Woolson Constance Fenimore - Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu стр 9.

The weeks passed, and we rode, drove, walked, and climbed hither and thither, looking at the carouba-trees, the stiff pyramidal cypresses, the euphorbias in woody bushes five feet high, the great planes, the grotesque naked figs, the aloes and oleanders growing wild, and the fantastic shapes of the cacti. We searched for ferns, finding the rusty ceterach, the little trichomanes, and Adiantum nigrum, but especially the exquisite maiden-hair of the delicate variety called Capillus veneris, which fringed every watercourse and bank and rock where there is the least moisture with its lovely green fretwork. There is a phrase current in Mentone and applied to this fern, as well as to the violets which grow wild in rich profusion, starring the ground with their blue; unthinking people say of them that they are "so common they become weeds." This phrase should be suppressed by a society for the cultivation of good taste and the prevention of cruelty to plants. Ivy was everywhere, growing wild, and heather in bloom.

Miss Graves was brought almost to tears one day by finding her old friend the wild climbing smilax of Florida on these Mediterranean rocks, and only recovered her self-possession because Lloyd would call it "sarsaparilla," and she felt herself called upon to do battle. But the profusion of the violets, the pomp of the red anemones, the perfume of the white narcissus, the hyacinths and sweet alyssum, all growing wild, who shall describe them? There were also tulips, orchids, English primroses, and daisies. Even when nothing else could grow there was always the demure rosemary. Of course, too, we made close acquaintance with the olive and lemon, the characteristic trees of Mentone, whose foliage forms its verdure, and whose fruit forms its commerce. The orange groves were insignificant and the oranges sour compared with those of Florida; but the olive and lemon groves were new to us, and in themselves beautiful and luxuriant. Our hotel stood on the edge of an old olive grove climbing the mountain-side slowly on broad terraces rising endlessly as one looked up. After some weeks' experience we found that we represented collectively various shades of opinion concerning olive groves in general, which may be given as follows:

Mrs. Clary: "These old trees are to me so sacred! When I walk under their great branches I always think of the dove bringing the leaf to the ark, of the olive boughs of the entry into Jerusalem, and of the Mount of Olives."

The Professor: "Olives are interesting because their manner of growth allows them to attain an almost indefinite age. The trunk decays and splits, but the bark, which still retains its vigor, grows around the dissevered portions, making, as it were, new trunks of them, although curved and distorted, so that three or four trees seem to be growing from the same root. It is this which gives the tree its characteristic knotted and gnarled appearance. This species of olive attains a very fine development in the neighborhood of Mentone; there are said to be trees still alive at Cap Martin which were coeval with the Roman Empire."

Verney: "The light in an old olive grove is beautiful and peculiar; it is like nothing but itself. It is quite impossible to give on canvas the gray shade of the long aisles without making them dim, and they are not in the least dim. I have noticed, too, that the sunshine never filters through sufficiently to touch the ground in a glancing beam, or even a single point of yellow light; and yet the leaves are small, and the foliage does not appear thick."

Baker: "Olives and olive oil, the groundwork of every good dinner! I wonder how much a grove would cost?"

Mrs. Trescott: "How they murmur to us like doves! My one regret now is that I did not name my child Olive. She would then have been so Biblical."

Inness: "I should think more of the groves if I did not know that they were fertilized with woollen rags, old boots, and bones."

Janet: "The inside tint of the leaves would be lovely for a summer costume. I have never had just that shade."

Miss Graves: "Live-oak groves draped in long moss are much more imposing."

Miss Elaine: "It is so jolly, you know, to sit under the trees with one's embroidery, and have some one read aloud something sweet, like Adelaide Procter."

Margaret: "Sitting here is like being in a great cathedral in Lent."

Lloyd: "Shall we go quietly on, Miss Severin?"

And Lloyd, I think, had the best of it. I mean that he knew how to derive the most pleasure from the groves. This English use of "quietly," by-the-way, always amused Margaret and myself greatly. Lloyd and Verney were constantly suggesting that we should go here or there "quietly," as though otherwise we should be likely to go with banners, trumpets, and drums. The longer one remains in Mentone, the stronger grows attachment to the olive groves. But they do not seem fit places for the young, whose gay voices resound through their gray aisles; neither are they for the old, who need the cheer and warmth of the sun. But they are for the middle-aged, those who are beyond the joys and have not yet reached the peace of life, the poor, unremembered, hard-worked middle-aged. The olives of Mentone are small, and used only for making oil. We saw them gathered: men were beating the boughs with long poles, while old women and children collected the dark purple berries and placed them in sacks, which the patient donkeys bore to the mill. The oil mills are venerable and picturesque little buildings of stone, placed in the ravines where there is a stream of water. We visited one on the side hill; its only light came from the open door, and its interior made a picture which Gerard Douw might well have painted. The great oil jars, the old hearth and oven, the earthen jugs, hanging lamps with floating wicks, and the figures of the men moving about, made a picturesque scene. The fruit was first crushed by stone rollers, the wheel being turned by water-power; the pulp, saturated with warm water, was then placed in flat, round rope baskets, which were piled one upon the other, and the whole subjected to strong pressure, which caused the clear yellow oil to exude through the meshes of the baskets, and flow down into the little reservoir below.

"Our manners would become charmingly suave if we lived here long," said Inness. "It would be impossible to resist the influence of so much oil."

The lemon terraces were as unlike the olive groves as a gay love song is unlike a Gregorian chant. The trees rose brightly and youthfully from the grassy hill-side steps, each leaf shining as though it was varnished, and the yellow globes of fruit gleaming like so much imprisoned sunshine. Here was no shade, no weird grayness, but everything was either vivid gold or vivid green. Janet said this.

"I am the latter, I think," said Baker, "to be caught here again on these terraces. I don't know what your experience has been, but for my part I detest them; I have been lost here again and again. You get into them and you think it all very easy, and you keep going on and on. You climb hopefully from one to the next by those narrow sidling little stone steps, only to find it the exact counterpart of the one you have left, with still another beyond. And you keep on plunging up and up until you are worn out. At last you meet a man, and you ask him something or other beginning with 'Purtorn' "

"What in the world do you mean?" said Janet, breaking into laughter.

"I am sure I don't know; but that is what you all say."

"Perhaps you mean 'Peut-on,'" suggested Margaret.

"Well, whatever I mean, the man always answers 'Oui,' and so I am no better off than I was before, but keep plunging on," said Baker, ruefully.

But the Professor now opened a more instructive subject. "Lemons are the most important product of Mentone," he began. "As they can be kept better than those of Naples and Sicily, they command a large price. The tree flowers all the year through, and the fruit is gathered at four different periods. The annual production of lemons at Mentone is about thirty millions."