though the town is almost in the sea, and the
beef and mutton are poor in the extreme. And
how should it be otherwise? There is literally
no pasturage here, and both sheep and oxen
are kept in stables, cellars, dwelling-houses,
anywhere, in short, out of the way.

The sheep at Mentone are animals such as —
thank goodness — one does not meet with every
day. Indeed, at first you hardly recognise them
as being sheep at all. 'They are shockingly tall;
they have long attenuated legs, large hooked
noses with a great prominent bone sticking out
in their midst, they possess mangy dangling
tails, with a great knob or tassel at the end,
and are altogether so revolting in appearance,
that they deprive you of your appetite for
mutton from the time when you first encounter
a flock of these spectres entering the town.
These sheep are taken out for walks at regular
hours, like a school. They walk for
the most part on the beach close to the sea,
and there is a shepherd in attendance, like
an usher. The mutton, which is the result of
such a state of things as this, is very much
what might be expected. It is tasteless, there
is not much of it, and it is defective in nutritive
qualities. The sheep pass an abnormal
existence, and Nature enters her protest with
much propriety. The oxen are perhaps even
taller in proportion than the sheep. Their
stature is elephantine, they are exceedingly
thin, their eyes are mild and wobegone, they
are of a strange pale colour, and present an
appearance calculated to excite pity even in the
heart of a drover. They are fed to a large
extent, as are also the sheep — in the desperation
of a populace unpossessed of grass — on lemons!

As to the manner of living, it is much the
same at Mentone as at Nice, only a little less
extravagantly dear. There are hotels. There
are pensions or boarding-houses, and there are
villas or suites of apartments. Lodgings, such
as abound at our English watering-places, where
the landlady supplies the service, and does, or
superintends, the cooking, are not to be found.
You must either take a villa or "appartement,"
and set up an establishment of your own with
hired servants, the best plan probably for at all
a large party, or else you must stay at an hotel
or boarding-house. These last, are on a large
scale here, and are much frequented. They
have their advantages. You have no trouble
with servants and housekeeping. You can
leave at a day's notice if you are uncomfortable,
and are not troubled with agreements and inventories,
and all the disputes which are so
common between landlord and tenant abroad.
These immunities you must, however, purchase,
as all immunities are purchased in this world,
at the expense of certain annoyances of another
kind from those experienced by the householder,
but annoyances nevertheless. The table d'hote
dinner, unobjectionable — attractive, even, in
some ways — when you are travelling about and
know nobody at table, becomes not unfrequently
a bore when you meet the same people every day
for four months, and cannot easily make your
election which of them you will know, and
which not. At an hotel you can, of course, dine
in your own room if you choose, and choose to
pay some small amount extra for the privilege.
On the whole, unless your party is a large one,
it is best to stay at one of the hotels. Two
people can live very tolerably at one of these —
a private sitting-room and fires, when you want
them, included — for from six to seven pounds a
week. There is, at any rate, no trouble. As
to the dinners, there is always the bouilli and
excellent poultry to fall back upon if other things
fail; and if things are not as clean as they might
be, why, after all, there is that peck which we
must all of us swallow, sooner or later. You
get it over quickly in the south.

One or two additional peculiarities of Mentone
should be put on record, in order to make
this brief notice of the place in any sort complete.
It should be stated, for instance, that a
list of visitors is published weekly. As a novice,
you fly to it eagerly on the look-out for names
of your friends. After a little experience, however,
of the kind of names printed in this list,
you lose all confidence in it. The amount of
fancy spelling exhibited in these catalogues may
amuse, but it does not inform. Who could
place any confidence, for instance, in such an
announcement as that " Smifwick and family"
had arrived, or that " Porkson and suite" were
at the Villa Marina?

Some of the manners and customs of the
people are objectionable. The native funerals
are conducted in a very grisly fashion, and the
performers and lookers-on seem to revel in their
ghastliness. They take place in the dark.
There is a long procession of exceedingly dirty
persons who belong to a brotherhood of Penitents,
some of whom are white Penitents, and
others black. They are dressed in garments
which cover the head and face, leaving only
great staring eye-holes for the Penitents to see
through. The costume of the black Penitents
is the most horrible, but it does not show the
dirt; that of the white Penitents does show the
dirt. This remark applies equally to the vestments
of the priests and to the surplices of the
enfants de choeur. The procession is a very long
one, with the body borne on a sort of bier in the
midst. Everybody carries a candle of the most
attenuated and flickering kind, and everybody
joins in a discordant, tuneless chant. The effect
of all this carried on in the dark, or, worse still,
in the dusk, is exceedingly disconcerting.

It is a trying thing, again, that when any work
has to be done at Mentone, such as unloading a
ship, for instance, which has newly come into
port, the inhabitants think it necessary to get up
in the middle of the night. Such work as this is
accompanied by a considerable amount of noise,
and by a vast deal of screaming, so that if you
happen to be quartered at all near the port, your
night's rest is liable to be affected not a little.

The extent to which the heaviest loads are
carried by the Mentone women on their heads,
is again apt to affect strangers with dismay.
This is the method by which the most enormous