Four Years in France: or, Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that Period; Preceded by some Account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic FaithBeste, Henry Digby
Religion
Four Years in France: or, Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that Period; Preceded by some Account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic Faith
Beste, Henry Digby
France -- Description and travel
We were now on the road to Toulon. I have travelled over the Highlands
of Scotland, over the hills of Derbyshire, and those which separate
Lancashire from the counties to the eastward of it; countries well worth
visiting by those who seek for the wonders of nature further from home;
but in this day's journey, all that I had before seen in the same kind
was exceeded. The picturesque rises into the romantic, and the romantic
into the savage. We passed through gullies, where the torrent-river that
ran by the side of the road seemed not merely to have formed, but to
have scooped out for itself a passage under rocks which, at a great
height above, overhung the road and the torrent, and threatened to fall
in and fill up the narrow space below. Day-light descended to us through
an irregular ragged fissure, which seemed as if broken through expressly
for the purpose, so nearly did this defile resemble an under-ground
passage. At last we emerged from clefts and chasms into an open space,
and had a view of Toulon before us. As we entered the town, we saw, in
some sheltered spots, orange-trees, in full bearing, in the open earth:
in the open air they are seen in Paris; planted in boxes, they bear
fruit at Avignon; here they are children of the soil.
We were pleased with Toulon, and loitered here two whole days. The town,
though a fortress, is a pretty and a cheerful-looking place. The
streams of water conducted through the streets, give it an air of
healthiness and cleanliness. In the evening we braved on the promenade
the cannon of the fortifications, and, our love of science being equal
to our courage, visited the botanical garden, very wisely provided here
by the government: it is much smaller than that of Paris; but, by the
help of the climate, surpasses it in the possession of rare exotics.
Some traveller (I think Eustace,) says that palm-trees are not to be
found in the open air any where to the north of Rome, and that at Rome
there are but two, remarkably placed on a hill visible to the whole
city: these two I saw not, and I saw palm-trees in the botanical garden
at Toulon.
The next day was Sunday: it was passed in viewing the town and its
immediate environs, and in pour-parleys about a visit to the arsenal: a
ticket for this purpose was offered on condition that we should pass
ourselves for French. Besides the disagreeable consequences that might
justly have followed the discovery of such an imposition, the trick
itself appeared to me dishonourable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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