r own
special bottle, of whatever _aperitif_ poison you fancied, in order
that you might be sure of getting it unadulterated.

"_La Venise de Provence,_" Martigues, is known by artists far and
wide. Chabas and his rather grimy little hotel, which he calls the
Grand Hotel something or other, has catered for countless hundreds of
artist folk who have made the name and fame of Martigues as an
artist's sketching-ground. After a three weeks' pretty steady
automobile run the artist of the party craved peace and rest and an
opportunity of putting Martigues's glorious sunsets on canvas, and so
we camped out with Chabas, and ate _bouillabaisse_ and the _beurre de
Provence_ and _langouste_ and Chabas's famous straw potatoes and rum
omelette for ten days, and were sorry when it was all over.

Chapter IV
By Rhone And Saone

[Illustration: Rhone & Saone]

It is the dream of the Marseillais that some day the turgid Rhone may
be made to empty itself at the foot of the famous Cannebiere, and so
add to the already great prosperity of the most cosmopolitan and
picturesque of Mediterranean ports.

The idea has been thought of since Roman times, and Napoleon himself
nearly undertook the work. In later days radical and vehement
candidates for senatorships and deputyships have promised their
Marseilles and Bouches-du-Rhone constituencies much more, with regard
to the same thing, than the hand of man is ever likely to be able to
accomplish.

The Rhone still pushes its way through the Crau and the Camargue and
comes to the sea many kilometres west of the Planier light and
Chateau d'If, which guard the entrance to Marseilles's Old Port.

We had backed and filled many times between Martigues and Marseilles
during the interval which we so enjoyably spent _chez Chabas_, and we
had come to know this unknown little corner of old Provence
intimately, and to love it.

Marseilles was our great dissipation, its hotels, its cafes and
restaurants, its cosmopolitan life and movement, its gaiety and the
picturesqueness of its old streets and wharves. Marseilles is a
neglected tourist point; it should be better known; but it is no
place for automobilists, unless they are prepared for ten kilometres,
in any direction, of the most villainous suburban roadway in France.
The roadways themselves are good enough; it is the abnormal and the
peculiar nature of the traffic that makes them so disagreeable; great
hooting tramways, _charettes_ loaded with