Rambles on the Riviera

by M. F. Mansfield

A quarry was to be made anywhere that one chose to dig in the hillside, and, though no traces of the exact location whence the material was dug is to be seen to-day, there is no question but that it was a home product. The marbles and statues alone were brought from afar.

Roquebrune, onward toward Menton, is more individual in the character of its people and their manners and customs than any of the other towns and villages near the great Riviera pleasure resorts. The ground is cultivated in small plots, and olive and fruit trees abound, and occasionally, sheltered on a little terrace, is a tiny vineyard struggling to make its way. The vine, curiously enough, does not prosper well here, at least not the extent that it formerly did, and accordingly it is a good deal of a struggle to get a satisfactory crop, no matter how favourable the season.

Here in the vicinity of Roquebrune one sees the little donkeys so well known throughout the mountainous parts of Italy and France. They are sure-footed little beasts, like their brother burros of the Sierras and the Rockies, and appear not to differ from them in the least, unless they are smaller. All through the region to the northward of the coast they file in cavalcades, bearing their burdens in panniers and saddle-bags in quite century-old fashion, and as if automobiles and railways had never been heard of. An automobile would have a hard time of it on some of the by-roads accessible only to these tiny beasts of burden, which often weigh but eighty kilos and cost little or nothing for provender.

These little Savoian donkeys are gentle and good-natured, but obstinate when it comes to pushing on at a gait which the driver may wish, but which has not yet dawned upon the donkey as being desirable. This, apparently, is the national trait of the whole donkey kingdom, so there is nothing remarkable about it. He will go,—when you twist his tail,—and if you twist it to the right he will turn to the left, and vice versa. A sailor would be quite at home with a donkey of Roquebrune.

Roquebrune is tranquil enough to-day, though there have been times when the rocky giant on whose bosom it sleeps awakened with a roar which shook the very foundations of its houses. These earthquakes have not been frequent; the last was in 1887; but the memory of it is enough to give fear to the timid whenever a summer thunder-storm breaks forth.

Roquebrune occupies a height very much inferior to that on which sits La Turbie; but the panorama from the town is in no way less marvellous, nor is it greatly different, hence it is not necessary to recount its beauties here. There is considerably more vegetation in the neighbourhood, and there are many lemon-trees, with rich ripening fruit, instead of the dwarfed unripe oranges which one finds at many other places along the Riviera.

The lemon-tree is the real thermometer of the region, and the inhabitant has no need of the appliances of Réaumur or Fahrenheit, or the more facile Centigrade, for when three degrees of frost strikes in through the skin of the lemon, it withers up and dies. The orange, curiously enough, resists this first attack of cold.

Roquebrune, like La Turbie, abounds in vaulted streets and terraced hillsides, allowing one to step from the roofs of one line of houses to the dooryards of another in most quaint and picturesque fashion. The people of Roquebrune are a prosperous and contented lot, and have the reputation of being “as laborious as the bee and as economical as the ant.”