Partisans plead loudly for Cairo, Biskra, Capri, Palermo, and Majorca,--and some for Madeira or Grand Canary,--but the comparatively restricted bit of Mediterranean coast-line known as the three Rivieras will undoubtedly hold its own with the mass of winter birds of passage. Just why this is so is obvious for three reasons. The first because it is accessible, the second, because it is moderately cheap to get to, and to live in after one gets there, unless one really does “plunge,” which most Anglo-Saxons do not; and the third,--whisper it gently,--because the English or American tourist, be he semi-invalid or be he not, hopes to find his fellows there, and as many as possible of his pet institutions, such as afternoon tea and cocktails, marmalade and broiled live lobsters, to say nothing of his own language, spoken in the lisping accents of a Swiss or German waiter. It is not necessary to struggle with French on the Riviera, and the estimable lady of the following anecdote might have called for help in English and got it just as quickly: At the door of a Riviera express, stopping at the Gare de Cannes, an elderly English lady tripped over the rug and was prostrated her full-length on the platform. Gallant Frenchmen rushed to her aid from all quarters: “Vous n’avez pas de mal, madame?” “Merci, non, seulement une petite sac de voyage,” she replied, as she limpingly and lispingly made her way through the crowd. This ought to dispose of the language question once for all. If you are on the Riviera, speak English, or, likely enough, you will fall into similar errors unless you know that vague thing, idiomatic French, which is only acquired by familiarity. The French Riviera has from forty to fifty rainy days a year, which is certainly not much; and it is conceivable that a stay of two months at Nice, Cannes, or Menton will not bring a rainy day to mar the memory of this sunny land. On the other hand, the Levantine Riviera may have ten days of rain in a month, and the next month another ten days may follow--or it may not. It is well, however, not to overlook the fact that Pisa, not so very far inland from the easternmost end of the Italian Riviera, is called the “Pozzo dell Italia”--the well of Italy. There was a time when Cannes, Nice, and Menton were favoured as invalid resorts, and as mere pleasant places to while away a dull period of repose, but to-day all this is changed, and even the semi-invalid is looked at askance by the managers of hotels and the purveyors of amusements. The social attractions have quite swamped the health-giving inducements of the chief towns of the Riviera, and the automobile has taken the place of the Bath chair; indeed, it is the world, the flesh, and the devil which have come into the province where ministering angels formerly held sway.