In descending by the steep and well-paved footpath from La Turbie to Monaco, delightful glimpses are obtained from amongst the luxuriant olives and citrons of the latter town on its isolated rock. Most of the towns on the sea-board have a prominent rock for their site, but that on which Monaco is built is the most detached and sea-girt of them all. It is of considerable height, and has perpendicular faces on all sides. On three sides these plunge sheer down into the sea, and on the fourth or northern side of the peninsula the precipitous rock is only joined to the mainland by a narrow strip of low-lying sandy beach. On the inaccessible platform above these precipices stands the ancient town, surrounded with its walls and bastions, and giving shelter and protection to the quiet harbour on its eastern flank. Of all these features we have a commanding prospect as we descend from the heights of the Cornice road, which passes by La Turbie. The history or traditions of Monaco extend further back than those of most of the localities of the Riviera. It derives its name from Hercules, who is supposed to have touched here on his way into Spain, and to have gained a great victory over the native tribes. Hence the name of Portus Herculis, by which the place was known in the early centuries of our era. This was afterwards changed to Portus Herculis Monœci, and finally into Monaco. The rocky fortress subsequently fell into the hands of the Saracens, who are said to have been expelled from it in the tenth century by the same Grimoald or Grimaldi who dislodged the Moors from the Grand Fraxinet, and whose successors became the Princes of Monaco. [Illustration: FIG. 257. HOUSES AT LA TURBIE.] In the eleventh century the place seems to have been abandoned, and in 1162 the Emperor Frederick I. presented it to the Republic of Genoa, who took possession, and rebuilt the fortifications in 1215. During the struggles of the Italian Republics, and the wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, Monaco several times changed hands, but was most frequently in the possession of the Grimaldi, and sometimes became the shelter of bands of pirates who scoured the Mediterranean. The Grimaldi sided with the French in the Italian wars of Charles VIII. and Louis XII., and through the influence of the latter became the governors of the whole of the Western Riviera. During the struggle between France and Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Monaco was alternately under the protection of each. The boundaries of the principality then included Mentone and Roquebrune, but in 1848 Mentone declared itself a free town. Since the annexation of the county of Nice by France, the principality, which is about three miles long by about half a mile wide, is entirely surrounded by the French Canton of “Menton.”