It may not be thoroughly _comme il faut_ for a visitor to notice such popular diversions, but then what is he to do? Getting some amusement from the harangue of a loquacious street charlatan, from the capers of a long-legged pig scornfully refusing to be weighed, or from the playing of a monkey on a miniature sham fiddle, seated on the hump of a peripatetic dromedary—is it not better than having no amusement at all? Mentone is a dull—a very dull—place. That is its reputation, and I am not going to deny or qualify the fact. The town has not yet got so far ahead as to have a regularly constituted system of public entertainments, such as one has the opportunity to fall back upon for recreation in Nice, Paris, or London. Nor does private society offer an equivalent which can with safety be embraced by professed invalids or the health-seeking sexagenarian. There are few natives with whom visitors are likely to make an acquaintanceship. Dinner-giving is not the custom of the place, and if it were, it would perhaps be so much the worse. We are to keep in mind that it is not very advisable to go out after sunset, which, in the depth of winter at Mentone, is about half-past four o’clock. If visitors can make up an agreeable society among themselves in the house in which they reside, they may be congratulated. The chances are against their being able to do so, in consequence of a difference in languages and tastes, as well as from the peculiarities of hotel usages already referred to. Unless visitors be specially fortunate, they will have to rely on themselves. The evenings will probably be dull. You may occupy a neatly-furnished room, provided with a wood fire, and a lamp on the table—a pair of candles being useless for reading—and that is what has to be looked forward to. No callers. The surging of the Mediterranean is heard outside. The moon and a sparkling planet shine on the waters. It is a beauteous scene, but you are alone in a strange land. Is it surprising that the heart should yearn for home, and for the friends whose companionship and sympathy count for so much in reckoning up the sum of earthly happiness?