There is a little corner of this region, lying between Marseilles and Gardanne, which, in spite of the overhead brilliancy, will remind one of the grimness and austerity of Flanders. One comes brusquely upon a lusty and growing coal-mining industry as he descends the southern slope of the Chaîne du Pilon du Roi, and, while all around are umbrella-pines, olive-trees, cypress, and all the characteristics of a southern landscape, there are occasional glimpses of tall, belching chimneys and the sound of the trolleys carrying the coal down to a lower level. Here and there, too, one finds a black mountain of débris, sooty and grimy, against a background of the purest tints of the artist’s palette. The contrast is too horrible for even contemplation, in spite of the importance of the industry to the metropolis of Marseilles and the neighbouring Provençal cities. At Auriol is another “_exploitation houillère_,” which is the French way of describing a coal-mine. To the tourist and lover of the beautiful this is a small thing. He will be more interested in the vineyards and olive orchards and the flower-gardens surrounding the little townlet, which here bloom with a luxuriance at which one can but marvel. The town is a “_ville industrielle_,” if there ever was one, since all of its inhabitants seem to be engaged in, or connected with, the coal-mining industry in one way or another. In spite of this, however, the real old-time flavour has been well preserved in the narrow streets, the sixteenth-century belfry, and the ruins of the old château, which still rise proudly above the little red-roofed houses of Auriol’s twenty-five hundred inhabitants. To-day there is no more fear of a Saracen invasion,--as there was when the château was built,--but there is the ever present danger that some yawning pit’s mouth will be opened beneath its walls, and that the old donjon tower will fall before the invasion of progress, as has been the fate of so many other great historic monuments elsewhere. In the little vineyard country there are to be heard innumerable proverbs all connected with the soil, although, like the proverbs of Spain, they are applicable to any condition of life, as for instance: “Buy your house already finished and your vines planted,” or “Have few vines, but cultivate them well.” There is a crop which is gathered in Provence which is not generally known or recognized by outsiders, that of the caper, which, like the champignon and the truffle, is to the “_cuisine française_” what paprika is to Hungarian cooking.