1936 On the Continent

gangsters wherever you go, any more than you really expect to meet them when you visit Liverpool or the port of London.
    Funnily enough, from the gangster point of view, there is a great deal of likeness between the port of Marseilles and the port of London. Both London and Marseilles are important ports for trade with the East, and they have both picked up a lot of local colour from that fact as well as plenty of undesirable people whose job it is to see that both East and West, they don’t mind which, are well supplied with narcotics. In both places you would be well advised not to wander about the dock districts at night, looking as though your pocket-book were bursting with fivers!
    As a matter of fact, quite apart from gangsters, Marseilles is one of the most fascinating cities in France. It is the second biggest, with something like a million inhabitants, and is perhaps one of the most cosmopolitan spots in the world. When I say “Cosmopolitan,” I am no longer talking about “cosmopolitan society,” in the sense I used it when describing Nice or Cannes, but about a real mixture of men of all races and nationalities, bargaining, arguing, chattering, gesticulating, and sweating away atthe innumerable jobs of work connected with the trade of the world. The port is particularly interesting from this point of view, and perhaps the sun and blue sky and the bubbling temperament of the Marseilles people themselves adds some peculiar flavour to the port of Marseilles which is shared by hardly any other port in the world.
A Joke Factory
    The people of Marseilles are notorious throughout France for being incorrigible chatterboxes with a real genius for doing nothing busily and doing it gracefully. They are essentially southern and Latin. Constant contact with foreigners—not foreign tourists but the real traveller who spends his life selling and buying in obscure corners of the world—has given them a real taste for adventure. This taste for adventure sometimes takes the form of action, and when it does no one can beat a man from Marseilles for boldness and quick decision, but it usually breaks out in their imagination only and colours their whole mentality and talk with something fantastic and exotic.
    I suppose that is the real psychological origin of those wonderful “histoires marseillaises” which keep the whole of France going in side-shaking laughter from one end of the year to the other. They usually turn round the fantastic adventures of Marius and his wife or partner Olive, and naturally enough a good 50 per cent. of them are only just fit for the smoking-room. They remind me sometimes of the stories told in Ireland, which are so utterly different from the English “jokes.” In England, the snappier the joke the better; the Englishman wants to get the “point,” as he calls it. The Irish and the
Marseillais
see things quite differently; for them, the story is just a background for the embroidery, and each time you hear one of their stories you will find some new detail added, some excruciatingly funny incident, which has only the vaguest connection with the real “point.”
    As you will see, I am quite purposely
not
telling you where to go in Marseilles and what to see. It isn’t that kind of town. There are things to see, but you have only to ask your hotel porter and he will give you all the information you want. No! For me, Marseilles is essentially a town to wander in and get lost in and to discover for yourself. Ifyou have any feeling for towns and people at all, you will spend some of the most exciting days and hours of your life strolling through the streets or by the Old Port (why not the new port for that matter?) or dropping in to small bars and striking up conversations with the first person whose face appeals to you.
Food in Marseilles
    There is just one piece of information I must give you—concerning that most important question of food! Marseilles, and particularly the restaurants of the Old Port and of the Cannebière in the heart of Marseilles, is famous for its Bouillabaisse, and don’t forget it. If you have never had it in your life, have it in Marseilles first. If you have already had it elsewhere, have it again in Marseilles: it will taste quite different.
AVIGNON—ORANGE—CHÂTEAU-NEUF-DU-PAPE
    Going from Marseilles, the most natural place in Provence to stop at first is Avignon. I won’t for a moment disguise the fact that I am entering here on ground which is sacred