Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/113

Rh Remo, to Ventimiglia, and thence to Nice. The orange, and above all the lemon, is very sensitive to cold, and the frost of February, 1905, blighted nearly every tree along the coast, turning the leaves a pale straw colour. Only in very sheltered spots did they retain their green and gloss. About Solliés-Pont the sumac is grown for the sake of its tannin. The leaves only are used, but for them the branches are cut off. When these are dry they are stripped of their foliage by women and children. The leaves are then pounded to powder, and are packed in sacks and sent away. Thirty per cent, of the matter in the dried sumac leaves is tannin. At Hyères we have passed abruptly from the limestone to the schist that has been heaved up by the granite of the Montagnes des Maures. The Gapeau, which at present flows into the sea to the east of Hyères, originally discharged past La Garde into the Rade de Toulon. But it brought down such a quantity of rubble from the limestone range—of which the Pilon de la Sainte Beaume is the highest point—that it has formed a crau of its own, and choked up its mouth to such an extent as to force its current to turn to the farther side of the Maurettes so as to find a passage to the sea. Hyères is a notable place for the abrupt contrast it exhibits between what is ancient and what is modern. Down the slope of the height, that is crowned by the castle, slides the old town, with narrow streets, mere lanes, to its old walls, in which are gateways, and through these arches we emerge at once into everything that is most up-to-date. At a stride we pass out of the Middle Ages into modern times. There is no intervening zone of transition.