I had some thoughts of making an apology for calling my book a narrative of four years residence in France, when four months of that time were to be passed out of that kingdom; but any one who will give himself the trouble of coming to the banks of the Var, will see that all explanation on this head is superfluous: or, if he does not like so much personal fatigue, let him place himself there in imagination: he will see the stony bed of a torrent half a mile broad, not a twentieth part of which bed is covered with water. At two thirds of the distance from the right bank he will see a stream large enough to be called a river, of no great depth, but of great force and violence. Immediately beyond the left bank he will see a fertile country resembling that he has just past, and uniting with it but for the expanse of white stones. Let him then cast his eyes on the awful, frowning barrier of Italy,--those Alps with their rugged sides and lofty snow-covered tops, a barrier to all appearance impervious to any thing but the flight of an eagle; he will allow that it would be as easy to bring the Alps themselves to the left bank of the Var, which, though they are but six miles off, would be an enterprise of toil, as to imagine that he had left France on entering the county of Nice. We had time given to us to enjoy this magnificent spectacle, and to feast our minds with the expectation of what we should see beyond those "perpetual hills," those "everlasting mountains," which we already wished to pass. We waited for the douanier, the custom-house officer, a civil and intelligent man, who had nothing to do with us but to countersign our passport: the more we took out of France, the better for its manufacturers. It would not be difficult to prove,--Adam Smith has proved it,--that it would be as wise to permit unrestricted, I do not say untaxed, importation as exportation, nor to show that the prohibition of it is an act of injustice towards the community at large; but governments are balloted about by contending interests, and compelled to interfere in things out of their province, alien from those objects for which they are constituted. While the French were in possession of the Department des Alpes Maritimes, they began a stone bridge over the Var. The wall from which the first arch was to spring is seen on their bank, and bears testimony to their zeal for improvement. We went on the wooden bridge, and passed a pallisade guarded by French sentinels.