Marseilles is seated in the midst of a semicircle of mountains of whitish rock, the steep and naked sides of which scarce afford “a footing for the goat.”  Stretching into the Mediterranean they inclose a commodious harbor, in front of which are two or three rocky islands anchored in a sea of more vivid blue than any water I had ever before seen.  The country immediately surrounding the city is an arid and dusty valley, intersected here and there with the bed of a brook or torrent, dry during the summer.  It is carefully cultivated, however, and planted with vineyards, and orchards of olive, fig, and pomegranate trees.  The trees being small and low, the foliage of the olive thin and pale, the leaves of the fig broad and few, and the soil appearing everywhere at their roots, as well as between the rows of vines, the vegetation, when viewed from a little distance, has a meagre and ragged appearance.  The whiteness of the hills, which the eye can hardly bear to rest upon at noon, the intense blue of the sea, the peculiar forms of the foliage, and the deficiency of shade and verdure, made me almost fancy myself in a tropical region.

The Greeks judged well of the commercial advantages of Marseilles when they made it the seat of one of their early colonies.  I found its streets animated with a bustle which I had not seen since I left New York, and its port thronged with vessels from all the nations whose coasts border upon the great midland sea of Europe.  Marseilles is the most flourishing seaport in France; it has already become to the Mediterranean what New York is to the United States, and its trade is regularly increasing.  The old town is ugly, but the lower or new part is nobly built of the light-colored stone so commonly used in France, and so easily wrought—­with broad streets and, what is rare in French towns, convenient sidewalks.  New streets are laid out, gardens are converted into building-lots, the process of leveling hills and filling up hollows is going on as in New York, the city is extending itself on every side, and large fortunes have been made by the rise in the value of landed property.

In a conversation with an intelligent gentleman resident at Marseilles and largely engaged in commercial and moneyed transactions, the subject of the United States Bank was mentioned.  Opinions in France, on this question of our domestic politics, differ according as the opportunities of information possessed by the individual are more or less ample, or as he is more or less in favor of chartered banks.  The gentleman remarked that without any reference to the question of the United States Bank, he hoped the day would never come when such an institution would be established in France.  The project he said had some advocates, but they had not yet succeeded, and he hoped never would succeed in the introduction of that system of paper currency which prevailed in the United States.  He deprecated the dangerous and uncertain facilities