Laughing Torso

THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

a Spaniard. I spoke to them in French. We stopped
for ten minutes at Lyons and went into the station
cafe, drank coffee and ate ham sandwiches.
The train got hotter and hotter and the sun shone
from a cloudless blue sky. We saw olive trees and
flowers of all colours, and finally the Pyrenees in the
distance. I thought that I was approaching Para-
dise, and began to wonder if I had not died during
the night and had really arrived there. I ached all
over and was getting very hungry. We decided to
stay at Collioure, if we liked the place, and to find
some rooms. In order to get to Gollioure we had to
get off the train at Port Vendres, the place where
the boats sail for Algiers and Morocco. We arrived
there at eight in the morning, and dragged our
weary bodies to a little cafe on the quays. I had
never seen such blue water and such beautifulfishing-
boats with curved sails. The boats were painted the
brightest of blues, greens, and reds. I looked at
them and wondered however I should paint them;
they were so perfect in themselves that it seemed
impossible to do anything that would not resemble
a coloured photograph. The cafe had melons piled
up outside. We had a bottle of red wine to revive
us, some coarse bread, and butter and cheese. From
Port Vendres we had to walk to Collioure along the
cliffs for about four miles. There were high moun-
tains behind us and as we walked we saw an Arab
castle on the top of a hill. It looked like something
out of the Arabim Mights. At last we turned a corner
and saw a bay, the other side of which was* Collioure.
There were pink, green, and white houses and an
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