ms-coffers of the church were
already full to the lids, and the parish depends largely upon the
contributions of visitors to replenish its funds, any seeming
sacrilege was winked at.

For three days we had "made the fete" and saw it all, and did most of
the things that the others did, except that we always slept at St.
Gilles, far away by the long flat road which winds in and out among
the marshes, flamingo nests, and rice-fields of the Camargue.

The "bull-fight," so called, was nothing so very bloodthirsty or
terrifying; merely the worrying by the "amateurs" of a short-legged,
little black bull, about the size of a well-formed Newfoundland dog,
or perhaps a little larger--appearances are often deceptive when one
receives a disappointment.

Truly, as Mistral says, Provence is a land of joy and, laughter, and
fetes followed close on one another, it seemed.

We had seen the announcements in the local journals of a "_Mis a
Mort_" at Nimes, and a "_Corrida de Meurte_"--borrowing the phrase
from the Spanish--at Arles, each to take place in the great Roman
arenas, which had not seen bloodshed for centuries; not since the
days when the Romans matched men against each other in gladiatorial
combat, and turned tigers loose upon captive slaves.

The "to-the-death" affairs of Arles and Nimes appealed to us only
that we might contrast the modern throngs that crowd the benches with
those which history tells us viewed the combats of old. Doubtless
there is little resemblance, but all the same there is a certain gory
tradition hanging about the old walls and arches of those great
arenas which is utterly lacking in the cricket-field, tawdry plazas
of some of the Spanish towns. The grim arcades of these great Roman
arenas are still full of suggestion.

We did not see either the "_Mis a Mort_" at Arles, or the "_Corrida
de Meurte_" at Nimes; the automobile got stalled for a day in the
midst of the stony Crau, with a rear tire which blew itself into
pieces, and necessitated a journey by train into Arles in order to
get another to replace it. Owing to the slowness of this apology for
a railway train, and the awkwardness of the timetable, the great
"_Mis a Mort_" at Arles was long over ere we had set out over the
moonlit Crau for Martigues on the shores of the Etang de Berre.

[Illustration: Les Saintes]

We knew Martigues of old, its _bouillabaisse_, the _Pere Chabas_ and
all the cronies of the Cafe du Commerce where you kept you