ut flowers, with little steep, rough paths that
wind under a plantation of small, scrubby stone-pines. Above this is the
grassy platform of the castle, enclosed on one side only (toward the
river) by a large fragment of wall and a very massive dungeon. There are
benches placed in the lee of the wall, and others on the edge of the
platform, where one may enjoy a view, beyond the river, of certain
peeled and scorched undulations. A sweet desolation, an everlasting
peace, seemed to hang in the air. A very old man (a fragment, like the
castle itself) emerged from some crumbling corner to do me the
honours--a very gentle, obsequious, tottering, toothless, grateful old
man. He beguiled me into an ascent of the solitary tower, from which you
may look down on the big sallow river and glance at diminished Tarascon
and the barefaced, bald-headed hills behind it. It may appear that I
insist too much upon the nudity of the Provencal horizon--too much
considering that I have spoken of the prospect from the heights of
Beaucaire as lovely. But it is an exquisite bareness; it seems to exist
for the purpose of allowing one to follow the delicate lines of the
hills and touch with the eyes, as it were, the smallest inflections of
the landscape. It makes the whole thing wonderfully bright and pure.

Beaucaire used to be the scene of a famous fair, the great fair of the
south of France. It has gone the way of most fairs, even in France,
where these delightful exhibitions hold their own much better than might
be supposed. It is still held in the month of July; but the bourgeoises
of Tarascon send to the Magasin du Louvre for their smart dresses, and
the principal glory of the scene is its long tradition. Even now,
however, it ought to be the prettiest of all fairs, for it takes place
in, a charming wood which lies just beneath the castle, beside the
Rhone. The booths, the barracks, the platforms of the mountebanks, the
bright-coloured crowd, diffused through this midsummer shade and spotted
here and there with the rich Provencal sunshine, must be of the most
pictorial effect. It is highly probable too that it offers a large
collection of pretty faces; for even in the few hours that I spent at
Tarascon I discovered symptoms of the purity of feature for which the
women of the _pays d'Arles_ are renowned. The Arlesian head-dress was
visible in the streets; and this delightful coiffure is so associated
with a charming facial oval, a dark mild eye