Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/287



ONACO is assuredly the loveliest spot on the entire Ligurian coast. More the pity that it should be delivered over to such evil associations as cling to it. Monaco itself is a limestone crag rising out of the sea, linked to the mainland by a neck, the rocks on all sides precipitous, but cut into, to form an approach to the town. Above it towers the ridge that extends from the Mont Agel, with its fortress gleaming white against a gentian-blue sky, by La Turbie, "hunc usque Italia, abhinc Gallia," and the Tête-de-Chien, formerly Testa-de-Camp. The rock of Monaco takes its name from Monoikos. It was dedicated to the Phœnician Melkarth, the One god in a house, who would suffer no other idols in his