We were nearing Eze around the green edge of a mountain--its top--and there I saw it, my first hill-city. Not unlike La Turbie, it was old and gray, but with that spectacular dignity which anything set on a hill possesses. Barfleur carefully explained to me that in the olden days--some few hundred years before--the inhabitants of the seashore and plain were compelled to take to the hills to protect themselves against marauding pirates--that the hill-city dates from the earliest times in Italy and was common to the Latins before the dawn of history. Eze towered up, completely surrounded by a wall, the only road leading to it being the one on which we were traveling. By a bridge we crossed a narrow gully, dividing one mountain height from another, and then, discharging our fat cabman and his bony horse, mounted to the open gate or arched door, now quite unguarded. Some of the village children were selling the common flowers of the field, and a native in tight dusty trousers and soft hat was entering. I think I devoured the strangeness and glamour of Eze as one very hungry would eat a meal. I examined all the peculiarities of this outer entrance and noted how like a hole in a snail shell it was, giving not directly into the old city, or village, but into a path that skirted the outer wall. Above were holes through which defenders could shower arrows and boiling oil upon those who might have penetrated this outer defense. There was a blind passage at one point, luring the invaders into a devilish pocket where their fate was sealed. If one gained this first gate and the second, which gave into a narrow, winding, upward-climbing street, the fighting would be hand to hand and always upward against men on a higher level. The citadel, as we found at last, was now a red and gray brick ruin, only some arches and angles of which were left, crowning the summit, from which the streets descended like the whorls of a snail-shell. Gray cobble-stone, and long narrow bricks set on their sides, form the streets or passages. The squat houses of brick and gray stone followed closely the convolutions of the street. It was a silent, sleepy little city. Few people were about. The small shops were guarded by old women or children. The men were sheep-herders, muleteers, gardeners and farmers on the slopes below. Anything that is sold in this high-placed city is brought up to it on the backs of slow-climbing, recalcitrant donkeys. One blessed thing, the sewage problem of these older Italian-French cities, because of their situation on the hillside, solves itself--otherwise, God help the cities. Barfleur insisted that there was leprosy hereabouts--a depressing thought.