Читать книгу Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo - W. Cope Devereux - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Arrival at Marseilles—Change in climate—The mistral—Some account of Marseilles in the past—Marseillaise hymn—Docks and harbour—Hill-side scenery—Chateau d'If—La Dame de la Garde—Military practice—St. Nazaire—An ancient church—The Exchange—Courtiers of merchandize—Sunday at home and abroad.

Having left Paris at 9.40 a.m., we reached Marseilles at nearly midnight, feeling very tired, and were glad to get to the Terminus Hotel, which is comfortably close to the station. What a charming station it is, with its courtyard and garden, orange trees and flowering myrtles!

Here is indeed a change of climate; one begins to realize at last the fact of being in the "sunny south." Although it is mid-winter, and but a few hours before we were shivering in Paris, here the heat of the sun is as great as an English June. Overhead a sky of such a blue as we seldom see in our island home, and which is only matched by the azure waters of the glorious Mediterranean. The vegetation is almost semi-tropical; palm trees waving their graceful feathery heads; cacti, aloes, and other strange-looking plants meeting the eye at every turn. Orange and olive trees abundant everywhere, the former loading the air with the luscious fragrance of its blossoms.

But unfortunately, on the Sunday morning following our arrival, there was a disagreeable dry parching wind blowing from the north-west called mistral; the Italians call it maestro, meaning "the masterful." It is very prevalent along the south coast of Europe at certain times of the year, drying up the soil, and doing much damage to the fruit trees. The dust, like sand in the desert, is almost blinding; on one side you have a cold cutting wind, on the other perhaps scorching heat—altogether very far from pleasant. This wind sometimes raises a tumult in the Mediterranean Sea, which is much dreaded by the French and Italian sailors.

Marseilles, the third city of la belle France, enclosed by a succession of rocky hills, and magnificently situated on the sea, is almost the greatest port of the Mediterranean. It is a very ancient town, having been founded in 600 B.C. by the Phoceans, under the name of Massilia. When ultimately conquered by the Romans, it was for its refinement and culture treated with considerable respect, and allowed to retain its original aristocratic constitution. After the fall of Rome, it fell into the hands of the Franks and other wild northern tribes; and was subsequently destroyed by the Saracens, but was restored in the tenth century. In 1481 it was united to France, to which it has ever since been subject. In 1720 it was ravaged by the plague, which was memorable not only on account of its wide-wasting devastation, but also for the heroism of Xavier de Belzunce, Bishop of Marseilles, whose zeal and charity for the poor sufferers commands our respect and admiration. Pope, in his "Essay on Man," says—