It will take a week to see Nice. You may walk all over Mentone in a forenoon, and two or three days will make you fully acquainted with it. The long main street, named at one end the Rue Victor Emmanuel, and at the other the Rue St Michel, offers nothing to attract. In winter, the plane-trees, which line the roadway for a certain distance, are bare. On our arrival at the beginning of November, the leaves were falling, and encumbered the thoroughfare, until they were cleared away to be used for litter to horses and cattle. Some of the houses in the street are of a huge size; those on the south side throwing those of the north partially into the shade. The newer parts of the street are provided with side pavements; in the older parts towards the east, the buildings stand close to the roadway. Foot-passengers have accordingly to take their chance of being interrupted by carriages, but no other inconvenience is experienced, because here the street is laid from side to side with flat paving-stones, as at Genoa, Naples, and some other Italian cities. In the eastern or older division, the chief shops and other places of business, also public offices, are situated. Few of the shops make much display, and there is little regularity in their appearance; some with large, others with small windows. It would be unreasonable to expect in so small a town the variety of Nice. Yet there are evidences of progress. Those who visited Mentone seven years ago, could have purchased few of the delicacies which are in constant request by the English. Now, all that is changed. Wines, biscuits, pickles, sauces, preserved meats, and other odds and ends, are now supplied as profusely as at home. There are _tailleurs_ and _tailleuses_ ready for any equipment. You might be furnished with a Highland kilt if you wanted it. The town has a carnival in a small way. Previous to the beginning of Lent, when balls are in the ascendant, there is a glow of ladies’ dresses spangled with gold, fancy costumes, masks, feathers, frippery, and artificial flowers in the shop-window of the Amarantes, whose well-known establishment comprehends a store of knick-knacks, where there is no difficulty in getting rid of money. Speaking of money, there are two banking-offices in the street, ready at a moment’s notice to cash your Bank of England or circular notes, at the Paris rate of exchange.