The environment of the old colony is at the moment singularly incongruous. The entrance to the principal cave is walled up and admission thereto can only be obtained by the payment of 2f. per person. A small museum, full of precious bones, stands on the Roman road; a railway tunnel penetrates the very heart of the cliff, so that the rumble of express trains disturbs the peace of the dead who still lie on the very spot where their bodies were laid long centuries ago. There is a fashionable hotel on the summit of the cliff, and at its foot a popular restaurant. From the depths of the cave the sound of music can be heard when the restaurant is very exuberant and is offering especial cheer. If the old lady with the bracelets were now to stand at the door of her cave on a starry night she could see, beyond Mentone, a strange glow in the sky, the glow from the thousand lights of the gaming-rooms of Monte Carlo. [Illustration: CASTILLON (IN THE SNOW).] [Illustration: CASTILLON: THE ENTRY TO THE TOWN.] XXXVIII CASTILLON AMONG the mountains behind Mentone is a saddle of rock wedged in between two heights and named the Col de la Garde. If a Colossus sat astride of this saddle one leg would be in the Valley of the Careï, leading towards Mentone, and the other in the Merlanson Valley which descends to Sospel. The col or ridge of the saddle is 2,527 feet above the level of the sea. On a cone of rock in the centre of this ridge is the ghostly town of Castillon. The distance from Mentone to Castillon is four miles, if measured by the flight of a bird, and nine and a half miles if reckoned by the ingenious road. From Castillon to Sospel by road is four and a half miles, but the descent is not great for Sospel is still 1,148 feet above the Mediterranean. The Valley of the Careï is picturesque and of no little grandeur. It is a prodigious V-shaped gash in the earth, some half a mile wide where it opens to the heavens, some few feet wide at its deepest depth where the torrent cuts its way. The colouring of its walls is beautiful in its simplicity. Below the blue of the sky is a cinder-grey slope of bare cliff that dips into the faded green of the olive belt and the sprightlier green of the pines; then comes a strip of claret-red tinged with yellow, which marks the terrace of the autumn vines, and at the very foot are the deep shadows by the banks of the stream. The Careï follows the valley all the way. It begins among the vast silence of the everlasting hills and ends by running under the tramlines and the bandstand at Mentone. The road mounts up the west bank of the valley by spasmodic turns and twists. These are so repeated and so abrupt as to render any who live where paths are straight dazed and despairing.