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Rh des Platanes is reached, a boulevard shaded by magnificent plane trees, but all inclined from the north, from the terrible Tramontane wind, which is the scourge of the plain of Roussillon. Here on Shrove Tuesday evening hundreds of maskers dance under the leafless branches, and sometimes in spite of the cutting wind and dropping rain. The promenade is then railed in, and soldiers are stationed to act as sentinels to prevent the crowd entering and interfering with the dancers. But the waltz music is too exhilarating to allow these sentinels to soberly pace their distances, and I have seen them holding their rifles and pirouetting up and down their beats with them as if their firearms were lovely partners.

Beyond the Basse, where it flows into the Tet, is the faubourg Notre Dame, very animated and peopled in part with gipsies, or gitanos. They speak a language of their own, a mixture of Arabic, Castillian, and Catalan. They are first mentioned in Roussillon in an ordinance of 1512, that required them to be cudgelled out of the country. It does not seem that this order produced the effect desired, for they have been found, and still are found, throughout the department, mainly engaged in selling mules.

The first station out of Perpignan on the line to Barcelona is Elne, long the seat of a bishop. It was the ancient Illiberis. The name tells its origin. It derives from the Iberian, and signifies the New City; and shows that it was a town founded by these people before they were expelled or subjugated by the Celts, who invaded the country in the fourth century before Christ. When Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees he planted his headquarters here, and hither came the heads of the Gaulish tribe to make terms with him against Rome. At the same time they made complaint of the conduct of some of his Carthaginian soldiery. Hannibal listened to their grievances,