HKB
by which the mason some 1900 years ago lined out his work on the blocks of stone he was about to chip into its required form, are still perfectly distinct.
This wonderfully durable stone is of the same material as that employed by lithographers. Though magnesian, it is of a different quality from that employed in building our Houses of Parliament. As this was carefully selected, the latter was carelessly unselected. It was quarried at random, in the most ignorant way; some of it proved little better than chalk; and though all sorts of nostrums have been tried, nothing will cure the radical defect. This, however, is a wide digression from my subject of the admirable mason work, and the wonderful skill and forethought employed in erecting that superb arena and the other Roman buildings at Nismes.
I proceeded to Marseilles, where I had some business to transact with Philip Taylor and Company, the engineering firm. They were most kind and attentive to me while there, and greatly added to the enjoyment of my visit to that remarkable city. From Marseilles I proceeded to Toulon, the last of the marine dockyards I had to visit. There was no railway between the places at that time, and it was accordingly necessary that I should drive along the usual road. In the course of my journey to Toulon I went through the Pass of Col d'Ollioulles. It was awfully impressive. The Pass appeared to consist of a mighty cleft between two mountains; the result of some convulsion of Nature. There was only room for the carriage road to pass between the cliffs. The ruins of a Saracenic castle stood on the heights to guard the passage. It was certainly the most romantic scene I had ever beheld.
Looking down into the deep cleft below me, at the bottom of which ran a turbulent stream, I saw the narrow road along which our carriage was to pass. And then suddenly I emerged in full sight of the Mediterranean, with the calm blue heavens resting over the deep blue sea. There were palms, cactuses, and orange trees, mixed with olive groves. The fields were full of tulips and narcissuses, and the rocks by the roadside were covered with boxwood and lavender. Everything gave evidence of the sunny South. I had got a glimpse of the Mediterranean a few days before; but now I saw it in its glory.
I arrived in due time at Toulon. The town is not very striking in itself. It is surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains of hard magnesian limestone. These are almost devoid of vegetation. This it is which gives so arid an aspect to this part of the coast. Facing the south, the sun's rays, reflected from the bare surface of the rocks, place one at mid-day as if in the focus of a great burning mirror, and send every one in quest of shade. This intense temperature has its due effect upon the workers in the dockyard. I found the place far inferior to the others which I had visited. The heat seemed to engender a sort of listlessness over the entire place. The people seemed to be falling asleep. Though we complain of cold in our northern hemisphere, it is a great incentive to work. Even our east wind is an invigorator; it braces us up, and strengthens our nerves and muscles.
It is quite possible that the workmen of the Toulon dockyard might fire up and work with energy provided an occasion arose to call forth their dormant energy. But without the aid of an almost universal introduction of self-acting tools in this sleepy establishment, to break, with the busy hum of active working machinery, the spell of indolence that seemed to pervade it, there appeared to me no hope of anything like continuous and effective industry or useful results. The docks looked like one vast knacker's yard of broken-down obsolete ships and wretched old paraphernalia--unfortunately a characteristic of other establishments nearer home than Toulon.