7. The Pont-du-Gard (about fourteen miles north from Nîmes, near the town of Ramoulins) is one of the most imposing Roman works in the world. It is part of the aqueduct, twenty-five miles long, which brought water to Nîmes, and is still practically perfect to-day. It was built in 19 B.C., in the time of Agrippa; some repairs were made in 1702, and again in 1855. From the steep sides of the river one can easily reach the top of the aqueduct, and walk the whole length of the waterway or on the slabs of stone which cover it in for a considerable distance. Looking down over the orange-coloured stone of the superimposed arches, one sees the myrtle-green waters of the River Gardon rushing between grey rocks 156 feet below.
Remains of the reservoir to which the water was led still survive in Nîmes.
THE ROAD TO ARLES
From Nîmes the road is practically level all the way to Arles, whether one goes by St. Gilles or direct through Bellegarde.
ST. GILLES
The St. Gilles route is only seven kilometres longer, and the slightly increased distance will not be regretted when the remarkable church has been seen. It was planned on a vast scale, and, if carried out, would have been one of the finest Byzantine churches in France; but for some reasons, perhaps connected with the decline of St. Gilles as a port owing to the constant silting up of the Rhone delta, or possibly owing to war or pestilence or a weakening of religious enthusiasm, the great structure was never finished, and a smaller church in the Gothic style is all that came to completion. It embodies, however, the splendid western façade of the earlier scheme, and the details of its columns, its mutilated statues and carved enrichments, are finer even than those of St. Trophime at Arles. The abbot of the monastery, which had been founded by St. Egidius in the sixth century, administered justice seated between the grotesque lions of the portal, and the charters often began with, ‘Sedente inter leones.’ The crypt, the tomb of St. Gilles and his altar, the twelfth-century sacristy, and the Vis de S. Gilles, a remarkably fine newel staircase, should all be seen. There is also a restored Romanesque house in the town of St. Gilles. [J]
It should be remembered that historical and geological evidence prove that the flat marshy country called the Carmargue was in Roman times a beautiful district of rivers, tree-grown islands, and extensive seaways. No doubt there were marshes at the mouth of the Rhone then, but that mouth was a long way north of the present outlet, and the area must have been comparatively small before some of the large inlets were silted up and became fever-breeding swamps. Everywhere one goes in the Carmargue, from Arles to Aigues-Mortes, St. Gilles or Les Saintes-Maries, the same tale is told of prosperous ports becoming land-locked and fever-stricken. To-day the flat treeless land is cultivated where the swamps have dried up, but it is a sad desert even under a cloudless sky. In the summer there is dust everywhere, and in the winter the ground has a tendency to become a morass.
ARLES
is entered from the west side through the old suburb of Trinquetaille, the business quarter of the Roman city, and the Rhone is then crossed on a semi-suspension bridge of lattice girders, on which, when the mistral blows, it is scarcely possible to keep one’s feet. It is on the east side of the river—the official and patrician quarter—that the thrilling relics of Greek and Roman Arles survive.
In the importance of these ancient monuments Arles is a close rival to Nîmes, and in some ways Arles is pre-eminent.