Peter Port.

[110] Really good wines were proportionally cheap; but the little isle
was not quite so good at beer, except some remarkable old ale, which one
small brewery had ventured on, and which my friends of the 22nd Regiment
discovered and (very wisely) drank up.--It may surprise honest fanatics
and annoy others to hear that, despite the cheapness and abundance of
their bugbear, there was no serious crime of any kind in Guernsey during
the six years I knew it, and no disorder worth speaking of, even among
sailors and newly arrived troops.

[111] The shape of the island; the position of its only "residential"
town of any size in the middle of one of the coasts, so that the roads
spread fan-wise from it; the absence of any large flat space except in
the northern parish of "The Vale"; the geological formation which tends,
as in Devonshire, to sink the roads into deep and sometimes "water"
lanes; lastly, perhaps, the extreme subdivision of property, which
multiplies the ways of communication--these things contribute to this
"_pedestrian_-paradise" character. There are many places where, with
plenty of good walking "objectives," you can get to none of them without
a disgusting repetition of the same initial grind. In Guernsey, except
as regards the sea, which never wearies, there is no such even partial
monotony.

[112] It is well known that even among great writers this habit of
duplication is often, though very far from always, present. Hugo is
specially liable to it. The oddest example I remember is that the
approach to the Dutch ship at the end of _L'Homme Qui Rit_ reproduces on
the Thames almost exactly the details of the iron gate of the sewers on
the Seine, where Thenardier treacherously exposes Valjean to the
clutches of Javert, in _Les Miserables_, though of course the use made
of it is quite different.

[113] It must be remembered that this also belongs to the Channel
Islands division: and the Angel of the Sea has still some part in it.

[114] Those of _Ivanhoe_ and _Kenilworth_ have enraged pedants and
amused the elect for a century. But I do not remember much notice being
taken of that jump of half a millennium and one year more in _The
Talisman_, where Count Henry of Champagne "smiles like a sparkling
goblet of his own wine." This was in 1192, while the ever-blessed Dom
Perignon did not make champagne "sparkle" till 1693. Idolatry may
suggest that "sparkling" is a perpetual epithet of wine; but I fear