Never had either seen such brilliant transparence of atmosphere, such glowing depth of colour. The sunny air had still a keen frost sparkle; here and there snow crystals glittered among rich greens and warm greys of foliage; every little pool was glazed with ice. Russet-clad peasant women in broad straw hats, men jolting along in picturesque country carts drawn by horses in quaint, brass-studded harness with high-peaked collars; a shepherd in a long brown cloak, his flock before him; beautiful wells and fountains of strange and primitive design; tiny white, blue and pink-washed houses with green latticed shutters; brown and leafless vines on trellises or planted in rows of low, crutch-tipped stems; stone pines, olives, stiff-spiked aloes, cactus, orange and lemon trees, and everywhere the golden bloom of mimosa, suggested Italy rather than France. The dragon coursers had actually borne them in the night through realms of romance and poetry; they were even now in Provence, that land of roses and minstrelsy; was not yonder rich expanse of blue the Ligurian Sea, or very near it? and Nice, that ancient historic and much-conquered city, the birthplace of Garibaldi, was not that essentially Italian by geography and descent, as well as all the lovely mountain shore from Monaco to the frontier of authentic modern Italy? What an oriental touch in those glorious, dark-leaved palms of sturdy stem and spreading crown! What rich colour in the thick-bossed trunks no storm could bend, and the fruit, springing in golden plumes from stiff, wing-like leaves! Ermengarde had always thought of palms as slender, waving things; the massy strength, the architectural splendour, the suggestion of carved pillar and arched roof of majestic span in the date-palm on this Saracen-raided shore was a revelation. Only to repeat to himself the words, Palm Sunday, filled the inspired Opium-Eater with solemn awe; but not its great associations alone make the simple word, palm, impressive to those who have seen this variety.