Nice to Vintimille
The Var is not a very formidable-looking river at first glance, and has not the tempestuous flood of the Rhône and the Durance in actual volume, but the excess of water which it carries to the sea, at certain seasons, is proportionately very much greater. The Rhône increases its bulk but thirty times, the Durance a hundred times, but the Var throws into the Mediterranean, in time of flood, a hundred and forty times its usual flow, a fact which ranks it as one of the most fickle waterways of Europe, if not of the world.
So important a place as Nice of course has a legendary account of the origin of its name. It is claimed by some historians, and disputed by others, that it was a colony founded by the Massaliotes three hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era, and, in consequence of a signal success against the Ligurians, the place received the glorious name of Victory,—Nicæa, a name which with but little alteration has come down to to-day.
Long before the French came into possession of the Comté de Nice and its capital there was a friendship, and a sort of union, between the two peoples. When the little state became a part of modern France, it became simply more French than it was before. This was the only change to be remarked until the era of its great prosperity as a winter resort, for the world’s idlers made it what it is,—the best-known winter station in all the world.
Nice used to be called “Nizza la Bella,” but, since the arrival of the French (1860), and the English, and the Americans, and the Germans (the Russian grand dukes, be it recalled, have made Cannes their own), “Nizza la Bella” has become “Nice la Belle,” for it is beautiful in spite of its drawbacks for the lover of sylvan and unartificial charms.
There is not in Africa a spot more African in appearance than the railway station at Nice; such at all events is the impression that it makes upon one when he views the enormous palms that surround the station.
Up to this time the traveller from the north, by rail, has got some glimpses of the southland from the windows of his railway car; has seen some palms, perhaps, and other specimens of a subtropical flora; but, since the railway does not make its way through the palm avenues of Hyères or Cannes, the sudden apparition of Nice is as of something new.