high, and three miles from the sea, is won. An excellent excursion by carriage along this road is to the picturesque village of Sospello, 22 kilometres, or about 14 miles distant from Mentone, passing and visiting by the way the curious old town of Castiglione, which lies perched up among the mountains (inaccessible by carriage) at a height, it is said, of over 2500 feet above the sea.[22] [Illustration: OIL MILLS CARREI VALLEY, MENTONE.] The valley of Carrei, partly from its proximity to our hotel, was with us a favourite walk, and could be visited also by a more sunny road for a short way on the east bank of the river course. Here, as elsewhere, the municipality have placed wooden seats, which are very acceptable to pedestrians. Sometimes a whiff of cold air blowing down the valley proves too trying to allow of sitting long; but one scarcely tires of the bright glad sun, or the view of the hill slopes and verdure with which they are covered all the year through, or of the bold mountains, on the foremost central one of which may be discovered—particularly with the aid of a glass, for it is at first hardly distinguishable by the eye from the rocks on which it rests—the ruined castle of Ste. Agnese, elevated like an eagle’s eyrie high up on the apparently inaccessible summit. * * * * * A trip to Ste. Agnese is generally taken by all who are not infirm. Though not so arduous as the ascent of the Berceau, of the Grand Mont, or of Mont Agel, which all command extensive views, but can only be undertaken by the able–bodied, it is a somewhat fatiguing excursion, and most people perform the ascent on donkey back. On the 13th December, the morning and day being fine, we started, a party of twelve, with eight donkeys and two donkey–drivers. To reach the point from which the ascent begins, we proceeded along the Nice road westward to the Boirigo valley. The view from the bridge across this valley was then (even still is, notwithstanding the erection of buildings on each side, some of them lofty and uninteresting, has somewhat contracted the view) much more open and extensive than that from the Carrei bridge. It took in west, north, and east, the whole panorama of mountain, twenty–eight peaks and pinnacles, enumerated in Giordan’s little _Mentone Guide_ (1877), being counted from the bridge. A road runs up each side of the river course, which is hemmed in like the Carrei by bulwarks of masonry. The road upon the left bank does not proceed above a mile, when—at a picturesquely–situated olive–oil mill, embosomed among olive and lemon trees, and bordered by a pretty stretch of the channel of the river, lying at the bottom of a dell closed in by wooded hills on both sides—it is shut in and becomes a donkey path buried among the trees of the valley, the river in the ravine below meantime narrowing correspondingly. The walk by this delightful path through the woods arrives at an old stone bridge leading to the