MARGINAL COMMENTS
By E. L. WOODWARD
My travelled fellow-countrymen will support me when I say that the gardens of Monte Carlo are very small ; one section, near the abattoir known as the Tir aux Pigeons, is not unlike the Karoo. The harbour is indeed charming, though one side of it is dominated by what I take to be the local electric light works or a soap factory and the northwest corner is crowned by a tiara of gasometers. The rocks below the town, and on the quarry-like hilltop above it, are the colour of cigar-ash. The best view is obtained from the up platform of the railway station which, as in Edinburgh, forms the centre-piece of the scenery.
Curiously enough, if you go less than a couple of miles away, to the east of the miniature beach (English summer visitors to this stuffy little corner must sigh for the wide, sunlit sands of Blackpool), you get one of the best views in the Mediterranean. This view belongs to the inhabitants of an extremely picturesque slum village. The villagers do not make any attempt to exploit their only valuable possess- ion. They appear to be more interested in covering their walls with Communist inscriptions, or in painting over these inscriptions with derogatory notices about les homrnes de Moscou.
Do not think that I am attempting to run down the G5te d'Azur. Azure it is, and this fact makes up for everything else. If you can get mid-June in mid-April, you will be ready to tolerate an architectural conservatism which has to be seen to be believed, a ribbon development which is unparalleled in the mining valleys of South Wales, more hoardings and advertisements than you would find on the outskirts of an English town, and as much litter as you could collect in an English " beauty-spot." From a sociological point of view, there is some interest in an analysis of the litter. There is less grease-proof paper, and there are more sardine tins than in England. Geographers will explain the fact by reference to the habitat of the sardine. I might add that the same phenomena recur when you cross the frontier into Italy. Litter, as archaeologists will tell you with gratitude, knows no political boundaries. ' It happens that I have had the good fortune to walk the whole length of the peninsula of Mount Athos, at the other end of the Mediterranean. For ecclesiastical reasons, the develop- ment of this peninsula has been held up since the close of the Middle Ages. The contrast between Mount Athos and Monte Carlo is painful.
And yet, and yet. . . . Life is short, and the rich, with their odd way of spoiling things, are always with us. In the Department of the Maritime Alps, if you turn inland, away from a sea coast parcelled out into villas and terrains a vendre, you can get away in a few minutes from the odiousness of prosperity. And, having made for myself a discovery well known to every one else, I propose, if the gods are not jealous of those who try to get two summers a year, to dodge the villas and the motor cars and, every April, to listen to the bees and the nightingales.
Previous page
