II. FOLLOWS THE SHORE OF THE SEA.
The little stream had a peaceful look. Many washer-women were busily at work along its banks, many clothes lines were filled with drying garments, and sheets were bleaching on the stones. A number of red objects in the distance proved, as we drew nearer, to be a company of red-trousered French soldiers washing their linen in the stream. Another company in red trousers and white shirts marched by us, carrying their bundles to the river. After leaving the river we passed an immense public wash trough where forty women were washing clothes and apparently having a social time. There was room at the trough for double that number.
The macadamized road winding up the mountain side in easy grades, supported at many places by walls of substantial masonry, was in perfect condition. Occasionally as our team moved slowly upward we heard the "honk, honk" of a horn and a racing automobile making a time record flew swiftly by and was soon out of sight, or rushing down grade around sharp curves at tremendous speed toward us caused some hearts in our coach to palpitate in anxiety until the racer had safely passed.
"At this spot a Russian Count and his friend were killed on the morning of the races," said our driver as we rounded one particularly sharp curve. "The count, expecting to be a winner in the race, was speeding his motor-car at the rate of fifty miles an hour, when it swerved against the rocks and he and his friend were hurled over the wall and crushed to death."
WE LUNCHED IN MENTONE.
As we ascended the mountains we saw on the slopes below us orchards of gray olive trees, in the valleys orchards of dark green orange and lemon trees filled with yellow fruit, clean looking white or yellow or pink houses with red tile roofs dotting the landscape, and the white stone Hotel Regina, beautiful for situation, standing prominent on a summit. The rocks in the channel of the Paillon appeared to be a bed of pebbles. In the distance, to the south, could be seen the buildings of the city we had left and the glistening waters of the sea beyond; on the north, wooded hills and terraced mountains; and far away, the snow covered summits of the Alps. While we gazed at one of these scenes of beauty, the soft mellow tones of a convent bell came pleasingly to our ears.
"Why is it the bells ring so sweetly here?" inquired one of the occupants of our coach. "It must have been melodious notes like these that pleased the ear of the poet Moore."