres, frame, and
springs. But in a whole day's run of a hundred and thirty miles we
punctured only one tyre, which I mended in fifteen minutes.

Beziers, seen from a distance, set strikingly upon a hill, looked an
imposing town, but turned out to be an ordinary and dirty place when we
came to ascend its long, winding streets. Beyond, we ran for a while
along the edge of a great lagoon, and knew, though we could not see it,
that the Mediterranean lay close at our right hand.

At Montpellier we did not stop, and I delivered no lecture on the
subject of the gorgeous, all-conquering Duchess, as I might have been
tempted to do if we'd had no addition to our party. It's a large,
bright, and stately town, very liveable-looking; but nothing was said
about lingering, though there are some things worth seeing. We had an
impressive entrance into the ancient city of Nimes, running in by early
moonlight, across a great, open plain, under a spacious, purpling dome
of sky, the sun dying in carmine behind us, the evening star a big,
flashing diamond in th