This sermon in stone was presented to the French Academy of Inscriptions, and by them thought to prove that the Egyptians, even as far back as prehistoric times, had already learned the art of navigation by small craft (for they were then ignorant of working in metal), and in some considerable body had settled here in the neighbourhood of Marseilles long before the Phoceans. This is all conjecture of course, as the stone may have been a fragment of a larger morsel which formed the anchor of some fishing-boat, or a piece of ballast taken aboard off the Egyptian coast, which ultimately found a resting-place here on Riou. It may be, even, that some “collector” of ages ago brought the stone here as a curio; in short, it may have been transported by any one of a hundred ways and at almost any time. At any rate, it is all guesswork, regardless of the sensation which the finding of it made among archæologists; but it proves that all is not yet known of ancient history. It is a remarkable view, looking landwards, that one gets from the height of the donjon of the Château d’If. Back of the city, which itself is but a short three miles distant, is a wonderful framing of mountainous rocks and gray hills set about with olive and fig trees, while in the immediate foreground is a forest of masts and belching, smoky chimneys which give a distance and transparency to the view which is almost too picturesque to be true. It is no dream, however, and there is nothing of illusion about it, and soon a tiny steamboat will have brought one back to shore and all the excitable diversions of the Cannebière. One makes his way to shore around and behind innumerable bales, boxes, and baskets, coils of rope, _charrettes_ and _camions_, and treads gingerly over sleeping roustabouts and sailors. The docks and quays of Marseilles will have a surprise for those familiar only with the ports of La Manche and the western ocean. High or low water there makes a considerable economic and picturesque difference, but in the Mediterranean there is always a regular depth of water; its level is always practically the same, and fishing-boats and great Eastern liners alike come and go without thought of tides or dock-gates. The commerce of Marseilles is, as might be expected, highly varied, and the flags of all the great and small commercial nations are at one time or another within its port, whose importations--not counting the orange boats--greatly exceed the exports. Nearly a third of the imports are made up of cereals, Marseilles being by far the greatest port of entry in France for this class of product. Russia, Turkey, Algeria, the Indies, and America send their wheat, Piedmont and Asia their rice, Algeria, Tunis, and Russia their barley, while beans are sent in great quantities from the ports of the Black Sea.