[Illustration: PINES NEAR HYÈRES] Dr. Schweinfurt, in his _Travels in the Heart of Africa_, describes the loathsome parasitic growths in the intestines of the cattle due to the absence of salt. It is a necessity for man and beast. Our storms carry some and deposit it on the grass; but we live in an island. What intestinal troubles must those men have endured who were deprived of it! Well, the lagoon of Giens furnished a large amount, and there were other salt-pans—as there are still, on the eastern side of Hyères. These made the town to flourish. Salt was the main production and source of wealth. Near the Château de Carqueyranne, in the lap of the Bay of Giens, are the ruins of a Greco-Roman town, Pomponiana. It stretched from the beach up the hill crowned by the remnants of the Convent of S. Pierre a’ Al-Manar. The old town was explored in 1843 by Prince Frederick, afterwards King Frederick VII. of Denmark. He laid bare the Acropolis, baths, cisterns, store-houses, and a mole for the protection of the galleys that entered the harbour. Most of what was then laid open has since been covered over, but the whole ground is so strewn with pottery that the peasants have to clear their fields of it as an incumbrance. The ruined convent above was occupied by Sisters of the Benedictine Order. It was fortified, and exercised feudal authority over the land around. In the event of danger, the convent bell summoned the tenants to its aid. But one winter night a frolicsome nun rang the bell for the fun of the thing, and when the vassals arrived, laughed at them for allowing themselves to be fooled from their beds. This prank cost the convent dear, for shortly after a Moorish corsair put into the bay, and the convent was attacked. The alarm bell was sounded in vain; no one answered the summons, and before morning the house was sacked, and the nuns had been carried away, to be sold as slaves in Africa. A curious condition of affairs existed at Hyères during the troubles of the League. The Count de Retz, Grand Marshal of France, was Governor of Provence, and the Count de Carces was its Grand Sénéchal. The jealousy of these two men gave birth to a deplorable rivalry, which placed each at the head of a different party. De Retz supported the Huguenots, and the Catholic party took Carces as its headpiece; and the factions called themselves, or were called, Razats and Carcists long after the men whose names they had adopted had disappeared from the scene.