entered the vale of the Cailly. This is one of the sweetest scenes in
France. It lies among the woody hills like a Paradise, with its velvet
meadows and villas and breathing gardens. The grass was starred with
daisies and if I took a step into the oak and chesnut woods, I trampled
on thousands of anemones and fragrant daffodils. The upland plain,
stretching inward from the coast, wears a different character. As I
ascended, towards evening, and walked over its monotonous swells, I felt
almost homesick beneath its saddening influence. The sun, hazed over
with dull clouds, gave out that cold and lifeless light which is more
lonely than complete darkness. The wind, sweeping dismally over the
fields, sent clouds of blinding dust down the road, and as it passed
through the forests, the myriads of fine twigs sent up a sound as deep
and grand as the roar of a roused ocean. Every chink of the Norman
cottage where I slept, whistled most drearily, and as I looked out the
little window of my room, the trees were swaying in the gloom, and long,
black clouds scudded across the sky. Though my bed was poor and hard, it
was a sublime sound that cradled me into slumber. Homer might have used
it as the lullaby of Jove.

My last day on the continent came. I rose early and walked over the
hills towards Dieppe. The scenery grew more bleak as I approached the
sea, but the low and sheltered valleys preserved the pastoral look of
the interior. In the afternoon, as I climbed a long, elevated ridge,
over which a strong northwester was blowing, I was struck with a
beautiful rustic church, in one of the dells below me. While admiring
its neat tower I had gained unconsciously the summit of the hill, and on
turning suddenly around, lo! there was the glorious old Atlantic
stretching far before and around me! A shower was sweeping mistily along
the horizon and I could trace the white line of the breakers that foamed
at the foot of the cliffs. The scene came over me like a vivid electric
shock, and I gave an involuntary shout, which might have been heard in
all the valleys around. After a year and a half of wandering over the
continent, that gray ocean was something to be revered and loved, for it
clasped the shores of my native America.

I entered Dieppe in a heavy shower, and after finding an inn suited to
my means and obtaining a _permis d'embarquement_ from the police office,
I went out to the battlements and looked again on the sea. The landlord
p