houles courtes, brusques, furieuses. L'Ocean est a son aise,
il tourne autour du monde; la Mediterranee est dans un vase et
le vent la secoue, c'est ce qui lui donne cette vague haletante,
breve et trapue. Le flot se ramasse et lutte. Il a autant de
colere que la flot de l'Ocean et moins d'espace."

Also, barring the sardine and anchovy, I must confess that the fish
of the Mediterranean are what, in the Duchy, we should call
'poor trade.' I don't wish to disparage the Bouillabaisse, which is
a dish for heroes, and deserves all the heroic praises sung of it:--

"This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is--
A sort of soup, or broth, or brew,
Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes,
That Greenwich never could outdo;
Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron,
Soles, onions, garlic, roach and dace:
All these you eat at Terre's tavern,
In that one dish of Bouillabaisse."

To be precise, you take a langouste, three rascas (an edible but
second-rate fish), a slice of conger, a fine 'chapon,' or red rascas,
and one or two 'poissons blancs' (our grey mullet, I take it, would
be an equivalent). You take a cooking-pot and put your langouste in
it, together with four spoonfuls of olive-oil, an onion and a couple
of tomatoes, and boil away until he turns red. You then take off the
pot and add your fish, green herbs, four cloves of garlic, and a
pinch of saffron, with salt and red pepper. Pour in water to cover
the surface of the fish, and cook for twenty minutes over a fast
fire. Then take a soup-plate, lay some slices of bread in it, and
pour the bouillon over the bread. Serve the fish separately.
Possibly you incline to add, in the immortal words of the late Mr.
Lear, "Serve up in a clean dish, and throw the whole out of window as
fast as possible." You would make a great mistake. The marvel to me
is that no missionary has acclimatised this wonderful dish upon our
coasts, where we have far better fish for compounding it--red mullet,
for instance, in place of the rascas; and whiting, or even pollack or
grey mullet, in place of the 'poissons blancs.' For the langouste, a
baby lobster might serve; and the saffron flavour would be no severe
trial to us in the Duchy, who are brought up (so to say) upon saffron
cake. As for Thackeray's 'dace,' I disbelieve in it. No one would
add a dace (which for table purposes has been likened to an old
stocking full of mu