r persons in a packet designed only for twelve, and after having
experienced every variety that could he afforded by a dead calm, a
contrary wind, a brisk gale in our favor, and, finally, by being obliged
to lie three hours in a heavy swell off this port, we at last received
on board our French pilot, and saw hoisted on the pier the white flag,
the signal of ten feet water in the harbor. The general appearance of
the coast, near Dieppe, is similar to that which we left at Brighton;
but the height of the cliffs, if I am not mistaken, is greater. They
vary along the shores of Upper Normandy from one hundred and fifty to
seven hundred feet, or even more; the highest lying nearly mid-way
between this town and Havre, in the vicinity of Fecamp; and they present
an unbroken barrier, of a dazzling white[1], except when they dip into
some creek or cove, or open to afford a passage to some river or
streamlet. Into one of these, a boat from the opposite shores of Sussex
shot past us this afternoon, with the rapidity of lightning. She was a
smuggler, and, in spite of the army of Douaniers employed in France,
ventured to make the land in the broad face of day, carrying most
probably a cargo, composed principally of manufactured goods in cotton
and steel. The crew of our vessel, no bad authority in such cases,
assured us, that lace is also sent in considerable quantities as a
contraband article into France; though, as is well known, much of it
likewise comes in the same quality into England, and there are perhaps
few of our travellers, who return entirely without it. On the same
authority, I am enabled to state, what much surprised me, that the
smuggled goods exported from Sussex into Normandy exceed by nearly an
hundred fold those received in return.

The first approach to Dieppe is extremely striking. To embark in the
evening at Brighton, sleep soundly in the packet, and find yourself, as
is commonly the case, early the next morning under the piers of this
town, is a transition, which, to a person unused to foreign countries,
can scarcely fail to appear otherwise than as a dream; so marked and so
entire is the difference between the air of elegance and mutual
resemblance in the buildings, of smartness approaching to splendor in
the equipages, of fashion in the costume, of the activity of commerce in
the movements, and of newness and neatness in every part of the one,
contrasted in the other with a strong character of poverty and neg