Her Majesty's Minister by William le Queux

Bordighera, that charming, well-sheltered little town which, lying well back in its picturesque bay on the Italian Riviera, has during the past year or so come quickly into fashionable prominence, is at its best towards the end of February. It is not by any means a large place. The quaint old town is perched upon a conical hill with queer ladder-like streets, so narrow that no vehicles can pass up them. There are strong stone arches to support the houses against possible earthquakes. The streets are dark, sometimes mere tunnels, as is so frequent in those neighbouring rock villages, Sasso, Dolceacqua, Apricale, and the rest, the reason being that they were built in the days when the Moorish pirates made constant raids along that coast, and the houses were clustered together for mutual protection against those dreaded raiders.

But below the ancient town, Bordighera has spread along the seashore and into the olive-woods. In February, when in England all is bare and cheerless, the gardens of the handsome hotels and the big white villas on the hillsides are ablaze with flowers, the air is heavy with the perfume of the heliotrope, growing in great bushes, and the sweet scent of the carnations, grown in fields for Covent Garden and the flower-market outside the Madeleine.