The age-herald., 1898-01-21
IN MONTE CR|STO'S HOME Places in MarsaiIIes Made Fa-
 nous by Dumas IN THE HISTORICAL NOVEL Are Today Almost Exactly as Described by the Great NoyeIlst-A Visit to Edmund
 Dante's Dungeon.
From the New York Times.

things in following Dumas footsteps about Marseilles as he makes them known in ''The Count of Monte Cristo,' is the finding that the old city is precisely the same now as he described 1t at the opening of the story, on the 24th of February, 1S15 Of course it has grown since then, but the growth has been outward toward the sur rounding hills. There has been no break water in those days, but its coming has not changed the surroundings of the Old Port in the least. Here are Catalans, the Can. nebiere, the Alice Meilhan, and the Chau- teau d'If, just as he describes them. The buildings of the Cannebiere and the Alice Meihan may be newer and larger, but they are in the same general style. The only change is the taking away of a big chain that formerly guarded the narrow entrance to the harbor. "At shout from the boat the chain that closes the mouth of the port was lowered and in a second they were outside the harbor.'' There is no such chain there now, but old residents tell me that such was once the custom.
 To step ashore with Edmund Dantes, the embryo Count of Monte Cristo, as he- stepped ashore on that February day in 1915, is to see the central part of the city as it is today. His vessel, the Pharaoh,
  If you go down and stand by the mouth of the harbor you will see vessels coming in from smyrna, Trieste and Naples this morning; it is still daily occurrence. The port outlooks signaled that she was com ing. They were on the summit of the high hill of Notre Dame, where the signal poles still are-the same poles, very likely 'Tehy are still there, those idlers. Perhaps not the idlers congregated on the waterside to see her come into her moorings place."
 
 rank and unwashed a crew of Turks Cor sicans, Italians, Spaniards, Creeks as ever went at the sight of a cake of soap The region of the Old Port is one of the great est and most unsavory loaferies in South ern Europe. It is in the Chateau diff Dantes was imprisoned for fourteen years of course, that the chief local interest in the story centers. Here it stands today on it's rocky island in the harbor, not only as it stood in the days of Monte Cristo, but as it had stood for centuries before that. It is impossible, after seeing it, to imagine that anything about 1t has been changed
 The castle stands about two miles from shore on calcareous rock which, after cropping out of the water and forming the Isle diff, crosses the harbor under water and appears on shore in the great hill that is crowned by the church of Notre Dame de la Garde. Small historical steamboats make frequent trips from the old port to the castle, particularly on Sundays and fete days; but it is useless to try to go when the mistral is blowing or the sea is at all rough. The only wharf of the island is natural one of rock, and in rough weather the little boats would be dashed to pieces if they tried to make landing.
 Castle diff was built in 1524 for a state prison, and has held many distinguished prisoners; but it's chief claim to immor- tality lies in the prisoner who never was there, the Count of Monte Crsto The fame that neither Louis Philippe nor the Man in the Iron Mask could give it. Dumas gave it with his pen. And if it was as hard for prisoners to get out of as it is for visitors to get into, it must have been the safest prison in the world. There are no Instructions in the way of red tape; no permits to be obtained or passports shown; the Instructions are worse than that in the shape of slippery rocks to traverse i'm possible stone stairs to climb, fields of broken stone to cross. In four centuries no commandant of the place has had sufficient energy to make a safe path to the landing place.
 A Slippery Route to the Cell.
 As the boat approaches the rock tl>e water Is seen to be as transparent as the crystal water of the Caribbean sea- Every rock on the bottom, every cluster of ma rine growth, every rusty tin can, is dis tinctly visible. It is twenty or thirty feet deep at the landing place, but so clear it seems as if you might reach down and pick
 
 put out plank and you step upon the slippery rocks and after picking yourself up once or twice, and enjoying the anger of the other fellows, who are doing it too, you make your way cautiously to the foot of a set of crude stone steps, and go slowly up with rock on one side and on the other heavy stone wall pierced with slanting siits for musket firing till you come to a gate, which stands open. Passing through the heavy gateway, you climb a long series nf cfA hot rx.zk stairs. so that you can step from one to the other, but separated by steep inclines of slippery rock or plaster, each incline five or six feet wide-so that after ascend ing one step you crawl up an incline like a steep and slippery roof before you come to the next step. At the top of this is another solid gate, also standing open; and once within this second gate you are fairly in the precincts of the castle Then 1t is only necessary to climb over few rocks and cross hundred yards of sharp boul- ders before you reach the last three or four steps, which carry you to the drawbridge.
 The moat is deep and broad, but there is nothing to show that it ever contained water. It could not well have, cut in the rock fifty feet above the sea- without the bridge you soon reach the great door, which stands open like the rest, and pass through little tunnel into the stone-paved court yard of the castle. This court is, pernapS, nIty rect square, With big we'll curb in the middle; and when you look over the edge of the curb you see that it leads to an immense tank, capable of hold ing enough water for a garrison. This is the ground floor of the castle. On every side are solid wooden doors well studded with iron, and every door leads to dun geon. Not a subterranean dungeon, of the kind that imagination usually pictures to us, with snails and lizards crawling through the slime. These dungeons are IL. -G@ is as dry as a chip. The rock is the floor, and they would be simply good large cells if they had some light. But the outer ones have only little slit in the wall about four inches by twenty, and the inner ones have no opening at all but the door,
 In Monte Cristo's Dungeon, Many of the dungeon doors are labeled | with the names of prisoners who have lived | within; and you enter by the big portal | al, t1lrr shnr La laf