There are no tides in the Mediterranean.  It is observed to me, that the olive tree grows nowhere more than thirty leagues distant from that sea.  I suppose, however, that both Spain and Portugal furnish proofs to the contrary, and doubt its truth as to Asia, Africa, and America.  They are six or eight months at a time, here, without rain.  The most delicate figs known in Europe, are those growing about this place, called figues Marseilloises, or les veritables Marseilloises, to distinguish them from others of inferior quality growing here.  These keep any length of time.  All others exude a sugar in the spring of the year, and become sour.  The only process for preserving them, is drying them in the sun, without putting any thing to them whatever.  They sell at fifteen sous the pound, while there are others as cheap as five sous the pound.  I meet here a small dried grape from Smyrna, without a seed.  There are few of the plants growing in this neighborhood.  The best grape for drying, known here, is called des Panses.  They are very large, with a thick skin and much juice.  They are best against a wall of southern aspect, as their abundance of juice requires a great deal of sun to dry it.  Pretty good fig trees are about the size of the apricot tree, and yield about twenty pounds of figs when dry, each.  But the largest will yield the value of a louis.  They are sometimes fifteen inches in diameter.  It is said that the Marseilles fig degenerates when transported into any other part of the country.  The leaves of the mulberry tree will sell for about three livres, the purchaser gathering them.  The caper is a creeping plant.  It is killed to the roots every winter.  In the spring it puts out branches, which creep to the distance of three feet from the centre.  The fruit forms on the stem, as that extends itself, and must be gathered every day, as it forms.  This is the work of women.  The pistache grows in this neighborhood also, but not very good.  They eat them in their milky state.  Monsieur de Bergasse has a wine-cellar two hundred and forty pieds long, in which are one hundred and twenty tons, of from fifty to one hundred pieces each.  These tons are twelve pieds diameter, the staves four inches thick, the heading two and a half pouces thick.  The temperature of his cellar is of 9 1/2 deg. of Reaumur.  The best method of packing wine, when bottled, is to lay the bottles on their side, and cover them with sand.  The 2d of April, the young figs are formed; the 4th we have Windsor beans.  They have had asparagus ever since the middle of March.  The 5th, I see strawberries and the Guelder rose in blossom.  To preserve the raisin, it is first dipped into ley, and then dried in the sun.  The aloe grows in the open ground.  I measure a mule, not the largest, five feet and two inches high.  Marseilles is in an amphitheatre, at the mouth of the Veaune, surrounded by high mountains of naked rock, distant two or three