MONACO is a bold, assertive mass of rock—long, narrow and blunt—which thrusts itself out into the sea, as if to show that it held the ocean in contempt and cared nothing for either winds or waves. The sea has tried its strength against it since the world began, but Monaco has ever remained bland and indifferent. The rock is cut off from the mainland by a gorge through which the road to Nice slinks by as if glad to escape. The sides of Monaco are everywhere precipitous, except towards the east. It is from this side only that it can be approached. Its fortifications are very massive and consist of high, unbroken walls which cover the cliff from base to rampart like a cloak. The palace end of the rock has, indeed, the appearance of one gigantic keep. The walls which surround the palace gardens date from 1552 to 1560, while the fortifications that surmount the Rampe belong to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The flanks of Monaco, when neither sheer cliff nor iron wall, are covered with lavish green, for there is not a ledge nor a slope nor a cranny that does not lodge some flower or some shrub. Access to the town is gained by the Rampe Major, a broad and steep, paved path which has been, in large part, hewn out of the side of the rock. Up and down this path there is an endless procession of townfolk and harbour folk, soldiers and priests, schoolboys and girls, hurried officials and gaping visitors. Below the Rampe lies a carriage road up to the town, traversed by a tram line. This way, the Avenue de la Porte Neuve was constructed in 1828. Before that date Monaco could only be reached on foot or on horseback. Three gates are met with in ascending the Rampe. The first is a ceremonial gate rather than a defence work. It was built in 1714 and affects a faintly classical style, being fashioned of narrow bricks and white stone. The Rampe beyond bends upon itself and, skirting a platform surmounted by a sentry tower as yellow as old parchment, comes face to face with the great battery (now bricked up) which stands at the foot of the palace walls. It can be seen how perfectly this gun emplacement commanded not only the Rampe but also the entrance to the harbour. On the east side of the battery is an immense military work in the form of a rounded buttress, very like the fold of a hanging curtain turned to stone. This is the _oreillon_ which served to mask the battery from the land side. Below the battery the Rampe turns again upon itself and so reaches the second gate. It is a gate in white stone, frail and ghostlike, and inscribed with the date 1533. Beyond it was the drawbridge. Here the Rampe bends sharply in its course for the third time and passes through the main gateway by a vaulted passage of great solidity. This was the famous Mirador or post of the guard. The Rampe now ends in a bald square with the palace on one side and the town on the other. On the remaining sides of the square are only a parapet and the winds of heaven.