Roquevaire’s next-door neighbour is Aubagne, in the valley of the Huveaune. It might well be called a suburb and dependency of the metropolis of Marseilles, except that the little town claims an antiquity equal to that of Marseilles itself. To-day, lying in the fertile plain of Baudinard, and surrounded by innumerable plantations devoted to the growing of fruits, principally strawberries, it is noted chiefly as the place from which Marseilles draws its principal supplies of early garden fruits or _primeurs_, which is a French word with which foreigners should familiarize themselves. It is believed that Aubagne was the Albania of mediæval times, and it was so named on the chart of Provence made in the tenth century by Boson, Comte de Provence, by whom it was united with the Vicomté de Marseilles, and its civil and religious rights vested in the monks of the Abbey of St. Victor. There is nothing of dulness here, and, while in no sense a manufacturing town, such as Gardanne, there are innumerable petty industries which have grown up from the agricultural occupations, such as the putting up of _confitures_, the distilling of those sweet, syrupy concoctions which the French of all parts, be they on the boulevards at Paris or at sea on board a Messageries liner, drink continually, no variety more than the _grenadine_, which is produced at its best here. The little river Huveaune flows southwest till it drops down to the sea through the hills forming the immediate background of Marseilles, and gives to the aspect of nature what artists absolutely refuse to call by any other name than _character_. On the horizon one sees a great cross, planted on the summit of a height known as the Gardelaban. Beneath it is a great hole burrowed into the rock and anciently supposed to be of some religious significance, just what no one seems to know or care. A few generations ago gold was supposed to be buried there; but, as no gold was found, this was one of the superstitions which soon died out. The new Eldorado was not to be found there, though a self-styled expert once gave the opinion (in print, and solicited subscriptions on the strength of the claim) that the ground was full of “_des amas de fer hydraté, contenant des pyrites au reflet doré_.” The claim proved false and so it was dropped. Running northeasterly from Marseilles, at some little distance from the city, but near enough to be in full view from the height of Notre Dame de la Garde, is the mass of the Saint Pilon range, with Sainte Baume, a little to the southward, rising skyward 999 metres, which height makes it quite a mountain when it is considered that it rises abruptly almost from the sea-level.