The Hotel, With All The Blinds And Shutters Closed To Keep The
Light And Heat Out, Was Comfortable And Airy
Next morning, and the
town was very clean; but so hot, and so intensely light, that when
I walked out
At noon it was like coming suddenly from the darkened
room into crisp blue fire. The air was so very clear, that distant
hills and rocky points appeared within an hour's walk; while the
town immediately at hand--with a kind of blue wind between me and
it--seemed to be white hot, and to be throwing off a fiery air from
the surface.
We left this town towards evening, and took the road to Marseilles.
A dusty road it was; the houses shut up close; and the vines
powdered white. At nearly all the cottage doors, women were
peeling and slicing onions into earthen bowls for supper. So they
had been doing last night all the way from Avignon. We passed one
or two shady dark chateaux, surrounded by trees, and embellished
with cool basins of water: which were the more refreshing to
behold, from the great scarcity of such residences on the road we
had travelled. As we approached Marseilles, the road began to be
covered with holiday people. Outside the public-houses were
parties smoking, drinking, playing draughts and cards, and (once)
dancing. But dust, dust, dust, everywhere. We went on, through a
long, straggling, dirty suburb, thronged with people; having on our
left a dreary slope of land, on which the country-houses of the
Marseilles merchants, always staring white, are jumbled and heaped
without the slightest order:
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