Three days after our excursion to Vaucluse, I went with my sons to the Pont du Gard and Nismes. Our coach stopt, for three hours, at Foix; we took our déjeuné, at which we had delicious grapes and execrable wine: one instance amongst a thousand of the ingenuity of man in spoiling the gifts of Providence, and its agent, Nature. We walked to the Pont du Gard, about a mile from our inn. As it is at an equal distance from Avignon and from Nismes, parties, from each of these towns, make it a point of rendezvous, establish a pic-nic, and pass the day together. When we arrived near the Pont, we saw a large company from Nismes, regaling themselves in a spacious, dry cavern, well situated for their purpose, and affording a most agreeable shade. We passed them to go nearer to the bridge: one of them followed us; his accent announced him to be an Irishman, and his uniform to be an officer in the French service. He conversed with us a few minutes, and promised to call on me at Nismes. At the side of the lower part of the Pont du Gard and forming part of it, is a bridge over the Gardon: this bridge has been widened in modern times, but the ancient wheel-track is still seen on the side nearest to the aqueduct. Above the bridge rise three tiers of arches, each tier diminishing in the size, and increasing in the number, of its arches. Along the top is the canal, through which flowed the water for the supply of Nematia at the distance of seventeen miles. The whole has the appearance of a magnificent screen of arcades, thrown across the narrow and rocky valley through which the Gardon forces its way. Both the sides of this screen are beautiful, but the lower side is most to be admired. The ground falls away before it, and gives it the appearance of being loftier: it is in a quite secluded scene, in which no road or bridge appears. This precious remain of antiquity is sufficiently ruined and touched by time to harmonize well with the landscape, but yet so fresh and entire as to call up no idea of decay or desolation. The aqueducts of Frejus and of Rome are curious, but they possess no beauty in themselves, and derive none from the surrounding scenery. Suppose the Pont du Gard in a plain, it would still be beautiful as a piece of architecture: see it, where it is, enclosed by the sides of a deep valley and bestriding a rapid river, you will admit it to be an object at once grand and picturesque. We arrived at Nismes at three in the afternoon, tired and overpowered by the heat and dust. We gave up three hours to rest and cool ourselves, and at six set down to dinner; we then walked out by the moon-light of a southern clime. We passed several handsome buildings; at length I beheld one which immediately arrested my attention: "that _shall_ be the Maison Quarrée," exclaimed I. Never had I seen, nor have I since seen any thing in architecture so graceful: it seemed by the "uncertain moon-light" rather to be descending from the skies than standing on the earth.