St. Tropez possesses its wonderful Golfe, its gardens, and its “_Petite Afrique_,” and is more and more visited by Riviera tourists; but it still awaits that great tide of traffic which has made more famous and rich many other less favoured Mediterranean coast towns. There is a reason for all this; principally that it faces the mistral’s icy breath, for the coast-line has here taken a bend and the Golfe runs inland in a westerly direction, which makes the town face directly north. As an offset to this the inhabitant points out to you that you may regard the sea without being troubled by the sun shining in your eyes. At the head of the Golfe is La Foux. It sits in the midst of a sandy plain, surrounded by a border of superb umbrella-pines. The chief attraction for the visitor is the remarkable specimens of the little horses of Les Maures to be seen here. They are known as “_les Eygues_,” and have preserved all the purity of the type first brought from the Orient by the Saracens. Six centuries and more have not wiped out the Arab strain to anything like the extent that might be supposed, and accordingly the little horses of Les Maures are vastly more docile and agreeable playmates than the “_petits chevaux_” of the Casinos of Monte Carlo and Nice. The umbrella or parasol pines of La Foux are famous throughout the whole Riviera. Elsewhere there are isolated examples, but here there are groves of them, all branching with a wide-spreading luxuriance which is quite at its best. It might seem as though they were planted by the hand of man, so decorative are they to the landscape from any point of view, but most of them are of an age that precludes all thought of this. The giant of its race is directly on the bank of the Golfe, near the Château de Berteaux. Its branches extend out in every direction, like the ribs of a parasol or umbrella, and its trunk is thirty feet or more in circumference, while the shadow from its overhanging branches makes a great round oasis of shade in the brilliant Mediterranean sunlight. The tree and its position cannot be mistaken by travellers by road or rail, for the railway itself has a “_halte_” almost beneath its branches. All around these parasol-pines push themselves up through the sand which has been carried down into the headwaters of the Golfe by the Mole and the Giscle, torrents which at certain seasons bring down a vast alluvial deposit from the upper valleys of Les Maures. It is not far from La Foux to the plain of Cogolin. A league or more behind one of the first buttresses of Les Maures, one enters the rich alluvial prairie of Cogolin. Sheep, goats, and cows, and the Arabian-blooded horses, which are so much admired at the _courses_ at La Foux, find welcome pasture here in these verdant fields.