thin, who, notwithstanding his malady, manifested an immoderate love for the flute, and practised it assiduously to the great annoyance of his neighbours. San Remo is not very gay. The only distraction you get is to walk around a music-kiosque in the public garden, in the company of nursery maids wheeling perambulators in front of them. At nine o’clock of the evening the music stops, the shops are closed, and everybody goes to bed. One morning we took a carriage and went over to Monte Carlo, situated at some hours’ distance from San Remo. We followed all the time the beautiful _Corniche_ road, cut out in the rock. Our driver, who made the journey for the first time, did not know that he had to take a pass, and was not allowed to go further. It is lucky that we found a carriage on the Italian side of the frontier, at Ventimiglia, which brought us to Mentone, where we took the train to Monaco. Here a new disappointment awaited us! We were too late for the train and had to wait hours for the next one. To shorten the time, we went for a stroll through Mentone, and entered the first hotel to have lunch, but it was not mealtime at the hotel, and we returned fagged out and ravenous to the railway station. All Monte Carlo seemed composed of gardens, with the big, white building of the Casino in the midst, the whole ringed in by high grey mountains. We went straight to the Casino and looked in at the gambling-rooms. The tables were surrounded by anxious players with a preponderance of courtesans of high and low degree, with painted faces and rings down to their nails, who followed the game with breathless interest. An old woman, dressed in dyed silks and a home-made hat, was losing heavily, and staked her last francs with despair written on her face. Many players come to Monaco with their pockets full, and have nothing to pay their return journey. Suicides often take place here. I tried my luck, and lost something like ten francs. The Principality of Monaco is quite a small one. It would take half an hour to walk over the island, from one end to the other. The reigning Prince has a diminutive army of sixty regular soldiers, two officers and three constables, and that’s all! Sergy asked one of the constables who was on duty at the railway station, how their army could manage without any cavalry, and he answered that they wouldn’t have known what to do with it, for it would take more time to saddle a horse than to walk around their whole territory! Another day we went for an excursion to the monastery of _Notre Dame de la Garde_, where the church is decorated with little cardboard boats that the sailors’ wives offer, with their prayers, to the Madonna, when their husbands are at sea.