lect,
with houses as various in their structure as in their materials, with
dresses equally dissimilar in point of color, substance, and style, with
carriages which seem never to have known the spirit of improvement, and
with a general listlessness of manner, the result of indolence, apathy,
and want of occupation. With all this, however, the novelty which
attends the entrance of the harbor at Dieppe, is not only striking, but
interesting. It is not thus at Calais, where half the individuals you
meet in the streets are of your own country; where English fashions and
manufactures are commonly adopted; and where you hear your native
tongue, not only in the hotels, but even the very beggars follow you
with, "I say, give me un sou, s'il vous please." But this is not the
only advantage which the road by Dieppe from London to Paris possesses,
over that by Calais. There is a saving of distance, amounting to twenty
miles on the English, and sixty on the French side of the water; the
expence is still farther decreased by the yet lower rate of charges at
the inns; and, while the ride to the French metropolis by the one route
is through a most uninteresting country, with no other objects of
curiosity than Amiens, Beauvais, and Abbeville; by the other it passes
through a province unrivalled for its fertility and for the beauty of
its landscape, and which is allowed by the French themselves to be the
garden of the kingdom. Rouen, Vernon, Mantes, and St. Germain, names all
more or less connected with English history, successively present
themselves to the traveller; and, during the greater part of his
journey, his path lies by the side of a noble stream, diversified beyond
almost every other by the windings of its channel, and the islands which
stud its surface. The only evil to counterbalance the claims of Dieppe
is, that the packets do not sail daily, although they profess and
actually advertise to that effect; but wait till what they consider a
sufficient freight of passengers is assembled, so that, either at Dieppe
or Brighton, a person runs the risk of being detained, as has more than
once happened to myself, a circumstance that never occurs at Dover.
There is still a third point of passage upon our southern coast, and one
that has of late been considerably frequented, from Southampton to
Havre; but this I never tried, and do not know what it has to recommend
it, except to those who are proceeding to Caen or to the western parts