The Count of Monte Cristo

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Such of my readers as have made a pedestrian excursion to the south
of France may perchance have noticed, about midway between the town of
Beaucaire and the village of Bellegarde,--a little nearer to the former
than to the latter,--a small roadside inn, from the front of which
hung, creaking and flapping in the wind, a sheet of tin covered with
a grotesque representation of the Pont du Gard. This modern place of
entertainment stood on the left-hand side of the post road, and backed
upon the Rhone. It also boasted of what in Languedoc is styled a garden,
consisting of a small plot of ground, on the side opposite to the main
entrance reserved for the reception of guests. A few dingy olives and
stunted fig-trees struggled hard for existence, but their withered dusty
foliage abundantly proved how unequal was the conflict. Between these
sickly shrubs grew a scanty supply of garlic, tomatoes, and eschalots;
while, lone and solitary, like a forgotten sentinel, a tall pine raised
its melancholy head in one of the corners of this unattractive spot, and
displayed its flexible stem and fan-shaped summit dried and cracked by
the fierce heat of the sub-tropical sun.