Well may they skulk!
For these are the Todas and Veddahs, the aboriginals of Monte Carlo, who
peopled its sunny slopes in long-forgotten days of rustic life - once
lords of the soil, now pariahs. What are they doing here? And how comes
it that the eyesore has not yet been detected and uprooted by those
keen-sighted authorities that perform such wonders in making the visitor
feel at home, and hush up with miraculous dexterity everything in the
nature of a public scandal?
In exemplification whereof, let me tell a trivial Riviera tale. There
was an Englishwoman here, one of those indestructible modern ladies who
breakfast off an ether cocktail and half a dozen aspirins and feel all
the better for it, and who, one day, found herself losing rather heavily
at the tables. "Another aspirin is going to turn my luck," she thought,
and therewith swallowed surreptitiously her last tabloid of the panacea.
Not unobserved, however; for straightway two elegant gentlemen - they
might have been Russian princes - pounced upon her and led her to that
underground operating-room where a kindly physician is in perennial
attendance. He brushed aside her explanations.
"It would be a thousand pities for so charming a lady to poison herself.
But since you wish to take that step, why choose the Casino which has a
reputation to keep up? Are there not hotels - - "
"I tell you it was only aspirin."
"Alas, we are sufficiently familiar with that tale! Now, Madam, let us
not lose a moment! It is a question of life and death."
"Aspirin, I tell you - - "
"Kindly submit, or the three of us will be obliged to employ force."
The stomach-pump was produced.
It is the drawback of all sea-side places that half the landscape is
unavailable for purposes of human locomotion, being covered by useless
water. Mentone is more unfortunate than most of them, for its Hinterland
is so cloven and contorted that unless you keep on the main roads, or
content yourself with short but pleasant strolls, you will soon find all
progress barred by some natural obstruction. And one really cannot walk
along the esplanade all day long, though it is worth while, once in a
lifetime, continuing that promenade as far as Cap Martin, if only in
memory of the inspiration which Symonds drew therefrom. Who, he
asks - who can resist the influence of Greek ideas at the Cape St.
Martin? Anybody can, nowadays. The place is encrusted with smug villas
of parvenus (wherein we include the Empress Eugenie), to say nothing of
that preposterous hotel at the very point, which disfigures the country
for leagues around.
On other occasions you may find your way towards evening up to Gorbio
and stay for supper, provided you do not mind being cheated. Or wander
further afield, over Sospel to Breil by the old path - note the lavender:
they make a passable perfume of it - or else to Moulinet (famous for bad
food and a mastodontic breed of mosquitoes) and thence along the
stream - note the bushes of wild box - and over a wooded ridge to the
breezy heights of Peira Cava, there to dream away the daylight under the
pines. These are summer rambles. At present the snow lies deep.
One of my favourite excursions has been up the so-called Berceau, the
cradle-shaped hill which dominates Mentone on the east. I was there
to-day for a solitary luncheon, resting awhile in the timbered saddle
between the peaks. The summit is only about five minutes' walk from this
delectable grove, but its view inland is partially intercepted by a
higher ridge. From here, if you are in the mood, you may descend
eastward over the Italian frontier, crossing the stream which is spanned
lower down by the bridge of St. Louis, and find yourself at Mortola
Superiore (try the wine) and then at Mortola proper (try the wine).
Somewhere in this gulley was killed the last wolf of these regions; so a
grey-haired local Nimrod told me. He had wrought much mischief in his
time. That is to say, he was not killed, but accidentally
drowned - drowned in one of those artificial reservoirs which are
periodically filled and drawn off for irrigating the gardens lower down;
an ignoble death, for a wolf! A goat lay drowned beside him. The event,
he reckoned, must have taken place half a century ago. Since then, the
wolf has never been seen.
This afternoon, however, I preferred to repose in that shady dell, while
a flock of goldcrests were investigating the branches overhead and two
buzzards cruised, in dreamy spirals, about the sunny sky of midday; to
repose; to indulge my genius and review the situation; to profit, in
short, by that sense of aloofness peculiar to such aerial spots, which
tempts the mind to set its house in order. What are we doing, in these
empty regions? Why not wander hence? That cursed traveller's gift of
sitting still; of remaining stationary, no matter where, until one is
actually pushed away! And yet, how enjoyable this land might be, were it
inhabited by any race save one whose thousand little meannesses, public
and private, are calculated to drain away a man's last ounce of
self-respect! Not many are the glad memories I shall carry from Mentone.
I can think of no more than two.
There is my landlady, to begin with, who spies out every detail of my
daily life; of decent birth and richer than Croesus, but inflamed with a
peevish penuriousness which no amount of plain speaking on my part will
correct. Never a day passes that she does not permit herself some
jocular observation anent my spendthrift habits. The following is an
example of our matutinal converse:
"I fear, Monsieur, you omitted to put out the light in a certain place
last night.
