The sea must have encroached since those days, for the waters wash over the scanty ruins, and I have picked my way along the foundations with little salt lakes lying between. Far to the left lie _Les Salines_, where they evaporize the sea‐water in shallow square spaces, and thus obtain a coarse gray salt. They say that sometimes flamingoes may be shot among this marshy land; but I could never obtain one, though I know it abounds in wild fowl of every description. The deep orange‐colored boughs of the large willow‐trees give a peculiar charm to the distant landscape in the winter when the leaves are off; and close upon the edge of the shore is a fine wood of umbrella pines, whereof three giants, standing apart from the rest, had been great favorites of ours. We had looked out eagerly on our arrival for our three pines. Alas! one was missing. Years ago these three solitary, magnificent trees had had a strange fascination for me. I wanted to find my way to where they stood; but it was beyond the marshes, and near the _salines_. There was no direct road, and no one could tell me how to get there; not even the young French naval officers, who used to come often and spend the evening with us, and who must have landed not so very far from where they stood. The craving to see my three pines face to face grew, however, too strong to be resisted; and so one day I set off on donkey‐back, taking Ann with me, and resolved that I would not return till I had accomplished my end. Great were our difficulties. We had to thread our way along narrow raised paths through the marshes, just wide enough for our donkeys to tread; and as, of course, we dared not leave these paths, which did not wind, but turned at right angles, we as often seemed to be going away from the pines as the reverse. At one moment we were pursued by a couple of savage dogs, who tore after us from the open yard of a farm‐house, and who were so very angry at our intrusion that escape along our narrow way, and with our leisurely steeds, seemed questionable. At length I found myself at the base of a high sand‐bank, on which the yellow sea‐thistle, with its glaucous leaves, found a scanty subsistence and a doubtful root‐hold. This I had to scramble up, while for every ten inches I made in advance I slid back six. At last I was at my long‐desired goal, and my three giants were really magnificent to behold. It was on my fourth visit to Hyères, with intervals of years between, that I accomplished this feat, and I had always looked at my pines the first thing in the morning, when the strip of sea between the mainland and the isles was still lying gray in the early light. Then, again, I watched for the red glow of the setting sun on their smooth stems, painted, as it were, in burnt sienna. Again, on moonlit nights I had looked for their broad, deep black crests, falling like an ink‐spot on the silver sea. And now at last, when they had almost become to me like some mystery, meaning