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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 Excerpt:...the world. On March 14th, the Queen and Princess Beatrice left Windsor for the Chalet des Rosiers, at Mentone, placed at Her Majesty's disposal by Mr. Henfrey, whose house at Baveno the Queen occupied when visiting the Italian Lakes in 1879. The villa, built in the Swiss style, commands a splendid view, and is almost hidden by the olive groves in which it stands. Mentone is the loveliest spot in all that lovely Riviera,--" The Undercliff of central Europe." Fancy a place where the wild thyme blows in December, where nasturtiums and petunias become perennial wood plants, and all gorgeous in February; where the maiden-hair fern grows luxuriantly in every stone hedge; where Mediterranean heath and sweet alyssum are weeds of the soil; where the very moss is that lace-like lycopodium we treasure in our conservatories; and where the burning sirocco passing over the snow-capped mountains of Corsica becomes a cooling breeze. But for all this, a garden at Mentone is a luxury, an extravagance; it means a terrace, which costs as much as a house, and you must have tanks, and secure a water supply which will last through the long drought which continues from May to October. The chief cultivation is the delicate lemon tree, which, because it is flowering and fruiting all the year round, eight degrees of frost will kill. Some years they send ten millions of lemons to America alone. And let it be borne in mind that every fruit must be picked by hand, laid carefully in the basket, and be passed several times before scrutinising eyes before it is finally wrapped in blotting paper, and packed in its box. During her stay at Mentone, the Queen and the Princess visited all the places of interest in the neighbourhood, and received the Comte de Paris, who came over from...