level with the respective classes of seats, gave access to them; except in the case of the Podium, which was entered by a privileged passage from each side. The Proscenium is satisfactorily outlined facing the Podium, with a room on each side for the entrance and exit of the Choristers. And behind the Proscenium, the Stage is seen of smaller size, flanged with faced granite on the sides; with one African marble, and one granite Corinthian column at the back, supporting a fragment of exquisitely sculptured marble entablature. The pedestals of two other (removed) columns, are still in place. The line of the front wall of the theatre is shown by huge stone foundation blocks, still in position. The structure, as clearly made out, shows the various parts of the old Greek theatre, as imitated and afterwards used by the Romans.

If one has had his appetite whetted by this taste of antiquity, vouchsafed to him by France en route to Spain, he may run-by rail forty-eight miles further on the Lyons road-to Orange; and a quarter of a mile from that town find a magnificent triumphal arch-an old Roman model of more pretentious, but less chaste, modern commemorative monuments. It has a middle chariot, and two lateral footways, surmounted on both façades by bold entablatures covered with sculptured battle scenes and naval trophies, and other ornamentation. Such arches not dating back earlier than the Cæsars, this is probably one of the monuments of that imperial, race. It seems to have formed the goal of a Circus for chariot races; the other end of which, the turning point round the dividing spine, still lifting its crescentic wall against a lofty hill overlooking the town.

Adjoining the rounding point of this Circus, with semi-circular tiers of stone seats built on the slope of the same hill, is the ruin of what must have been in its day of pride, one of the grandest of Roman colonial theatres. The seats of the spectators, classified according to rank, are seen rising in successive tiers behind the Podium with their appropriate corridors at hand. While before the Podium can be traced the outlines of the Proscenium, with the side rooms for choristers; and immediately behind it, the Scena-the stage properwith doors opening therefrom, communicating with the rooms in which lived the officials and players, and which formed the front of the theatre: the façade of which the chord of the semi-circular seats-is perhaps the most entire and perfectly preserved ancient Roman wall now known. Of vast proportions, being three hundred and thirty-four feet long, one hundred and eleven feet high, and thirteen feet thick, it is built of colossal blocks of silicate limestone, without cement, their precise adaptation and massiveness being sufficient to secure stability. Doorways and corbels break the blank surface of the wall. There are two rows of corbels, which traverse the entire length of the wall; the upper being pierced for masts to support the Velarium -the awning thrown over the whole edifice for necessary shade in summer. The dilapidated arches of a Portico which connected the Theatre and Circus, are still seen, showing the attention paid to providing comfort and convenience for those who partook of these public amusements. The Imperial Government understood well the policy of furnishing these to the multitude, who might otherwise have become trouble

some. The ancient Aransis-the modern Orangemust have had a metropolitan population to require such a stupendous theatre.

The tourist, retracing his steps toward Marseilles, will find Avignon eighteen miles on his way, where, if he take interest in the lives of the seven Popes and three Antipopes-all Frenchmen-who occupied its Papal-palace, he may stop, and tread its vaulted chambers, and dream of the deeds for better or worse, done in those dark and dismal recesses. Then, thirteen miles further, at Tarascon, he will leave the main line, and take a lateral railway westward sixteen miles to Nismes.

Here are antiquities sufficiently attractive to detain one at least a day. An Amphitheatre, the olden scene of ferocious games, and stern and deadly strife, on which looked twenty-thousand spectators, lifts its dark grey walls from amid the buildings of the modern town, as if in contempt of their pigmy pretentiousness. Money and labour have recently done much to restore this Roman edifice, damaged by time and the barbarian. And a strict guardianship of the present, prevents any indulgence of that vandalism, which so long gratified a licentious and vindictive spirit in destroying ancient works of art. Although the lover of the picturesque may not think that the substitution of stone for shrubbery, and even of marble masonry for moss and ivy, contribute in any degree to heighten the charm of a ruin, yet the archæologist, knowing how surely perish all the works of man under the steady tread of time, with its marshalled forces of earth and water and temperature, the leverage of frost and fibre, may well rejoice

at the wisdom which seeks to check the destruction of that lettering which tells a truthful tale of the Past. Not far from the Amphitheatre is the Maison Carrée, a Roman Temple in fact, which through all its intervening degradations to vulgar uses-even to that of a cart-house and stable-has retained its ancient architectural proportions and finish, almost unharmed. Rarely, even in Italy, does one look upon so perfect a specimen of ancient design and decoration. A short distance beyond are the remains of Roman Baths—an exquisite souvenir of that luxury, which, in many things, illustrated the life of the Roman people. Marble pillars supporting capitals and cornices of rare sculpture and forming elegant arcades of bath-rooms, image themselves in the crystal water that bathes their bases, as if proud of the grace inherited from an affluent age. While near-by, the dark, weed-mantled ruin of a Nymphæum, a water-nymph temple, looks likewise into the pellucid mirror, in mournful remembrance of the departed spirits who once offered their willing worship at its shrine. Above all, a lofty hill; from the foot of which flows an abundant stream that may have oft renewed the vigour of Roman life and limb, stands clad in a vestment of verdure embroidered with flowers; a becoming tribute of the Present to the graces of the Past, which still linger on this spot to teach a lesson of that virtue, next to Godliness, of which all Moderns, save the Moslem are censurably negligent.

But that which is even more significant of Roman appreciation of a bountiful supply of water as a necessary means of health and comfort, is the Pont du Gard, about thirteen miles from Nismes-a pleasant drive of

four hours, there and back. This is an aqueduct thrown over the valley and river Gard at a height of one hundred and sixty feet, the level adapted to the rest of the work of about thirty miles in length, for the supply of the ancient town with pure spring water. Three superposed ranges of arches, formed of huge blocks of silicate limestone, support the passage-trough; which has a clear space of six and a half feet by two and a half feet, is lined by four layers of grouting and Roman cement as hard as the flinty substance of the trough itself, is roofed by ponderous rock-slabs, and has a length of eight hundred and eighty-two feet. The arches diminish in span, while they increase in number from the lowest range upwards; there being six below, eleven in the middle, and thirty-five above. Although built of massive materials, the lower arches have an extent of radius so far surpassing that of any other corresponding structure, as to give them a look of lightness and grace, which would seem incompatible with strength and durability, but for the fact, that this Pont du Gard was built by Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus Cæsar, and, therefore, has been standing more than eighteen hundred years. The hand of Time has not harmed it. If protected from the ravages of man, it might prove as imperishable as would have been, with such immunity, that but little more striking monument of Roman genius and power, the Colosseum

Taking leave of Nismes, and its excellent provincial Hotel de Luxembourg, the tourist is not likely to be detained en route to Perpignan, despite the claims of Montpelier, once a famous seat of science and art; and of Cette, the great fabricator of most of the false wines.