Aix is a well built city; the principal street called the Course, is very long, very broad, and shaded by stately trees; in the middle of it are four or five fountains, constantly running, one of which is of very hot water, at which man and beast are constantly drinking.  The city abounds with a great deal of good company, drawn to it from all parts of Europe by the efficacy of the waters, and to examine its antiquities, for it has in and about it many Greek as well as Roman monuments.

Some part of the country between Aix and this populous city is very beautiful, but near the town scarce any vegetation is seen; on all sides high hills and broken rocks present themselves; and one wonders how a city so large and so astonishingly populous is supported.  When I first approached the entrance gate, it opened a perspective view of the Course, a street of great extent, where the heads of the people were so thick together, that I concluded it was a FAIR day, and that the whole country was collected together; but I found it was every day the same.  I saw a prodigious quantity of game and provisions of all kinds, not only in the shops, but in the streets, and concluded it was not only a cheap, but a plentiful country; but I soon found my mistake, it was the evening before Lent commenced, and I could find no provisions of any kind very easily afterwards, and every thing very dear.  You may imagine the price of provisions at Marseilles when I tell you that they have their poultry from Lyons; it is however a noble city, crouded with men of all nations, walking in the streets in the proper habits of their country.  The harbour is the most secure sea-port in Europe, being land-locked on all sides, except at a verry narrow entrance; and as there is very little rise or fall of water, the vessels are always afloat.  Many of the galley slaves have little shops near the spot where the galleys are moored, and appear happy and decently dressed; some of them are rich, and make annual remittances to their friends.  In the Hotel de Ville are two fine large pictures, which were taken lately from the Jesuits’ college; one represents the dreadful scenes which were seen in the Grand Course during the great plague at Marseilles; the other, the same sad scene on the Quay, before the doors of the house in which it now hangs.  A person cannot look upon these pictures one minute before he becomes enthralled in the woes which every way present themselves.  You see the good Bishop confessing the sick, the carts carrying out the dead, children sucking at the breasts of their dead mothers, wives and husbands bewailing, dead bodies lowering out of the higher windows by cords, the slaves plundering, the Priests exhorting, and such a variety of interesting and afflicting scenes so forcibly struck out by the painter, that you seem to hear the groans, weepings, and bewailings, from the dying, the sick and the sound; and the eye and mind have no other