ROMAN REMAINS AT ARLES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1352, 27 January 1898, Page 22

ROMAN REMAINS AT ARLES.

[By Chables W. Wood.] The Argosy. On the north and east sides of the town you still see the Soman ramparts, below which the tree-ljned boulevards of modern days have been placed. It is within these boulevards that the nucleus of the town exists; all that is modern; tortuous, narrow, ill-paved streets that make walking a pilgrimage; streets not too savoury j not too well kept; unhealthy; gloomy and depressing by day, badly lighted by night. But Aries [can afford this, for the sake of the gems it possesses; the wonderful Eoman remains that come upon one with such astonishing abruptness and surprise. You turn the corner of a narrow, crooked street, and suddenly there breaks upon you the startling view of the magnificent amphitheater. Before turning that corner you were in all the prosaic element of the nineteenth century. In the twinkling of an eye you are transported to the very beginning of the Christian era. This is the largest amphitheater in France, and so far the most famous, but not so perfectly preserved as that of Nimes. It rises ■gigantically against the blue sky, a building 500 yards round, with two stories of sixty arches, the lower Doric, the upper Corinthian. There is a tower at three of the four points of the compass, but the coping stone has crumbled away, giving the building the picturesque appearance of a semi-ruin. Yet it is no ruin, and may

defy the ages to come. Enormous blocks of stone piled one upon the other are kept together without cement by the strength of their own weight and by splendour of construction. There are five massive corridors, and in the days of past glory forty-three tiers of seats made it possible for 25,000 to 30,000 spectators to view the games and bull-fights.