In The Morning We Saw That The Waters Arranged
Themselves In The Rainbow Colors Of Such A Scarf Round The Shores, And
That There Were Only Pleasure-Craft Moored In Them:
The yacht of the
Prince of Monaco and the yacht of some American Prince, whose title I
did not ascertain, but whose flag was unmistakable.
There must have been
other yachts, but I do not remember them, and possibly there were some
workaday craft, of which I do not now recall the impression; but I am
certain of the festive air of disoccupation pervading the port from the
adjacent towns, both Monte Carlo and Monaco, which its wicked suburb has
cleansed in corrupting, and rendered attractive by the example of its
elegant leisure. There remains from both places, and from Condamine in
the plain between them the sense of a perpetual round of holidays. There
seemed to be no more creative business in one place than another, but I
do not say there is none; there is certainly a polite distillery of
perfumes and liqueurs in Condamine, but what one sees is the commerce of
the shops, and the building up of more and more villas and hotels, on
every shelf and ledge, to harden and whiten in the sun, and let their
gardens hang over the verges of the cliffs. On the northeast, the
mountains rise into magnificent steeps whose names would say nothing to
the reader, except that of Turbia, which he will recall as the classic
Tropaea of Augustus, who marked there the bounds between Italy and Gaul.
But we were as yet in no mood to climb this height, even with the help
of a funicular railway, and I made my explorations at such convenient
elevations as I could reach on foot, or by the help of one of those
luxurious landaus peculiar to Monte Carlo.
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