to the sandy shore of the sea. Between it and the water was a long
avenue of plane trees, behind the mountain of Notre Dame de la Garde,
and almost touching the little lily-bordered stream which surrounded
the beautiful park and villa of the Borelli. We heard at our windows
every motion of the sea as it tossed on its couch and pillow of sand,
and when the garden gate was opened, the sea foam reached almost
the wall of the house, and seemed to withdraw so gradually as if to
deceive and laugh at any hand which would seek to bedew itself with
its moisture. I thus passed hour after hour seated on a huge stone
beneath a fig-tree, looking on that mingling of light and motion which
we call _the Sea_. From time to time the sail of a fisherman's boat,
or the smoke which hung like drapery above the pipe of a steamer,
rose above the chord of the arc which formed the gulf, and afforded a
relief to the monotony of the horizon.

"On working days, this vista was almost a desert, but when Sunday
came, it was made lively by groups of sailors, rich and _idle_
citizens, and whole families of mercantile men who came to bathe or
rest themselves, there enjoying the luxury both of the shade and
of the sea. The mingled murmur of the voices both of men, women and
children, enchanted with sunlight and with repose, united with the
babbling of the waves which seemed to fall on the shore light and
elastic as sheets of steel. Many boats either by sails or oars, were
wafted around the extremity of Cape Notre-Dame de la Garde, with its
heavy grove of shadowy pines; as they crossed the gulf, they touched
the very margin of the water, to be able to reach the opposite bank.
Even the palpitations of the sail were audible, the cadence of
the oars, conversation, song, the laughter of the merry flower and
orange-girls of Marseilles, those true daughters of the gulf, so
passionately fond of the wave, and devoted to the luxury of wild