Rambles on the Riviera

by M. F. Mansfield

Offshore the islands of the bay contain much of historic interest, including the Château d’If with all its array of fact and romance, the Iles Pomegue and Rattonneau, and the Ile de Riou. The latter lies just eastward of the Planier and is so small as to be hardly recognizable on the map, and yet prolific in the remains of a civilization of another day. It was only within the present year (1905) that an engraved silex was discovered buried in its sandy soil. This stone was identical with those inscribed stones found in Egypt from time to time, and dating from a period long previous to any recorded history of that country.

This sermon in stone was presented to the French Academy of Inscriptions, and by them thought to prove that the Egyptians, even as far back as prehistoric times, had already learned the art of navigation by small craft (for they were then ignorant of working in metal), and in some considerable body had settled here in the neighbourhood of Marseilles long before the Phoceans. This is all conjecture of course, as the stone may have been a fragment of a larger morsel which formed the anchor of some fishing-boat, or a piece of ballast taken aboard off the Egyptian coast, which ultimately found a resting-place here on Riou. It may be, even, that some “collector” of ages ago brought the stone here as a curio; in short, it may have been transported by any one of a hundred ways and at almost any time. At any rate, it is all guesswork, regardless of the sensation which the finding of it made among archæologists; but it proves that all is not yet known of ancient history.

It is a remarkable view, looking landwards, that one gets from the height of the donjon of the Château d’If. Back of the city, which itself is but a short three miles distant, is a wonderful framing of mountainous rocks and gray hills set about with olive and fig trees, while in the immediate foreground is a forest of masts and belching, smoky chimneys which give a distance and transparency to the view which is almost too picturesque to be true. It is no dream, however, and there is nothing of illusion about it, and soon a tiny steamboat will have brought one back to shore and all the excitable diversions of the Cannebière. One makes his way to shore around and behind innumerable bales, boxes, and baskets, coils of rope, charrettes and camions, and treads gingerly over sleeping roustabouts and sailors.

The docks and quays of Marseilles will have a surprise for those familiar only with the ports of La Manche and the western ocean. High or low water there makes a considerable economic and picturesque difference, but in the Mediterranean there is always a regular depth of water; its level is always practically the same, and fishing-boats and great Eastern liners alike come and go without thought of tides or dock-gates.

The commerce of Marseilles is, as might be expected, highly varied, and the flags of all the great and small commercial nations are at one time or another within its port, whose importations—not counting the orange boats—greatly exceed the exports. Nearly a third of the imports are made up of cereals, Marseilles being by far the greatest port of entry in France for this class of product. Russia, Turkey, Algeria, the Indies, and America send their wheat, Piedmont and Asia their rice, Algeria, Tunis, and Russia their barley, while beans are sent in great quantities from the ports of the Black Sea.

Marseilles is the centre, the most important in all France, for the production of all manner of oils, vegetable, mineral, and animal. Petroleum, cotton-seed, the olive, and many kindred fruits and berries all go to make possible a vast industry which is famous throughout the world.

Sugar-refining, too, is of great proportions here, and the trade of importing and exporting the raw and refined sugars amounts to over one hundred millions of kilos per year. Of the raw sugar imported, more than two-thirds comes from the French colonies, so that, with the enormous production of beet-sugar as well, France alone, of all European nations, has the sugar question solved.

Coffee forms a considerable part of the trade of Marseilles, sixteen to twenty thousand tons being handled in one year. This of course demonstrates that the French are great coffee-drinkers, though the palm goes to Holland for the greatest consumption per capita. Cocoa and coffee come to France in large quantities from Brazil, and pepper from Indo-China.

It is an interesting fact to record that the receipts of cotton in the port of Marseilles are steadily on the decrease, by far the largest bulk now being delivered at Le Havre and Rouen by reason of their proximity to the great cotton-manufacturing centres in Normandy, while the mills in the east of France choose to bring their supplies through the gateway of Antwerp. The traffic at Marseilles has fallen, accordingly, from 125,000 bales in 1876 to less than 50,000 at the present day. On the other hand, the importation of the cocoons of the silkworm finds its natural gateway at Marseilles, this being the most direct route from China, Japan, Turkey, Greece, and Austria to the factories of Lyons.

Marseilles is the centre of the soap industry of the world, situated as it is in the very heart of the region of the olive, which makes not only the olive-oil of commerce but the best of common soaps as well, including the famous Castile soap, which has deserted Castile for Marseilles. One hundred and twenty-one million kilos of soap are made here every year, of which a fifth part, at least, is exported to all corners of the globe, the bulk being taken by the French colonies.