arate story or flat, it is not difficult to conceive
how they contrive to find sufficient room, within a compass
apparently so narrow. Of its commerce and manufactures I can say
little, except that I should not imagine either to be extensive.
I am led to form this opinion, partly from having seen no
shipping at the wharfs, and partly because the Adour, though
here both wide and deep, is rendered unnavigable to vessels of
any size, by a shallow or bar at its mouth. There was, indeed,
a sloop of war close to the town, but how it got there I am at a
loss to conceive, unless it were built upon the river, and kept
as an additional protection against a surprise from the water.
The shops are, however, good, particularly those where jewellery
is sold; an article in the setting and adorning of which the
French, if they do not excel us in really substantial value,
undoubtedly surpass us in elegance.

When I had taken as complete a survey of the town as I felt
disposed to take, I crossed the bridge with the intention of
inspecting the interior of the citadel. Here, however, I was
disappointed, no strangers being admitted within its gates; but
as there was no objection made to my reconnoitring it from
without, I proceeded towards the point where our trenches had
been dug, and where it had been designed to breach and storm the
place. To this I was urged by two motives, partly from the desire
of obtaining the best view possible of the fort, and partly that
I might examine the ground upon which the desperate affair
of the 14th of April took place. The reader cannot have
forgotten, that some hours before daylight on the morning of
that day, a vigorous and well-arranged sortie was made by the
garrison, and that it was not without hard fighting and a severe
loss on both sides that the attack was finally repulsed.

Mounting the heights, I soon arrived at St. Etienne, a little
village nearly on a level with the citadel, and not more than a
quarter of a mile from its walls. From this point I could
satisfy my curiosity to the full, and as the account may not,
perhaps, be uninteresting, I shall describe, as well as I am
able, the scene which here met my eyes.

St. Etienne

The ridge of little hills upon which the fort and village are
built, though it rises by gentle gradation from the sea, towards
the spot where I now stood, is nevertheless intersected and
broken here and there by deep glens or ravines. Two of these
glens, one