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CONTINUATION OP NICE.
DEPARTURE FROM THAT CITY.
A R R I V A L AT ANTIBES.
Thb county of Nice being eslrcmely monntainous, and frequently intcrfefted by deep
contrafled valleys, the culture of the ground is entirely performed • i bras d'honime,' and
not by means of a plough, or any inflrament f.milat to it, the country people rfmg for
that purpofe a kind of piekaxe of about two feet long, one Me broad, and the other
fharp, »ith ,.hich they turn the earth and break the cloda. This manner of cultivating,
or working tad, which is both laborious and expenfive, would not tuit any dimate except
Nice, fince an acre of ground, m the moft fertile part of the province, is Benerally aUowed
to produce four, or even five, times as much as in any other country, a eircumftance
which accounts for proprietors of land at Nice feldom potTcfBng more than twenty or
thirty acres.
From the exceffive heat during the fummer, which often oecrfions a drought for the
fpace of four, five, and even fe months, without intenniffion, the country people have
found it neeeffary to ereft extenf.ve ciaems contiguous to their houfes, in which flrcy
carefully colleft rain-water during their wet feafon of February, March, and fomctimea
September.
This water they convey to their land by means of furrows, or gutters, cut or dug in the
earth for that pnrpofe, which crofs their plantations in various direitions, for without d.is
precaution it would be impoiT.ble to work the ground, fi'om its exeeilve drj-nefs.
The foil alfo in the environs of Nice being in itfelf extremely produitivc, the inhabitants
are unwilling to lofe any part of it; and for the pnrpofe of brmging as much as
poffible into cultivation, where it is uneven, they bnild walls to fupport it of four or five
feet high, built of loofe ftones, or • pierres reches.' The furfaec of the toil bcmg thus difpofed
of, forms a parallelogmm of about twenty-four or tlrirty feet broad, and from three