he 31st of
December.

"I had two hours to wait before going aboard the boat for Re. So I made
a tour of the town. It is certainly a queer city, La Rochelle, with
strong characteristics of its own streets tangled like a labyrinth,
sidewalks running under endless arcaded galleries like those of the Rue
de Rivoli, but low, mysterious, built as if to form a suitable setting
for conspirators and making a striking background for those old-time
wars, the savage heroic wars of religion. It is indeed the typical old
Huguenot city, conservative, discreet, with no fine art to show, with
no wonderful monuments, such as make Rouen; but it is remarkable for its
severe, somewhat sullen look; it is a city of obstinate fighters, a city
where fanaticism might well blossom, where the faith of the Calvinists
became enthusiastic and which gave birth to the plot of the 'Four
Sergeants.'

"After I had wandered for some time about these curious streets, I went
aboard the black, rotund little steamboat which was to take me to the
island of Re. It was called the Jean Guiton. It started with angry
puffings, passed between the two old towers which guard the harbor,
crossed the roadstead and issued from the mole built by Richelieu, the
great stones of which can be seen at the water's edge, enclosing the
town like a great necklace. Then the steamboat turned to the right.

"It was one of those sad days which give one the blues, tighten the
heart and take away all strength and energy and force-a gray, cold day,
with a heavy mist which was as wet as rain, as cold as frost, as bad to
breathe as the steam of a wash-tub.

"Under this low sky of dismal fog the shallow, yellow, sandy sea of all
practically level beaches lay without a wrinkle, without a movement,
without life, a sea of turbid water, of greasy water, of stagnant water.
The Jean Guiton passed over it, rolling a little from habit, dividing
the smooth, dark blue water and leaving behind a few waves, a little
splashing, a slight swell, which soon calmed down.

"I began to talk to the captain, a little man with small feet, as round
as his boat and rolling in the same manner. I wanted some details of
the disaster on which I was to draw up a report. A great square-rigged
three-master, the Marie Joseph, of Saint-Nazaire, had gone ashore one
night in a hurricane on the sands of the island of Re.

"The owner wrote us that the storm had thrown the ship so far ashore
that it was impossible to floa